Cardinal Pell to give evidence at Australian child abuse inquiry

Pell has blamed a former culture of silence in the Church for the cover-up of child abuse by clergy, making it hard to know the full extent of crimes.

Pell, 74, who said he was unable to travel to his native Australia because of heart problems, will answer questions from a Rome hotel put via video link by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.

Cardinal Pell said he heard when Dowlan left the school but had no recollection of where he went.

He is giving evidence from Rome via video link to an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse.

Pell has been accused of ignoring warnings about an abusive teacher, attempting to bribe a victim of one of Australia’s most notorious pedophiles to stay silent and being part of a committee that shuffled the pedophile between parishes.

While strictly speaking an Australian affair concerning events decades ago, the hearing has taken on wider implications about accountability of Church leaders because of Pell’s high position in the Vatican, where he serves as finance minister.

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible”, Pell said as the hearing began.

Cardinal Pell denied any knowledge of pedophile priests being sent for psychiatric treatment by the bishop of Ballarat when he was based in the Victorian diocese.

A group of Australian survivors of priestly sex abuse and their relatives are in Rome to witness one of the highest-ranking Vatican official, Cardinal George Pell, testify before an Australian commission investigating the depth of the abuse scandal Down Under.

Dr Pell agreed the term would certainly suggest sexual abuse.

For this third appearance, the cardinal was given dispensation to give evidence by videolink to the commission in Sydney from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome hotel after church doctors ruled he was too ill to fly.

“Let me just say this, as an initial clarification, and that is I’m not here to defend the indefensible”, he said after swearing on the Bible to tell the truth.

The church in Australia had already accepted there have been hundreds of cases of abuse by paedophile priests over more than 80 years.

“We’re here to seek the truth”. Gerald Ridsdale is in prison after being convicted of multiple abuse convictions. A national crowd funding campaign raised the money to fly about 15 victims and supporters so they could be in the same room with Australia’s most senior Catholic clergyman.

Pell was fiercely critical of Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, the former bishop of Ballarat who gave evidence last week to the committee last week.

“The support there is actually overwhelming”, Ridsdale told The Huffington Post on Friday, as he made final preparations for the trip.

On the eve of his testimony it emerged he had tied a yellow ribbon at the Lourdes grotto in the Vatican Gardens in support of Loud Fence, a movement supporting abuse victims that started in Ballarat and spread worldwide.

The church had a “predisposition not to believe” children who made complaints against priests, he said.

Anthony Foster, whose eldest daughter was repeatedly raped by priest Kevin O’Donnell and committed suicide, said it was “astounding and empowering for victims” that the commission was now sitting in judgment of Pell on a global stage.

“The Italian police are in charge of security outside and inside the hotel where the hearing is taking place and have been liaising with commission staff”, the statement said.