AUSTRALIA
Sky News
Cardinal George Pell was worried by sexual abuse case payouts that had bankrupted some US churches and wanted to prevent similar payouts in Australia, an inquiry has heard.
Dr Pell, the former archbishop of Sydney, told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that he had been concerned by verdicts in US courts where large payouts to victims had bankrupted some dioceses.
He denied, however, that he wanted sexual abuse victims to go through the Catholic church’s internal system, Towards Healing, rather than the courts, so that the church could control the size of payouts.
Under questioning from Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan, Dr Pell agreed that, since his time as archbishop of Melbourne, he had been concerned about the US payouts to victims.
He did not want a similar situation in Australia because ‘Australia is not America’ where there are ‘an enormous number of lawyers’.
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