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Cardinal George Pell’s trial by media achieves justice for no one
By Miranda Devine
Just when you think the demonisation of Cardinal George Pell can’t get any worse, it does. And with every allegation, as flimsy and contagious as they are, comes the damaging insinuation that where there’s smoke there’s fire. The fanfare around ABC’s 7.30 program last week would make you think Pell has been accused of the most heinous crimes, that he is the master paedophile sitting atop the global paedophile ring that is the Catholic Church. Some people believe this sick fantasy, or have convinced themselves it is vaguely plausible. Others don’t care about the injustice because they hate Pell, who is that most unloved creature of our times, a conservative Catholic, implacably wedded to Church teachings and unwilling, like his more fashionable brother priests, to accommodate the great causes du jour, same sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia. Victoria Police has been examining the three-decade old allegations for at least 18 months, without attempting to interview Pell, who offered to be interviewed after allegations leaked in February, on the eve of Pell’s testimony to the child abuse royal commission. His offer was rebuffed, even though unnamed police sources at the time complained of a lack of an “extradition treaty” with the Vatican, gratuitously adding misleading melodrama to the story. In June, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton suggested detectives might go to Rome to interview Pell but nothing came of that. Last week Ashton denied Pell’s accusation that police have been leaking to the media, saying the 7.30 story came from “the victims, you could see their emotion, they are traumatised”. The loose language was extraordinary for a police chief; by referring to “victims” rather than “alleged victims”, he clearly signalled his view of Pell’s guilt. He also claimed to be waiting on a decision from the Office of Public Prosecutions on whether to press charges against Pell. But, we subsequently learned, the OPP found the brief so paltry it sent it back to police. And there the allegations stay, in limbo, the best possible outcome for smear artists. Ashton, of course, has form when it comes to Pell, for whom he has barely concealed antipathy. Ashton’s organisation has been slammed for failing to investigate complaints of child sexual abuse and for telling untruths to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, including a wildly exaggerated claim about suicides, in an effort to offload blame onto the church. And the police chief’s comments about the 7.30 story on Melbourne radio last week conveniently took the spotlight off a law and order crisis in Victoria, where soaring crime rates and a spate of violent carjackings and robberies have prompted talk of citizen patrols in suburbs where Ashton’s police force has lost control. The allegations, such as they are, are emphatically denied by Pell. They amount to this: 1) that, as a popular young priest in Ballarat in 1978, Pell played a “throwing game” with boys in the public pool, during which he touched two boys on the crotch and anus. 2) that, in the 1980s he was once seen standing naked with a towel over his shoulders in front of three young boys in a surf club change room. The witness, Les Tyack, only reported his “sighting” to police in 2012, a quarter of a century or more later. What a joke. Even if there were any truth in the allegations, trial by media is barbaric and achieves justice for no one. How different was the treatment by the ABC and the rest of the media of explosive allegations that Bill Shorten raped a 16-year-old girl at a Labor youth conference in Portarlington in 1986. Only after police had completed their investigation and decided not to press charges, was the story covered. That is as it should be. But when it comes to George Pell, it’s open season.
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