AUSTRALIA
My Daily News
Owen Jacques 24th Mar 2014
FACING questions from a Royal Commission, Cardinal George Pell said claims about the prevalence of child sexual within the Catholic Church may have been “taken out of context”.
Cardinal Pell was quizzed on earlier comments that he might have described the number of allegations as being “exaggerated” .
He said he had no recollection of describing the numbers as exaggerated but said it was important the rate of abuse allegations were “made accurately”.
“What I probably did say was that they were taken out of context and not compared with the very significant number of offences that occur within other institutions and the overwhelming number of instances that occur outside of institutions.”
Later in the questioning, Cardinal Pell said he understood about 4% of Catholic priests were accused of child sexual abuse in Australia.
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