AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
March 26, 2014
Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer
Cardinal George Pell has admitted he wanted to avoid big damages verdicts such as those made against the Catholic Church in America when he set up the Melbourne Response to deal with child sex abuse complaints with a $50,000 cap on payouts in the 1990s.
The Melbourne Response gave the church control over how much compensation a victim could receive when its liability could not be established, the Cardinal agreed.
In response to a succession of questions from the chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, Pell said he had not wanted the church in Australia to be subject to damages higher than other Australian institutions. He said he had set up the Melbourne Response in 1996 after the Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, told him “Now you clean this thing up and there won’t be a Royal Commission”.
The Cardinal’s moral choices in dealing with sex abuse cases have come under sustained challenge at the Royal Commission.
Pell said his instructions to “vigorously” and “strenuously” defend claims by John Ellis that he was abused were intended to discourage claimants, so they would “think clearly” before litigating against the church.
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