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'Evil was done', cardinal says after meeting abuse survivors
Source: Reuters
World | Thu Mar 3, 2016 10:12am EST
'Evil was done', cardinal says after meeting abuse survivors
ROME/SYDNEY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL
Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia, on Thursday acknowledged "the evil that was done" and vowed to work with survivors to enact better protection measures.
Pell, who gave four days of evidence via video link to an Australian government commission, made the comments after a nearly two-hour meeting in a Rome hotel with about a dozen Australian survivors who had flown to Rome for the hearings.
Pell, now the Vatican's treasurer, and the survivors met for nearly four times as long as scheduled. Both the cardinal and a spokesman for the survivors said it was highly emotional.
David Ridsdale, a survivor who alleges that in 1993 Pell tried to bribe him to keep quiet about abuse by Ridsdale's now jailed priest uncle, said survivors were satisfied that the encounter took place on "a level playing field".
Pell, who has denied the bribery accusation, told reporters that the goodness of the people of Ballarat, where much of the abuse took place in the 1970s when Pell was a priest there, "was not extinguished by the evil that was done".
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'Evil was done', cardinal says after meeting abuse survivors
ROME/SYDNEY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL
Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia, on Thursday acknowledged "the evil that was done" and vowed to work with survivors to enact better protection measures.
Pell, who gave four days of evidence via video link to an Australian government commission, made the comments after a nearly two-hour meeting in a Rome hotel with about a dozen Australian survivors who had flown to Rome for the hearings.
Pell, now the Vatican's treasurer, and the survivors met for nearly four times as long as scheduled. Both the cardinal and a spokesman for the survivors said it was highly emotional.
David Ridsdale, a survivor who alleges that in 1993 Pell tried to bribe him to keep quiet about abuse by Ridsdale's now jailed priest uncle, said survivors were satisfied that the encounter took place on "a level playing field".
Pell, who has denied the bribery accusation, told reporters that the goodness of the people of Ballarat, where much of the abuse took place in the 1970s when Pell was a priest there, "was not extinguished by the evil that was done".
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-abuse-pell-meeting-idUSKCN0W51II
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