A grim reminder for Australian town as Pope's treasurer faces historic sex offence charges
Record ID:
904068
A grim reminder for Australian town as Pope's treasurer faces historic sex offence charges
- Title: A grim reminder for Australian town as Pope's treasurer faces historic sex offence charges
- Date: 25th July 2017
- Summary: BALLARAT, AUSTRALIA (JULY 24, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF BALLARAT'S MAIN CATHOLIC CHURCH, ST. PATRICK'S RIBBONS SYMBOLISING SOLIDARITY WITH CLERGY SEX ABUSE SURVIVORS ON FENCE OUTSIDE CHURCH SURVIVORS OF CHILD ABUSE, PETER BLENKIRON (LEFT) AND PHILIP NAGLE (RIGHT) SITTING AT TABLE (SOUNDBITE) (English) A SURVIVOR OF CHILD ABUSE, PHILIP NAGLE, SAYING: "I'd like to see Cardinal (George) Pell and his team handle the claimants and their claims in a professional, dignified and caring manner. The claimants, obviously very courageous to put their claims forward, and we need to make sure they get the care, support that they need and particularly counselling, that they need to get them through this time, which will obviously be the toughest time of their life. So my main concern really would be about the claimants having their claims dealt by the courts in a fair and just manner." RIBBONS ON FENCE OUTSIDE CHURCH
- Embargoed: 8th August 2017 06:35
- Keywords: Cardinal Pell's home town Carinal Pell Ballarat and Pell abuse survivors Vatican's treasural George Pell Ballarat historical sexual offences
- Location: BALLARAT, AUSTRALIA
- City: BALLARAT, AUSTRALIA
- Country: Australia
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice
- Reuters ID: LVA0016R7SXMV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: When Cardinal George Pell - one of the pope's top advisers - makes his first court appearance in Australia on Wednesday (July 26) charged with historical sexual offences, it will be a bitter reminder for his hometown of Ballarat, reeling from more than a dozen abuse cases.
Last month, Pell, 76, became the most senior Catholic to be charged with sex crimes. The Vatican's economy minister has vowed to fight the still-unspecified charges, calling them false and the result of a "relentless character assassination".
Police have not released details of the charges, but the start of Pell's court battle in Melbourne revisits a troubled past for Ballarat, the former gold town where Pell grew up and cut his teeth as a priest in the 1970s and 1980s.
A 2013 state government inquiry and subsequent Royal Commission exposed shocking accounts of child abuse and allegations of a cover-up in the Ballarat Catholic diocese over many generations. At least five priests from the diocese have been jailed for abuse and Royal Commission data showed that Ballarat was the diocese with the most alleged perpetrator priests after major cities Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Hundreds of colourful ribbons now criss-cross the fence of the city's main Catholic church, St Patrick's, as part of the 'Loud fence' campaign started by three women in Ballarat to display support for survivors. A survivor of child abuse, Philip Nagle, told Reuters that he hopes the claimants in Pell's case are treated by the courts "in a fair and just manner". - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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