More victims are coming forward with allegations of abuse to the Catholic Church after the revealing of Cardinal George Pell's child sex convictions.
Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli has apologised to abuse victims and said people were calling the church on Tuesday as news broke of Pell's guilty verdict.
He didn't specify whether the allegations concerned Cardinal Pell or others within the church.
"There are others who made contact with us yesterday and I suspect, over the next few days, because of what's come to light through the lifting of the suppression order, who will come forward and say, 'I too was abused at a particular time in a certain circumstance'," Archbishop Comensoli told ABC radio on Wednesday.
He said 131 survivors had come through the Melbourne Response, the church's recourse program of which Pell was the architect.
The archbishop said he had spoken to the cardinal in the past 24 hours and he seemed "strong within himself".
"I would say this particular trial was fair and that he continues to protest his innocence," he said.
"I would not want to disparage, in any way, our judicial process so both of the trials that were held were both held according to law and appropriately."
Archbishop Comensoli said Pell remained characteristically stoic.
"I would describe him as strong within himself, this is obviously a terrible time for him personally," he told Triple M radio.
The archbishop said it would be "completely irresponsible" of him to guarantee abuse within the church would never recur, but child safety programs were now in place to guard against it.
One of his key tasks was to rebuild trust in the church, given that had been "terribly damaged", he said.
"Sorry to all those who have been abused and communities who have been so terribly damaged not only by the abuse that has occurred but the efforts to cover up or negate and so on, I say sorry," he told ABC radio.
"We have not listened well. Certainly, many victims have talked about how they weren't believed and all of that has compounded the fighting of cases through civil processes.
"There has been a shift from those sort of ways, perhaps there is a new generation of leaders like myself who are coming forward who take a different approach."
Australian Associated Press
