AUSTRALIA
Gazzetta del Sud
Sydney, March 24 – A Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Monday questioned the archbishop of Sydney and newly appointed Vatican finance minister, Cardinal George Pell, about his handling of the case of a former choirboy who tried to sue the Catholic Church after reporting he was sexually abused by a priest when he was a child. Pell, who on February 25 was appointed prefect of Pope Francis’ newly created Economy Secretariat, told the commission that until the 1990s, the Church was skeptical of complaints of abuse and gave accused molesters “the benefit of the doubt”. According to legal experts, Pell saved the Catholic Church millions of dollars in potential damages with his handling of Ellis, who charged he was sexually abused by the late Father Aidan Duggan from 1974 to 1979. Ellis lost his case in 2007, when an Australian court accepted the Vatican’s argument that the Catholic Church is not liable for damages because it does not exist as a legal entity.
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