ROME
The Express Tribune
SYDNEY: Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell said Thursday it was a “disastrous coincidence” that five paedophile priests preyed on children in the Australian town where he was based, as survivors repeatedly accused him of lying.
Pell gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink from Rome for a fourth day and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.
He has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, where he grew up and worked, in the 1970s and 80s, when paedophile priests abused dozens of victims.
Pell, who revealed Pope Francis was being given a summary of each day’s evidence, has claimed at least two archbishops and other people in authority all deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a time of what he called “crimes and cover-ups”.
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