AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

November 17, 2012

Jack Waterford

Julia Gillard’s decision to go for a royal commission into institutional sex abuse of children may have involved a calculation that it had more capacity to hurt the other side of politics than her own. That might be summarised with the observations that Australia’s most visible Catholic, George Cardinal Pell, is a close friend, mentor and counsellor of the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, and no one can remember Pell wittingly doing Labor a favour – at least since 1955 – or missing an opportunity to benefit the Coalition.

Pell is not, of course, a sexual abuser of children, nor any sort of apologist for it. Nor is Abbott. But Pell’s embattled, defensive and sometimes angry reaction to criticism of the church’s response to the epidemic of child abuse – including his suggestion this week that the media were beating up on…