AUSTRALIA
SBS
AAP
There is huge international interest in what Cardinal George Pell has to say about the sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Ballarat region of Victoria when he gives evidence from a conference room at the elegant Hotel Quirinale in Rome.
By virtue of his position – head of the Secretariat of the Economy – Dr Pell is the third most powerful member of the Catholic Church bureaucracy.
This, combined with his request to give evidence by video-link, by itself would have been enough to swing the spotlight towards the Vatican.
However, international media interest has been further boosted by news an Australian crowd funding effort raised the money for abuse survivors to go to Rome to be in the room when the cardinal appears on Monday.
Hope are high the painstaking approach to questioning taken by the child sexual abuse royal commission will get beyond rhetoric and shed light on how the Vatican hierarchy handles abuse by Catholic clergy.
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