Church to block victims’ court bids despite promise to abandon practice by Pell

‘The Catholic Church will continue to use a controversial legal defence to block victims of clerical abuse from seeking compensation, despite a promise to abandon the practice having been backed by Cardinal George Pell.

The church’s backflip comes as the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse sits today for a three-week hearing into decades of horrific abuse in the Diocese of Ballarat.

Fairfax Media can reveal a major rift between the country’s most influential bishops, religious orders and their insurers over the continued use of the so-called Ellis defence, which was supposedly disavowed in April 2014.’

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