UNITED KINGDOM
Spectator
Damian Thompson
The attempt to implicate Cardinal George Pell in the Ballarat child abuse scandal is a virtuoso display of score-settling by Australia’s left-leaning journalists, who have hated Pell for many years. This morning, however, The Australian broke ranks by publishing a column by Gerard Henderson that helps set the record straight. I’m simply going to quote extracts from it because you can be damn sure that they aren’t going to penetrate the liberal Aussie media’s firewall.
On Pell’s record in tackling child abuse:
On all the available evidence, Pell was among the first Catholic bishops in the world to address the issue of child sexual abuse by clergy. He was appointed archbishop of Melbourne in July 1996 and announced the creation of the Melbourne Response (to deal with child sexual abuse) the following October …
The fact is that Pell was a leader on this issue not only within the Catholic Church but also within the Christian community. And he was well ahead of many secular and government institutions.
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