Cardinal Testifies About Child Sex Abuse in Canberra

One of the top advisers of Pope Francis testified to the child sexual abuse royal commission from Rome. According to the adviser, the Catholic Church had done "enormous mistakes" on how it has handledsuch reports. The adviser, however, suggest that these faults were not structural.

Vatican's finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, took to the stage today to testify with his knowledge of child sex abuse by clergy in the church. As reported by The Guardian, Pell denied knowing about the abuse that involved pedophile priests in an Australian town, called Ballarat, during the 70s and 80s. Pell had stood in front of a Canberra-commissioned inquiry on Monday to testify.

Before Pell's testimony, the inquiry had heard allegations that he tried "to silence" one of the victims. The Cardinal, however, denies doing anything wrong.

FT has quoted Pell saying that "The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those but the Church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down." The Cardinal also shares that he believes these "faults overwhelmingly have been more personal faults, personal failures rather than structures."

The inquiry in Canberra is the latest in a number of international investigations into how the Catholic Church has handled sexual abuse reports. Based on its probe, they have uncovered evidence pointing to how pedophile priests were regularly moved to different parishes instead of being referred to police and defrocked.

CS Monitor reports that, Cardinal Pell gave his testimony for four hours through a video link broadcasted from Rome. This was because the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has deemed the Cardinal too ill to travel due to a heart complaint. The Cardinal's third appearance is said to last up to four days.

During his testimony, the Cardinal referred to his difficulty in remembering events. At one time, he even stated that his memory could be "playing him false." Prior to this, he had denied an allegation where he attempted "to silence" one of the victims, David Ridsdale, in 1993 after he received a report over the phone where David reported to his uncle, priest Gerald Ridsdale, was abusing him. Without alerting authorities, the priest was moved between different parishes. Later, however, he was convicted of over 130 offences against over 50 victims while he was a school chaplain.

The inquiry resumes on Tuesday.

Tags

George Pell, Vatican, Inquiry, Gerald Ridsdale

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