AUSTRALIA
The Global Mail
By Stephen Crittenden
November 15, 2012
A royal commission into child sexual abuse could go a long way to acknowledging the pain of victims, and allowing Christians to once more have faith in their institutions. But how should the terms of inquiry be framed, and how long might the cleansing take?
Australia’s Cardinal George Pell gave the worst media performance of his career at his press conference in Sydney on Tuesday. It was lazy, half-hearted and a complete waste of everyone’s time. He looked more than ever like yesterday’s man.
No wonder Pell’s former auxiliary in Sydney, retired bishop Geoffrey Robinson, said on ABC Radio’s The World Today program on Wednesday that George Pell was “an embarrassment”. Bishop Robinson also disagreed with the cardinal about the inviolability of the seal of confessional in cases where a paedophile priest makes a confession to another priest.
Tony Abbott, Australia’s most high-profile lay Catholic, also came out on Wednesday disagreeing with the cardinal on the same issue. “If they become aware of sexual offences against children, those legal requirements must be adhered to,” he told reporters. “The law is no respecter of persons, everyone has to obey the law, regardless of what job they are doing, what position they hold.”
That’s a measure of how isolated Pell now is within the Catholic Church in Australia. It was an extraordinary day for Australian Catholics. But then so was Tuesday, and the day before, when Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced there would be a national royal commission into the sexual abuse of children.
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