Top Vatican official in row over senseless child abuse comments

August 22, 2014 09:02

Australia's leading Catholic cleric George Pell, a top Vatican official, came under fire Friday after drawing an analogy between the church's response to child abuse and a trucking company.

Cardinal Pell, a former archbishop of both Melbourne and Sydney before taking up a high-powered job this year as head of a new Vatican finance ministry after being handpicked by Pope Francis, made the comments Thursday.

He acknowledged to a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne that the church had a moral obligation to the victims of paedophile priests.

But he suggested that when it came to its legal responsibility, the actions of its priests were not necessarily the fault of the church, citing the hypothetical example of a woman being molested by a truck driver.

"If the truck driver picks up some lady and then molests her, I don't think it's appropriate, because it is contrary to the policy, for the ownership, the leadership of that company to be held responsible," he said via video link from Rome.

"Similarly with the church and the head of any other organisation. If every precaution has been taken, no warning has been given, it is, I think, not appropriate for legal culpability to be foisted on the authority figure."

The comments outraged support groups, who said Pell was displaying a lack of compassion for victims of abuse.

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