ROME
news.com.au
STANDING outside the Vatican as storms clouds overhead were moments from erupting, Chrissie Foster has just six words for Cardinal George Pell as he today faces his accusers — “be a man, tell the truth”.
After a year of debate, weeks of planning and a lifetime of heartache for some, Cardinal Pell will take the stand at the royal commission into institutionalised sexual child abuse in a specially convened sitting in a hotel room in Rome.
Here he will be grilled, at the ungodly hours set at his request of 10pm to 2am local time, each night for an expected four nights on what he knew of the abuse by several priests under his watch as head of the church firstly in Melbourne then Australia.
His much-anticipated appearance before the commission today has become an international sensation with more than 60 media from across the globe registering to attend, notably from media outlets that have exposed their own sordid abuse scandals in their Catholic churches notably in Boston, Dublin, London and New York.
It could have been a nonplussed affair held in Ballarat but instead the cardinal’s inability to travel abroad due to poor health forced today’s inquiry to the Italian capital and a scene tantamount to a Roman Circus with police deployed to throw the venue into lockdown and protect attending senior church figures, security guards tasked with body and bag searches and room sweeps, and doors sealed.
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