Church let people down, says cardinal

ROME—Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest ranking Vatican official to testify on Catholic Church abuse, said on Sunday the Church made “enormous mistakes” and “let people down” in its handling of systemic child sex abuse by priests.

Giving evidence in front of abuse victims in a Rome hotel room, Pell told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that children were often not believed and abusive priests shuffled from parish to parish.

“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those. But the Church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down,” Pell said via video link to the commission in Sydney.

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”

The Australian inquiry into sexual abuse cases that occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about accountability of Church leaders because of Pell’s high position in the Vatican, where he now serves as finance minister.

Pell, 74, has never been accused of sexual abuse and has twice apologized for the Church’s slow response.

Pell said several times that he was aware of rumors and complaints against pedophile clergy when he was a young priest in the 1970s. But Church superiors tended to give priests the benefit of the doubt—something he acknowledged was wrong.

Pell said on Sunday that too many allegations of abuse were “dismissed in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”

He said he believed the faults were personal rather than structural failings.

“Unfortunately, original sin is alive and well,” Pell said. “There’s tendency to evil in the Catholic Church too and sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, but for good or for ill the Church follows the patterns of the societies in which it lives.”