PELL'S Comment Outrages Support Groups

7 News
August 22, 2014

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24780916/pells-comment-outrages-support-groups/

Cardinal Pell's comments comparing the Church with a truck company has outraged support groups.

Cardinal George Pell's comments comparing the Catholic church with a truck company have outraged support groups for victims of child sexual abuse.

The Catholic Church is no more legally responsible for priests who abuse children than a trucking company that employs a driver who molests women, Cardinal George Pell, via video from Rome, told Thursday's royal commission in Melbourne.

Adults Surviving Child Abuse president Dr Cathy Kezelman said Cardinal Pell's comments were not helpful to victims of abuse.

"His comments were outrageous," she told AAP on Friday.

He showed a lack of compassion, and "continues to duck and weave" she said.

"To have their (victims') experiences denied yet again drives a knife into the wound and twists it," she said.

Cardinal Pell accepts the church has a moral obligation to victims, but when it comes to its legal responsibility the actions of its priests are not necessarily its fault.

He told the inquiry: "If the truck driver picks up some lady and then molests her, I don't think it's appropriate, because it is contrary to the policy, for the ownership, the leadership of that company to be held responsible."

But Cardinal Pell said if the church had been warned about a priest or had bad policies or procedures in place, "then certainly the church official would be responsible".

Anthony Foster, the father of two girls raped by notorious abuser Father Kevin O'Donnell, said the comparison was clearly wrong.

"The analogy was just ludicrous," he said.

Mr Foster said it "was unbelievable to watch this prince of the Catholic church making these ridiculous statements."

"Yesterday was extremely tough for us," he told ABC Radio on Friday.

"They knew that this perpetrator had assaulted other people back in 1958, that was admitted by the church lawyer yesterday.

"All the way through, they have fought tooth and nail, telling us they knew nothing, well, yesterday the truth came out."

Mr Foster and his wife, Christine, won a $750,000 settlement from the Melbourne archdiocese after two of their daughters Emma and Kate were raped by a pedophile priest. Emma later took her own life.

Mr Foster repeated his claim that Cardinal Pell showed a "sociopathic lack of empathy" when they met to discuss the case in the 1990s.

In his statement to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Cardinal Pell said he had not tried to insult the Fosters.

"I am sorry for anything I did to upset them at this meeting," he said.