AUSTRALIA
Newsweekly (blog)
May 13, 2020
by Peter Westmore
Listen here to Peter Westmore in conversation with Australian Family Association national president Terri M. Kelleher on the release of the previously redacted parts of Cardinal George Pell’s answers to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Findings by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that Cardinal George Pell covered up allegations of child abuse in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are totally unsupported by the evidence, and constitute an abuse of power by the Commission. They could more accurately be described as accusations.
Nevertheless, the ABC and other sections of the media that for years have been running a vendetta against Cardinal Pell and were clearly unhappy that his conviction for child sex abuse had been overturned in a unanimous judgement of the High Court of Australia, reported the sensational claims at great length.
In doing so, they further trashed the reputation of the first Australian church leader seriously to deal with the problem of child sexual abuse, and the first to set up a redress scheme for victims over 20 years before the Royal Commission recommended such a body.
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