ROME
7 News
Sydney (AFP) – Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell admitted Thursday he “should have done more” to follow-up on claims a priest was abusing boys, as survivors accused him of lying about what he knew.
Pell gave evidence for a fourth and final day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via videolink from Rome 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 children.
Pell, who revealed Pope Francis was being given a summary of each day’s evidence, admitted a boy complained to him in 1974 about Christian Brother Edward Dowlan.
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