AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times
November 15, 2012
The cardinal’s lack of empathy reflects a leadership deficit.
THE Catholic cardinal, George Pell, is wrong on so many levels. In his response to the Gillard government’s decision to hold a royal commission, which will examine how allegations of sexual abuse were handled by Australian institutions, Dr Pell suggests the church has been unfairly targeted by the media. He claims it has been maligned by ”smears”, and that the extent of ”misdoing” inside the Catholic Church has been ”exaggerated”. He calls for statistics to demonstrate the media’s focus on the Catholic Church is out of proportion to the incidence of sexual abuse inside the church.
Statistics are one thing, but this is not a game of numbers. The church has attracted appropriate scrutiny for the appalling way that its leaders have handled allegations and evidence of sexual abuse in past years and more recently. It has, rightly, been strongly criticised for failing to do the proper, decent thing that any Australian would do, which is to report instances of criminal wrongdoing to the police.
Dr Pell bemoans how the church has been ”unable to convince public opinion” of its changed ways since 1996, when it put in place protocols for dealing with allegations of sexual abuse. On that much at least, Dr Pell is correct. It has failed to convince the public because there is plenty of evidence that all is not fixed. Victims of sexual abuse say as much, and so does Victoria Police, which told the state parliamentary inquiry how the Catholic Church hindered police investigations and dissuaded victims from reporting abuse. Police noted that not one of the hundreds of abuse allegations handled by the Catholic Church in Victoria has been referred by it to police. Serving NSW police officers also complain, saying the church has thwarted official investigations at every turn.
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