UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
The clergy abuse survivors of Australia and the rule of law have scored a major victory. Cardinal Pell has been induced to take a Vatican desk job apparently to avoid the unrelenting and escalating pressure from the Australian Royal Commission’s investigation into institutional child sexual abuse. The pressure was increased by the testimony of a sacked Aussie bishop who described the Vatican’s interference in local abuse scandals as reported here
The Royal Commission can likely still reach Pell in due course, if and when it wants to.
The Vatican’s apologists, of course, have tried to spin this as a “promotion”, but this fantasy fools few. Australia’s top Catholic leader has reluctantly had to flee his beloved homeland to seek Vatican protection, as the USA’s Cardinal Law did a decade before.
Meanwhile, a Polish Archbishop, a protege of Pope John Paul II and former Nuncio to the Dominican Republic, is already crowding the Vatican’s refuge for hierarchs seeking to avoid the child abuse scandal fallout.
Who will be next as the Vatican circles its wagons to protect cardinals and bishops ? What ever happened to the Pope’s abuse commission? Can the Pope continue avoiding the abuse scandal as discussed here
Pell has been made head of Vatican finances, which led a knowledgeable Jesuit insider, Thomas Reese, to ask ” … why did this job not go to a layperson? Do we really need cardinals to handle finances in the Vatican? The answer is that Rome is still a papal court where princes of the church still matter, despite all Francis’ protestations.” A fuller answer is that it gave Francis a face-saving way to yank Pell from Down Under as the heat from the Royal Commission intensifies.
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