AUSTRALIA
The Australian
John Ferguson, Victorian political editor
From:The Australian
August 25, 2012
THE nation’s most powerful Catholic, Sydney archbishop George Pell, is embroiled in a damaging controversy over the handling of church-related child sex assaults in Victoria, with demands that he appear before a new inquiry to explain what he knew and when about some of the worst abuses committed anywhere in the world.
Under the powers afforded the state parliamentary inquiry, Cardinal Pell and other senior members of the church can be compelled to appear before the committee as it is set to investigate the systematic abuse of probably hundreds of children in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat, where Cardinal Pell began his career.
The Weekend Australian can reveal that the inquiry is poised to undertake regional sittings, with victims from Ballarat preparing submissions and inquiry members describing as inevitable that the committee will sit in the regional city, 110km west of Melbourne.
A senior state Labor MP, Ann Barker, who has studied the church’s Irish response, told The Weekend Australian that Cardinal Pell should appear before the inquiry in his role overseeing the church’s initial response to Catholic abuse in Melbourne but that incumbent Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart also should give evidence.
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