AUSTRALIA
The Standard
By MATT NEAL Aug. 23, 2014
A WARRNAMBOOL lawyer who has been working with sexual abuse victims has blasted Cardinal George Pell for likening the church to a trucking company.
Cardinal Pell told the Royal Commission on Child Abuse that the Catholic Church was no more legally responsible for priests who abuse children than a trucking company that employs a driver who molests women.
“If the truck driver picks up some lady and then molests her, I don’t think it’s appropriate, because it is contrary to the policy, for the ownership, the leadership of that company to be held responsible,” Cardinal Pell told the commission via video link from Rome.
But Warrnambool lawyer George Foster of Maddens Lawyers labelled the comments as “appalling”.
“I act for people who have been the subject of sexual abuse (and) Cardinal Pell’s analogy given to the royal commission likening the church’s legal liability to abused children as that of a truck company whose driver molested hitchhikers is appalling,” he said.
“May I suggest a more appropriate one: A boss who knows or suspects that his driver deliberately flouts the road laws continues to send him out on jobs.
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