One of Pope Francis' top advisers acknowledged that the Catholic Church "has made enormous mistakes" in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests over centuries as he testified at an extraordinary public hearing of an Australian investigative commission just a few blocks from the Vatican.
Australian Cardinal George Pell testified via videolink for four hours from Sunday night to early Monday morning from a Rome hotel to the Royal Commission sitting in Sydney. In the front row of the conference room were two dozen Australian abuse survivors and their companions, who had traveled across the globe to witness Pell's testimony, a significant show of accountability in the church's long-running abuse saga.
The lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, questioned Pell about current Vatican efforts to address the scandal as well as Pell's past in Australia, including how he dealt with abuse allegations as a priest, educator and adviser to former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns.
Pell asserted at the start: "I'm not here to defend the indefensible. The church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those." He said the church had "mucked things up and let people down" and for too long had dismissed credible abuse allegations "in absolutely scandalous circumstances."
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