Source: The Guardian
Cardinal George Pell, a top adviser to Pope Francis, has vowed to help survivors of sexual abuse in his native Ballarat in Australia after meeting a dozen abuse survivors for more than two hours, which he described as “hard” and “emotional”.
It came after four nights of intense questioning via video link by a royal commission in Australia that revealed he had never pursued rumours of clerical abuse by priests.
In his controversial testimony, Pell never wavered from his claim that he was kept in the dark about the abuse committed by one of the worst paedophile priests in recorded history, Gerald Ridsdale, even though other senior officials were aware of it. Some of his statements were deemed “completely implausible” by Gail Furness, the counsel who questioned him.
While the cardinal’s testimony was largely dismissed as “dishonest” by the group of survivors from Australia who travelled almost 10,000 miles to Rome to hear him testify, at least one said he believed Pell would help abuse survivors going forward, particularly in areas that required the church’s financial support. The commission is studying institutional responses to child abuse and the Catholic church has been the subject of an intense investigation.
Pell, who is considered one of the Vatican’s top officials and has oversight of the church’s finances, said after meeting the survivors: “I heard each of their stories and their suffering. It was a hard and honest and occasionally emotional meeting.
“We all want to try to make things better, actually and on the ground,” Pell said in a statement that he read in front of journalists waiting for him at the Hotel Quirinale in Rome.
He also said he would work with a special Vatican commission to protect minors that was created by Francis in 2014. In Pell’s testimony, he seemed to have only passing knowledge of the committee’s work.
Last year, Pell had a tussle with an abuse survivor, Peter Saunders, who was previously an active member of the committee before Saunders accused Pell of being “almost sociopathic” in his approach to victims. Saunders was, in effect, removed from the committee after criticising it for not doing enough to intervene in ongoing cases, which the committee argued was not in its purview.
While Pell warned that he “shouldn’t promise what might be impossible”, he said he wanted it to be known that he supported the potential creation of a research centre in Ballarat that would “enhance healing and improve protection”.
After four days of intense questioning that revealed Pell did not necessarily consider the protection of children his responsibility – nor an issue he was particularly interested in – the emotional weight of the moment was captured by Anthony Foster, the father of two victims of abuse.
Standing before journalists on Thursday, Foster – who did not meet Pell – held up an old photograph of his two daughters, Emma and Kate, dressed in identical blue check dresses with white collars, aged about five and six when the photograph was taken.
Foster said: “These are my girls, it is what it is all about. A Catholic priest was raping them when this photo was taken. That’s why we’ve been fighting for so long.”
Then he held up another photo of his entire family. “This was my perfect family. And the church destroyed it,” he said.
One of Foster’s daughters committed suicide and another was left severely disabled after an accident. Asked what he wanted the church to do now, Foster said: “[Show] humility, doing everything they can to restore the lives of all the victims out there.”
Categories: Australia, Catholic Church, Pope Francis, The Muslim Times