Some of the victims of sexual abuse by the clergy do not believe the Archbishop of Sydney’s statement that the Catholic Church has learnt the error of its ways.

In the wake of the Prime Minister’s decision to call a royal commission into institutionalised child abuse, Cardinal George Pell today said he believed many claims involving the church were .

“We are not interested in denying the extent of misdoing in the Catholic Church. We object to it being exaggerated,” he said.

“We object to it being described as the only cab on the rank.

“We acknowledge simply with shame the extent of the problem and I want to assure you that we have been serious in attempting to eradicate it and deal with it.”

The leader of Australia’s most powerful Roman Catholic diocese said he would cooperate with the nationwide inquiry, but told reporters the church had improved its processes in dealing with abuse allegations.

“I have just been attempting to explain [over] the past 16 to 20 years, we have addressed [the issue], these are adequate procedures,” he said.

“Nobody has written to me saying this procedure is inadequate or that procedure is inadequate.

“What we have had is general smears like, with due respect, I suggest you are making that we are generally inefficient, that we’re covering up, we’re moving people around.

“Where that is done it’s against the protocols.”

The Melbourne response

But in Victoria, some are still critical of the so-called Melbourne Response, which Cardinal Pell set up to handle complaints in the late 1990s.

Cardinal Pell confirmed again today he had accompanied paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale to his court hearings several years ago.

But he said he did not realise at the time the impression this would give to victims.

Ridsdale, from the Wimmera region in western Victoria, was jailed in 1993 after admitting he abused more than 20 children.

In 2006, the priest was sentenced to an extra 13 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to further charges.

Melbourne man Stephen Woods was 14 when he was raped by Ridsdale.

Mr Woods listened to Cardinal Pell’s comments with interest and told ABC radio’s PM program: “He seems to be setting up a narrative that the Catholic Church is now the victim, that they are the ones who are just one of many assaulters in the society.

“Yet I can’t think of any other organisation that has had so many, even though there are many clergy, but they have had so many paedophiles.

“And of course, tens of thousands of victims.”

‘Failed systems’

Cardinal Pell said the Melbourne Response had been “very well regarded” by many.

But that is not Mr Woods’s impression.

“Working for (support group) Broken Rites we’ve had cause to come across a lot of people who have said that the Melbourne Response, as well as the Towards Healing, are both very failed systems,” he said.

“They offer very small amounts of compensation and they are very lawyer-intense and very legalistically concerned.

“So people have very often come out of it just feeling far more assaulted.”

Mr Woods believes the Catholic Church is not responding well to news of the royal commission.

“They still don’t get it. They just still don’t get it because I think they are afraid because so many bishops over the years have been so culpable of so many crimes, particularly cover-ups, that I think they are afraid of what’s going to come out,” he said.

‘No smear campaign’

Chrissie Foster’s two daughters were raped by their parish priest when they were in primary school.

“(Cardinal Pell) was saying there was a smear campaign against the church and there’s not a smear campaign at all,” she said.

“People are merely telling the truth and trying to be heard about their experience with the Catholic Church; the abuse in the first instance and then the treatment from the Catholic Church, and the hierarchy and the processes after that.”

Ms Foster was particularly struck by Cardinal Pell’s insistence that the seal of confession is “inviolable”.

She believes it is one of the big issues for the royal commission to consider.

“I know he was insistent on it not being looked at, but I think there needs to be mandatory reporting within the confessional about child sexual assault,” she said.

“This canon law is the law of a foreign state, the Vatican. How can a foreign state law overrule our civil laws in Australia to protect our Australian children?

“My daughter suicided. My other daughter binge drunk and then got hit by a car.

“She received 24 hours care. And all the care Emma had up until she died; the church didn’t pay for that.”

The Federal Government has released information for those who want to provide information that may be considered by the royal commission, which is likely to begin in early 2013.

Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has accused the press of a “persistent campaign” against the Catholic Church in the wake of Julia Gillard’s decision to call a nationwide inquiry into institutionalised child abuse.

Speaking to reporters in Sydney this afternoon, Cardinal Pell said the church would “of course” cooperate with the royal commission, which will look into cases of abuse in the church and in other bodies.

But he said he looked forward to statistics showing what percentage of abuse cases the church was responsible for, saying it was not the “principal culprit”.

“What is important for the press and the public to realise is that because there is a persistent press campaign against the Catholic Church’s adequacies and inadequacies in this area, that does not necessarily represent the percentage of the problem that we offer,” he said.

“In other words, that because there is a press campaign focused largely on us, it does not mean that we are largely the principal culprits.

“We are not interested in denying the extent of misdoing in the Catholic Church.

“We object to [the extent of misdoing] being exaggerated, we object to being described as the only cab on the rank.”

Cardinal Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, said he would appear before the royal commission if summoned, saying he, like “every other Catholic priest or bishop”, would “comply with the law” because “we’ve got nothing to hide”.

And he said he did not believe the public was cynical about the church’s moves to combat sexual abuse.

“I don’t think there is widespread cynicism. I think it’s in the press. I think the general public certainly understand that we’re serious about this,” he said.

He described claims that “the church is covering up, the church has done nothing” as “general smearing”.

Asked if cover-ups were still going on within the church, he said: “I can’t be absolutely sure.

“I would be very confident that it’s not general. One reason is because of our education programs, because we’ve been getting out into all our parishes and schools that these are the procedures to follow, that there is an obligation to inform police of allegations, and that people should do that.”

Cardinal Pell showed reporters a booklet entitled Sexual Abuse which he said contained the church’s procedures for dealing with abuse cases.

Yesterday, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said that “talk of a systemic problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is ill-founded and inconsistent with the facts” and Cardinal Pell echoed that sentiment today.

“The Catholic bishops of Australia have welcomed the royal commission which was announced by the Prime Minister last night,” he said.

“We think it’s an opportunity to help the victims, it’s an opportunity to clear the air, to separate fact from fiction.”

He said he had spoken to both Ms Gillard and to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott “over the last few days” but said he had not spoken to the Pope since the royal commission was announced.

“[Ms Gillard] just called me up to tell me what she was going to do,” he said.

“She said this wasn’t an anti-Catholic move, but more general, and I said I acknowledge that and I said I wasn’t surprised that it wasn’t anti-Catholic, and I was grateful for that.”

Confession ‘inviolable’

Cardinal Pell is at odds with NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell on the sanctity of the confessional box when it comes to admissions of child abuse.

Cardinal Pell says the seal of confession is inviolable, but Mr O’Farrell has told State Parliament that was a position he personally found hard to support.

“I heard Cardinal Pell today indicate that the bonds of the confessional will remain intact,” he said.

“I understand that as a Catholic, not a particularly good Catholic, that is an important sacrament within my church.

“But I struggle to understand that if a priest confesses to another priest that he’s been involved in paedophile activities, that that information should not be brought to police.”

Mr O’Farrell has indicated NSW may drop its inquiry into clergy sex abuse in the Hunter Valley if the royal commission announced by the Prime Minister addresses the allegations raised by Detective Chief Inspector Fox.