AUSTRALIA
Chronicle Daily
by Benjamin Gardner on 11/12/2015
The judge chairing the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse denied the request and said he wanted Pell, the Vatican’s prefect of the secretariat for the economy, to testify in person.
Cardinal Pell’s lawyer, Allan Meyers, QC, asked the commission on Friday to allow his client to testify via video link from Rome, where he is now head of the Vatican’s finances, citing ill health. The medical certificates detailing Cardinal Pell’s condition – which were partly in Italian – were suppressed.
‘Cardinal Pell deeply regrets this and has been preparing himself for this journey for some time but the circumstances in which he finds himself are the circumstances that exist now.
Justice McClennan said that while Cardinal Pell had previously given evidence from Rome, it was not appropriate this time as the issues before the commission were complex and involve two case studies covering an extensive period of time. Chronicle Daily
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