CANADA
National Post
Kelly McParland | March 11, 2016
It has been 14 years since the sexual abuse scandal hit the Catholic church, yet the revelations keep coming. While the church maintains it is disgusted and appalled and is working doggedly to make things right, the charges accumulate faster than the apologies can be issued.
In Australia this month, a royal commission has been hearing testimony from Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’s finance minister and one of the Vatican’s most powerful figures. Earlier in his career, he was a key figure in a diocese where some of Australia’s most notorious abuse cases occurred.
Pell was ordained a priest in Ballarat, near Melbourne. Dozens of victims have launched charges of abuse against 14 priests from the diocese, from the 1960s to the 1990s. At one time, as many as five priests preyed on children at the same time, a situation Pell dismissed as a “disastrous coincidence.” Several victims committed suicide.
The worst offender was Gerald Ridsdale, accused of more than 100 cases of abuse, including against his own nephew. Pell once shared living quarters with Ridsdale, but says he noticed nothing unusual. He also served as a consultant to Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who moved Ridsdale from parish to parish for years. Pell says he remained in the dark about rampant abuse, even as he rose through the ranks to archbishop of Melbourne and later as archbishop of Sydney. Ridsale’s nephew says Pell once told him: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.” Pell denies this.
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