AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au
Cardinal George Pell’s sex abuse peace offer: the Catholic Church should pay for bad priests
VICTIMS of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church should be able to sue priests, or their estates if they have died, and the church should pick up the bill, Cardinal George Pell said yesterday in a major shift of attitude.
He told the royal commission he would like some legal clarification on whether that could operate retrospectively, in a move that would finally open up the church’s billions for court-ordered verdicts.
He also pledged to put up as much of the church’s wealth as was needed to fund any government-sponsored compensation scheme that may be set up in the wake of the commission, even if individual sums of $2 million were handed out.
It has been revealed in the commission this week that the Sydney Archdiocese alone controls funds of more than $1.238 billion.
The country’s highest-ranking Catholic, Cardinal Pell has consistently said he believed the church could be held legally liable by the courts for sex abuse claims — despite winning a landmark 2004 case in Sydney that ruled the church was not a legal entity and therefore could not sued.
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