Cardinal George Pell

Cardinal George Pell is the Archbishop of Sydney and a self-confessed liar. Chrissie Foster has written a book about her family's ordeal at the hands of the Catholic Church and priest Kevin O'Donnell. Her eldest daughter is now dead and another daughter is a vegetable because she sent both girls to a Catholic school. An ever-vigilant mother, Chrissie couldn't believe it when told that Emma, her eldest child, was exhibiting classic symptoms of child abuse and O'Donnell was the suspect. How could this be, he had never been to her home and she had never left either girls alone with him. Then they discovered that she was being abused by her spiritual protector in a shower room at their primary school.

Then younger sister Katie was singled out for abuse and fell into depression. When her mother discovered a suicide note declaring her hatred of O'Donnell who was by this time dead, Chrissie realised that both her daughters had been his victims. In 1999, a drunk Katie ran out into a busy main road and was struck by a car. She was in a coma for four months and woke to a ruined life, unable to walk, feed or toilet herself. Their historic out-of-court settlement in 2006 could not save Emma, by now a heroin addict. She died 6 months before the Pope's visit to Australia.

Now we turn to the pillar of the church Cardinal George Pell. He now says he was mistaken when he denied on national television that he had ever seen a picture of Emma with her wrists slashed. Just imagine the distressing image in your own mind. Chrissie Foster maintains that Pell peered at the photo which was blown up to A4 size and said "Mmmmm, she's changed isn't she?"

The Foster's were prepared to co-operate with the church until they had a meeting with Melbourne Archbishop George Pell, now the Archbishop of Sydney. He exhausted the couple with a "handfull of trusted verbal tools". Basically the church treated the abuse as gossip and thought the girls were lying and repeatedly told the couple to "take your evidence to court". The church knew about O'Donnell as far back as 1949 and again in 1958. Both times he was relocated.

In 2002 Pell told Sixty Minutes journalist Richard Carlton that he did not recall having ever seen the photograph. Responding to questions today, Pell said his "lack of recall was an honest mistake". Then added "I cannot remember what I said when I saw the photo but no disrespect was intended and I apologise wholeheartedly to them".

Hell rhymes with Pell and that's where this man is going.