Pope's Critics on Child Abuse Wrong: Pell

9 News
February 12, 2013

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/02/12/07/01/pell-surprised-by-pope-s-resignation

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, says there is a "continuing misconception" about what Pope Benedict XVI did to address child abuse in the Catholic church.

The 85-year-old pontiff's surprise decision to retire comes as Australia embarks on a three-year royal commission into into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

In an online interview with the communications director of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Cardinal Pell addressed the allegation by victims' groups and politicians that the Pope hadn't done enough on the issue of Church sexual abuse.

"I think it's a continuing misconception for a number of reasons," he said.

"First of all, the overwhelming responsibility for meeting this crisis, this abuse, rests with the local hierarchy, the local bishops and the local religious superiors.

"Secondly, in his time he shifted the responsibility from the congregation where it wasn't being done well to the congregation of the doctorate of the faith.

"He expedited the processes so priests can be laicised (dismissed from the priesthood).

"When he came here (to Australia), that dimension of his trip, his pilgrimage was a great success.

"He said publicly that he was sorry and I was there present when he met there with the victims."

Asked why he thought people forgot what the Pope had done, Cardinal Pell said, "Sometimes people have an agenda and sometimes they're determined to run that agenda."

Helen Last, director of the victims support group In Good Faith, said Pope Benedict had used the church's canon laws and internal processes when complaints should have been dealt with by police.

She said clerical and religious offenders still held positions of power in the church, which had not been cooperating with criminal authorities.

Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, a staunch Catholic who was also the government's spokeswoman for the Pope's visit to Sydney for World Youth Day in 2008, said she suspected the Pope had found papacy in the modern era "a challenge", including the sex abuse crisis engulfing the church.

"I hope the next Pope shows leadership in the face of the sexual abuse scandal, starts a period of renewal, builds the church so it is truly inclusive, honestly confronts crises and is transparent," Ms Keneally said.