Right: Cardinal George Pell, Australia's highest-ranking Catholic.
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Background information
Background
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
In November 2012, Prime Minister, Julia Gillard announced the establishment of a royal commission to investigate child sexual abuse in institutions across Australia.
In January 2013 the terms of reference were announced for an Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which would investigate institutional sexual abuse of minors. The Commission was to investigate allegations against clergy of the Catholic Church and the Church's response to such allegations; however, all Australian institutions (religious, non-religious and regardless of denomination) were to be investigated.
By February 2017, there had been fifty hearings conducted by the Royal Commission of which 16 had investigated abuse within the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Pell and the Royal Commission
Cardinal Pell has appeared before the Royal Commission three times once in person and twice via video link.
March 2014 - Cardinal Pell, as archbishop of Sydney, gave evidence before the Commission in person. He issued a statement to the Royal Commission and appeared before it for questioning twice.
August 2014 Cardinal Pell, by this time appointed as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy to the Vatican, gave evidence before the Royal Commission via video link. He defended the Melbourne Response, the compensation framework he had set up while Archbishop of Melbourne for victims of child abuse within the Catholic Church in the Melbourne diocese. Cardinal Pell also denied that the Catholic Church, as an institution, was responsible for the wrong-doing of some of its priests. There were some technical difficulties experienced with the video link.
May, 2015 Cardinal Pell forwarded denials to the Royal Commission of accusations that he had attempted to bribe an abuse victim in order to have the man remain silent.
December, 2015 Cardinal Pell indicated he was not well enough to attend a Royal Commission hearing in Australia. The Commission decided to defer Cardinal Pell's evidence until its next scheduled sitting in February, 2016, in the hope that by then 'he [could] travel safely to Australia'.
Following Cardinal Pell's inability to travel in 2016, a GoFundMe campaign entitled 'Send Ballarat Survivors to Rome' was launched to enable 15 victims of abuse to travel to Rome and see Cardinal Pell give evidence in person. It reached its target of A$55,000 in one day, doubled that the following day and trebled it the day after. Comedian and musician Tim Minchin wrote and recorded the song 'Come Home (Cardinal Pell)', with all proceeds to go to the GoFundMe campaign.
February-March, 2016 Cardinal Pell gave evidence to the Royal Commission via video link as he was still too ill to undertake the long-haul flight to Australia. Cardinal Pell was questioned for four days.
14 abuse survivors were present when Cardinal Pell gave his evidence. Their trip to Rome had been funded by the crowd-funding campaign.
February, 2017 The Royal Commission released a report indicating that one in every 14 Australian Catholic priests who worked between 1950 and 2010 within 75 Catholic Church bodies was an alleged perpetrator of child sexual abuse.
Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, called for Cardinal Pell to return to Australia to appear before the Commission to respond to questions arising from the extent of the abuse that had been revealed within the Catholic Church.
Allegations of child sex abuse against Cardinal Pell
On July 27, 2016, the ABC's 7.30 Report revealed that Cardinal Pell was being investigated following allegations of child sex abuse made against him.
The program reported that Victoria Police's Taskforce SANO, which investigates complaints coming out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, had been examining the allegations for more than a year.
Victoria Police has confirmed that the Pell case has been referred to the Office of Public Prosecutions for advice.
Cardinal Pell has issued a denial of the allegations.
October 2016 Victoria Police interviewed Cardinal Pell in Rome in regard to the allegations of sexual abuse made against him
February 8, 2017 a Greens motion calling on Cardinal George Pell to return to Australia to assist Victorian Police in investigating his alleged criminal conduct passed the Senate.
February 9, 2017 Cardinal Pell issued a statement rejecting the Senate's appeal on the basis that he had already been questioned by Victoria Police and had also been questioned three times by the Royal Commission.