Pell refuses to ‘defend the indefensible’

One of the most senior figures in the Vatican was this week subjected to days of cross- examination over what he knew about clerical sexual abuse in his home diocese almost 40 years ago.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Holy See’s Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, admitted that the Church had made “enormous mistakes” and that there had been a “predisposition not to believe” children who made complaints.

He made the remarks while giving evidence to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from the Albergo Quirinale in Rome.

Due to a heart condition, the cardinal was deemed too ill to travel to Sydney to give evidence in person. As a result, a special room in the hotel was set up for the evidence to be heard, which was witnessed by journalists and abuse victims. The cardinal was cross-examined by the inquiry in sessions starting at 10 p.m. and finishing at 2 a.m. Rome time.

Cardinal Pell, a former Archbishop of Sydney and Melbourne, was being questioned over abuse in Ballarat, his home diocese, in the 1970s and 1980s where he was an episcopal vicar for education and a member of the bishop’s college of consulters.

On Monday he said: “I’m not here to defend the indefensible, the Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the Church has in many places, certainly in Australia, mucked things up, has let people down.”

He also admitted that there had been an instinct to “protect the institution, the community of the Church, from shame”.

The following day, however, the cardinal seemed more confident. On Monday morning he had a routine meeting with Pope Francis and that night he said: “I have the full backing of the Pope.”

Under intense cross-examination on Tuesday, the cardinal was asked about the case of former priest Gerard Ridsdale, convicted of abusing 54 children, who was moved from parish to parish as soon as complaints surfaced.

The commission heard that Pell took part in a 1982 consulters’ meeting with then bishop Ronald Mulkearns, when it was agreed to move Ridsdale to another parish. But the cardinal stressed abuse allegations were not discussed and laid the blame squarely at the door of Bishop Mulkearns, now dead, whom the cardinal said had lied to him.

Gail Furness, counsel assisting the inquiry, suggested Cardinal Pell’s lack of knowledge of Ridsdale’s behaviour was “implausible”, leading commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan to say: “If we were to come to the view that you did know, you would be culpable too.”

The cardinal’s evidence was listened to by a group of victims, among them the nephew of Ridsdale, who criticised his testimony on Tuesday as “perfor- mance”. They were angered by the cardinal’s remark on Tuesday about Ridsdale when he said: “It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me.” The cardinal’s evidence was due to continue on Wednesday and Thursday.

* There was “a kind of collective responsibility” of Catholics to bring healing after decades of child sex abuse by Church personnel, according to Archbishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra and Goulburn, writing in the archdiocese’s paper Catholic Voice.