Australia’s most prominent Catholic was grilled for four-and-a-half hours last month by a Victorian Parliamentary Committee into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations. He was questioned about the Catholic Church’s systemic failings to deal with abuse. He has admitted cover-ups of child sexual abuse and destruction of documents. The inquiry heard that the Melbourne response put a cap of $75,000.00 on payments to victims compared to payouts in the order of $1 million on the average in the US. Pell defended the Church’s compensation scheme, saying it abided by the “law of the land”. But he has opened the door to greater compensation for victims, describing a payment of $27,000.00 to a man raped ten times as “miserable”. Pell indicated that the church could afford to pay its victims proper compensation. He has agreed that the Catholic Church will contribute to a National Fund if a redress board is set-up following recommendations by the Royal Commission.
