VATICAN CITY -- Australian Cardinal George Pell, accused of covering up cases of paedophilia and sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church, has announced that he will testify in a court case on the issue via video message.

  The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, created by the Australian government in 2013 to investigate cases of paedophilia by priests, requested the presence of the Cardinal at the court case. Cardinal Pell originally refused on the grounds that he was too ill to travel to Australia from Rome, leading to an outbreak of criticism.

 The Cardinal has been named several times by victims of paedophilia for allegedly having ignored and covered up tens of cases of abuses committed by priests who he then allowed to transfer to different parishes. The Cardinal has denied all accusations.

 Cardinal Pell acted as advisor to the bishop of Ballarat for a period before becoming assistant bishop in the Archdiocese of Melbourne in 1987. In 1996 he was named Archbishop of Melbourne.

 Judge Peter McClellan said in a statement that "Pell was advisor in a period in which several priests from the Diocese abused children and he was present during meetings in which the name of at least one priest known for the abuses was discussed."

 "The facts currently at the disposition of the Commission indicate that as assistant bishop he was responsible for the area of the Archdiocese in which at least one accused priest was posted."

 During Cardinal Pell's later time as Archbishop of Sydney he actively fought a legal claim by an abuse victim, John Ellis, in order to "encourage other prospective plaintiffs not to litigate claims of child sexual abuse against the church," according to a report by the Royal Commission in February 2015.

 The Church spent more than 1 million Australian dollars on the case despite Ellis asking just a tenth of that sum in settlement payment. The claims for which the Cardinal is now called to speak for are distinct from the Ellis case, for which Cardinal Pell already testified, also by video message.

 An original request for Cardinal Pell to testify via video message for the new case was rejected by Judge McClellan, who responded that "given the complexity of the questions at hand, and the fact that there are two study cases currently under investigation by the Commission that cover an extended period of time, other than the technical difficulties met with during the last video testimony when the Cardinal was in Rome, it is preferable that he testify in person in Australia."

 However, after it was assured that the technical difficulties arising from the last video meeting had been overcome, the Judge agreed to the proposition. The Commission has said that it will listen to Cardinal Pell's testimony "from Monday 29 February when the Commission will meet at Sydney. It is expected that the testimonial sitting will last three days." Each audience is to take place in a different Australian city.

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