Remorseless shepherd

The Blade
March 17, 2019

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Pell could have helped church by owning his sins

Those seeking accountability for the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church were sorely disappointed by Cardinal George Pell’s sentencing in Australia last week.

During the sentencing proceedings, which were broadcast on television, it came out that Pell’s lawyer mounted something like an insanity defense at trial. His suggestion was that Pell, convicted of sexually abusing two choirboys when he was archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s, was an otherwise smart and rational person who must have been out of his mind on the two occasions that he committed such heinous acts.

It was a lot of bunk, and in this desperate gambit to save himself, Pell sacrificed a key opportunity to do right by the church to which he and all priests pledge a lifetime of fidelity.

Pell, formerly the Vatican treasurer and one of Catholicism’s highest-ranking officials, would have made a powerful statement by accepting responsibility for his actions. An acknowledgment of wrongdoing would have been good for his soul. It would have been good for his surviving victim and it would have meant something to the family of his other victim, who died of a heroin overdose after wrestling with who knows what demons.

Contrition might have reassured those who wonder whether the church can turn the corner on its past. Instead, in trying to evade responsibility with a mental-impairment argument, he reminded everyone of the qualities — denial, blame-shifting, arrogance and dissembling — that fueled decades of worldwide abuse and cover-ups in the first place.

Some have questioned the verdict, calling the evidence against Pell flimsy. If Pell were innocent, his lawyer, Robert Richter, would have had no reason to raise questions about his client’s state of mind. He would have no reason, as he did during a February proceeding, to downplay the nature of the assaults by pointing out that they lasted “less than six minutes.” Observers were shocked by Mr. Richter’s insensitivity.

While many bishops have expressed sorrow for the worldwide abuse scandal, those at the highest echelons of the church continue to let the flock down. Defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has shown no remorse for abuse he committed, and Pope Francis’ summit on clergy abuse disappointed some observers who expected more to come out of it.

Now facing six years in prison, Pell has plenty of time for discernment. He could yet say or do something to help heal the church and faithful he exploited.