Anti-Pell hysteria only undermines abuse victims

The Australian
February 22, 2016

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/antipell-hysteria-only-undermines-abuse-victims/news-story/858532a6bb65e4f9b9d6767d87b1fbcc

George Pell has already appeared twice before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse — once in person and once via video link from Rome — and always made it clear he was prepared to do so again.

It would be better for all concerned, especially the cardinal, if he did not have a serious heart condition that precludes long-distance flying at present. If that were the case, he could give evidence in person about Ballarat, where he served as a young priest but had no authority in the diocese, and the Archdiocese of Melbourne, where he established the Melbourne Response shortly after his appointment as archbishop in 1996. It was one of the first formal processes of any church in the world for dealing with child sexual abuse. Victim groups regarded it at the time as “the best of a bad lot’’.

In giving evidence electronically, Cardinal Pell will still be subjected to the same rigorous cross-examination he would have faced here. He deserves to be heard respectfully, like all witnesses. That is not good enough for his antagonists, however, who have whipped up a dangerous lynch-mob mentality rarely seen in Australia even against prominent child murderers. It needs to be contained and the tensions surrounding it examined in a clear light.

Last week, singer Tim Minchin hurled verbal abuse at the cardinal, branding him “scum’’, a “buffoon’’ and a “coward’’ on Network Ten’s The Project, with ABC’s 7.30 rerunning the foul-mouthed ditty. As The Australian noted in Cut & Paste, Minchin is hostile to the church, with the The Pope Song also a litany of hate speech: “F..k the motherf..ker,” it runs. “F..k the motherf..king Pope.”

Those who hate Cardinal Pell for his socially conservative views and orthodox theology are making a grave mistake in using him as a lightning rod for the church’s failures to deal with child sex abuse. Evidence shows the problem was swept under the carpet for decades, including by his Melbourne predecessors, leaving him and others a mountain to tackle from 1996 onwards. He moved swiftly to do so. The commission, which has detailed the depressing extent of abuse across most churches and many secular institutions including schools, has much vital work to do. Just as Dyson Heydon’s royal commission into trade union corruption was about far more than Bill Shorten, who received disproportionate media attention, this commission deserves far broader discussion than ill-informed hysteria against Cardinal Pell. Victims of abuse deserve better.

It remains to be seen what, if anything, emerges from a reported Victoria Police investigation into allegations against the cardinal himself. It is curious, to say the least, that after his many decades in the public eye, such claims against the cardinal have only emerged now. As Cardinal Pell’s successor in Sydney, Anthony Fisher, said yesterday, it can be tempting to jump to conclusions based on headlines but it is always better to withhold judgment until all the facts are known: everyone has a “right to a fair and transparent process free of particular agendas, other than truth’’. Of late, that right has been denied to Cardinal Pell.