New Europe
Spotlight, the movie about Boston Globe’s investigation of clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church, won the Oscar 2015 award and reminded to the public the numerous worldwide child sex abuse scandals which hit the Catholic Church in the past years.
The Associated Press reported today that one of Pope Francis’ top advisers acknowledged that the Catholic Church “has made enormous mistakes” in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests over centuries as he testified at an extraordinary public hearing of an Australian investigative commission just a few blocks from the Vatican.
According to AP, the head of the Vatican Bank George Pell testified via videolink for four hours from Sunday night to early Monday morning from a Rome hotel to the Royal Commission sitting in Sydney. On 3 April 2013, the Australian authorities opened a national inquiry to investigate thousands of child sex abuse cases concerning Catholic priests in Australia.
Pell told to the lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness: “I’m not here to defend the indefensible. The church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those.” He added that the church had “mucked things up and let people down” and for too long had dismissed credible abuse allegations “in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”
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