AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
March 17, 2014
Frank Brennan
Cardinal George Pell is about to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He will face a detailed cross-examination under oath by Justice Peter McClellan and counsel assisting Gail Furness, SC. They will focus on the archdiocese of Sydney’s handling of the John Ellis case. But they will also take the opportunity to question Pell about the history of the Australian Catholic Church’s handling of abuse allegations.
Pell has often expressed his disgust and regret at the sexual abuse of children by church workers, especially priests. Since 1996, when he was appointed archbishop of Melbourne, Pell has worked hard to reduce the prospect of such abuse and to set in place procedures for helping victims and weeding out perpetrators. Initially, he decided to establish his own process in Melbourne, rather than working with the other bishops and religious leaders who were developing the Towards Healing protocol.
Pell has already faced the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse. Having been auxiliary bishop in Melbourne between 1987 and 1996, he told that inquiry: ”As an auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Little, I did not have the authority to handle these matters and had only some general impressions about the response that was being made at that time but this was sufficient to make it clear to me that this was an issue which needed urgent attention and that we needed to do much better in our response.”
The Victorian inquiry was critical of Frank Little and the Catholic Church processes before 1996. Many people inside and outside the church were left wondering if Archbishop Little didn’t respond adequately between 1987 and 1996, why didn’t his auxiliary bishop, Pell, do something? And if the archbishop knew during those nine years, why didn’t his auxiliary?
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