Australian cardinal testified on a case inquiry regarding sex abuse on children on Ballarat and Melbourne diocese. The Vatican treasurer admitted that the Catholic Church committed "enormous mistakes" on letting a number of children sexually abused on the hands of priests for over centuries. George Pell, the
Cardinal George Pell, testified through videolink from a Rome hotel to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sex Abuse in Sydney headquarters, according to News.com.au. The said Australian cardinal is summoned to provide evidence regarding the case of pedophile priests in Ballarat and Melbourne diocese, during his time there.
Pell served at the said before he rose into becoming an archbishop of Sydney and Melbourne and moved to the Vatican. The most senior Catholic in Australia was asked if he was aware of the pedophiles on the church during his time priesthood in 1970s and 1980s, BBC News reported.
Cardinal Pell said, "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 denied he was knows the misconduct in the Ballarat diocese.
He also admitted that the way Mulkearns handled the case of the known pedophile priest, Gerald Ridscale was a "catastrophe for the church", Big Story reported. In 2015, one of Gerald Ridsdale's victims, his nephew David, claimed at the Royal Commission that Pell had attempted to bribe him, asking "what it takes to keep quiet" after he reported his uncle.
Another man gave evidence that he overhead Pell saying Gerald had been "rooting boys again". Pell has strenuously denied making these comments on several occasions. Ridsdale committed more than 130 offences against young boys while working as a chaplain at Ballarat's St Alipius school between the 1960s and the 1980s.
Abuse survivors have flown to Rome to face the cardinal, who was excused from returning to Sydney due to health issues.
