ROME/AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
[with video]
March 4, 2016
Marika Dobbin
Reporter for The Age
Cardinal George Pell has welled up in a live interview from Rome when talking about a victim of sexual abuse by a paedophile priest, but said he would not resign over the issue.
In the first display of raw emotion from Australia’s most powerful Catholic, Pell choked up and stopped talking momentarily when speaking about a meeting with victims that followed his testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Pell responded during the TV interview with News Corp Australia columnist Andrew Bolt to claims that he appears unmoved or unsympathetic to victims.
“The fact that somebody seems a bit wooden doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling anything inside,” he said. “I found the meeting emotional, but I am a bit buttoned up. That was how I was trained.”
Pell spoke about his “deeply moving” reconciliation with David Ridsdale, the nephew of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who has accused Pell of bribing him not to go to police.
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