A top-ranking Cardinal in Australia has said fear of scandal prompted the cover-up of child sex abuse allegations within the Catholic Church. George Pell was speaking at an inquiry into child sex abuse in the State.
The Cardinal has denied being personally involved in the cover-up of paedophile priests but said it is clear it happened and he said he is fully apologetic and absolutely sorry.
The probe has already heard around 620 children were criminally abused by Catholic clergy from the 1930s onwards.
Some members of the packed public gallery reportedly wept as Cardinal Pell was forced to answer questions about the Church's systemic cover-up of cases of rape of children as young as 5-years old.
"I'm certainly totally committed to improving the situation. I know the Holy Father is too. Many people in the public think not only were there many mistakes made a long time ago, but there's been no progress at all over the last 20 years," he said.
"I don't think that's borne out by the facts of the case. But that's for people to judge."
He denies paying lip service to victims of Church abuse and only saying sorry because he was caught out.
"I have already stated quite explicitly, acknowledged the errors that have been made by Bishop Mulkearns and [former Melbourne archbishop] Archbishop Little," he said.
He says while there have been some cases of cover-ups, the main problem is that many within the Church did not talk about the problem of child sex abuse because they were not "gossips".
"I think many persons in the leadership of the Church, I don't think they knew what a horrendous widespread [issue] we were sitting on," he said.
Questions over compensation
He was questioned extensively on the issue of compensation for victims of Church abuse and over claims he thought it could "bleed the Church dry".
But he says he has only tried to be prudent with the Church's funds. He was asked how he is able to stay in a AUS$30 million (€22.3 million) "palace" in Rome when Australian victims of abuse are limited to just AUS$75,000 (€55,971) in compensation.
Parliamentary secretary Andrea Coote suggested the Church sell off the Italian property so it could afford more generous compensation, but Cardinal Pell says the Church did not need to do that.
"It is not a palace. It is not my home. I have two nice rooms there which I'm very happy about. Which I use as a base when I'm in Rome. It is a hostel for pilgrims. It's an investment there. We don't need to sell investments at the moment to pay our damages and whatever damages compensation there are, we'll be fully able to do so" he said.
