ROME
NEWS.com.au
Angus Hohenboken
From: Sunday Herald Sun
June 02, 2013
FATHER Brendan Arthur takes a swig of his beer. “It’s plush isn’t it,” he says, his gaze sweeping across the courtyard of the grand Domus Australia, a boutique guesthouse in Rome.
The priest, who is residing at the former seminary while on holiday from his parish of Dandenong North, is enjoying a nightcap after a day accompanying Pope Francis on the annual Corpus Domini procession through the streets of Rome.
After sharing stories and a quick cigarette with a group of Australian travellers, Father Brendan bids the party goodnight and climbs the marble stairs to his room, his soft footsteps fading below the trickle of an ornate fountain featuring a gold mosaic of Mary.
This is Domus Australia, the dwelling Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most prominent Catholic, uses as his “holiday” home or his “casa per ferie”.
The $30 million residence has been drawn into the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandal, with Victorian MP Andrea Coote suggesting the church sell its “splendid residence” to help pay compensation to victims.
The cost of the Rome property could have been enough to provide $75,000 – the cap the church places on compensation – to 400 abuse victims, she said.
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