Pell’s successor vows to improve Church’s record on abuse

By Abigail Frymann Rouch
Tablet (UK)
September 19, 2014

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/1160/0/pell-s-successor-vows-to-improve-church-s-record-on-abuse

A successor to Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis' group of nine cardinal-advisers, has been announced to run the archdiocese of Sydney.

The Bishop of Parramatta, Anthony Fisher, 54, takes over the reins after Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell to lead the newly created Secretariat for the Economy in Rome.

A Sydney native, Archbishop-elect Anthony has degrees in history and law and after ordination completed a PhD in bioethics at Oxford University and is Professor of Moral Theology and Bioethics at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family in Melbourne. He has also lectured at the Australian Catholic University.

Speaking of next month’s Synod for the Family in Rome, he said: “I think one of the things the Synod can – and I really hope will – do for us is help restore some confidence in the beauty of marriage. In the way it reveals to all of us very important things about the human person and human condition such as self-sacrifice, commitment and reconciliation … I think the world needs desperately to learn how to love again.”

As Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues, the archbishop-elect immediately committed the Church to "doing better" in its response to victims of sexual abuse by clergy, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"Victims of abuse and all young people must come first – no excuses, no cover-ups. The Church must do better in this area and I am committed to playing a leading role in regaining the confidence of the community and of our own members," he said.

Fisher is a Dominican and was a lead organiser for the 2008 World Youth Day in Australia, where the main events were attended by an estimated 1,000,000 people.