AUSTRALIA
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SYDNEY, March 24, 2014 (AFP) –
Australia’s Catholic Cardinal George Pell said Monday that some in the Vatican once saw accusations of child sex abuse by priests as coming from “enemies of the church to make trouble”.
Pell, recently appointed by Pope Francis to head a new Vatican finance ministry, was giving evidence to a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia.
“The attitude of some people in the Vatican was that if accusations were being made against priests, they were being made exclusively or at least predominantly by enemies of the church to make trouble and therefore should be dealt with sceptically,” he said.
“And I think there was more of an inclination to give the benefit of the doubt to the defendent rather than listening seriously to the complaints.”
Pell said he felt that the church in Australia did not share this attitude to the same degree, and during the 1990s forged ahead in dealing with allegations of sex abuse by members of the Catholic Church.
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