Royal Commission : Cardinal George Pell "Never Anticipated" Number of Complaints Made to Catholic Church
By Freya Michie
Cardinal George Pell says he was surprised by the number of complaints made in the lead-up to the introduction of the Melbourne Response to abuse within the Catholic Church. Cardinal Pell has appeared at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne via video-link from the Vatican. The inquiry has been examining the Catholic Church's Melbourne Response, which Cardinal Pell established when he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. Under the scheme, independent commissioners were appointed to investigate claims, a free counselling and support service known as Carelink was created, as well as a panel to provide ex-gratia compensation payments. Once victims went to police they were no longer eligible for compensation. "We never anticipated the volume of responses that would go on for years," Cardinal Pell said. "I was aware there were dozens of complaints." Cardinal Pell said he was aware of reports in newspapers that were "brought home to me very clearly". "There was evidence something needed to be done to deal with this suffering," he said. The commission has been considering a series of "systemic issues" including the independence of the compensation scheme, the criteria for determining compensation amounts and the independence of the process. He also addressed what he called the "cure" offered by the Melbourne Response. "The cure, it was hoped, would primarily come from counselling services, but there would be a contribution to the cure, of course, from the acknowledgment of the crimes and also through the financial contribution made to victims," he said. Pell compares church to trucking company Cardinal Pell said it would not be appropriate for legal culpability to be "foisted" on church leaders. He then cited a hypothetical example of a case involving a woman who was molested by a truck driver. "It would not be appropriate, because it's contrary to the policy, for the ownership, leadership of that company to be held responsible," Cardinal Pell said. "Similarly with the church and the head of any other organisation. "If every precaution has been taken, no warning has been given, it is, I think, not appropriate for legal culpability to be foisted on the authority figure. "If in fact the authority figure has been remiss through bad preparation, bad procedures or been warned and done nothing or insufficient, then certainly the church official would be responsible," the cardinal said. A lawyer representing Paul Hersbach, a victim of sexual abuse, put it to Cardinal Pell that the church was not a trucking company but an organisation of the highest integrity. Cardinal Pell said unfortunately some members of the church have not always acted with the highest integrity. "Certainly we should act according to the teachings of Jesus Christ and that was exactly what I was trying to do when I set up the Melbourne Response," Cardinal Pell said. "There is a long history of sin and crime within the church and one of the functions of the leadership of the church is to control and eradicate this. "We strove to meet our moral obligations by instituting the first comprehensive scheme here in Australia." There was applause in the hearing when Cardinal Pell was asked if the church was standing in the way of full and fair compensation for victims of sexual abuse by priests. "It is a reasonable suggestion that there is full and fair compensation related of course to the gravity of the offence and the suffering of the victim," he said. Some victims would've received 'nothing' through court: Pell Cardinal Pell said he was "not really comfortable" with the plan to introduce a $50,000 per person compensation cap when developing the Melbourne Response. "I acknowledge there to be some standards, if that's the word, for comparable levels of offences and comparable levels of suffering," he said. "Money was never my primary concern. My primary concern was to help the victims. "I was quite clear that we provide what was appropriate." He said the $50,000 cap in 1996 would be equivalent to about $120,000 today. When asked if the current cap of $75,000 therefore was "going backwards", Cardinal Pell said "going from $50,000 to $75,000 is going forward". "Many of the people we helped through the compensation panel would have received nothing or very little if they had gone through the courts," he said. "We did not admit there was a legal obligation ... We fully accepted moral responsibility towards those who had suffered." When asked to clarify his remarks, he said by "moral responsibility" he meant he had accepted "those acts had been committed by officials of the church". The inquiry continues on Friday.
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