ROME
SBS
Cardinal George Pell has made his final appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from Rome.
Survivors of child sexual abuse who were in Rome to watch him testify will soon get the chance to ask questions of their own.
Cardinal Pell has scheduled a meeting with them for tomorrow morning.
It is the key question that remains unanswered in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse:
How could so many paedophile priests come to be working in the same town at the same time?
On his last day of giving evidence to the commission, Cardinal Pell has been asked for an explanation.
(Lawyer:) “Cardinal, what in your view were the reasons behind so many child sexual abusers aggregating in Ballarat East in the 1970s?”
(Pell:) “I think that was a disastrous coincidence.”
(Lawyer:) “At the time, there were approximately four or five persons with very similar predilections, specifically a sexual attraction to boys of a similar age, in the same suburb. You believe that’s a coincidence?”
(Pell:) “Um, yes, I do.”
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