AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Opinion
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has vital work to do. Regrettably, its pursuit of justice for thousands of victims of despicable crimes is being overshadowed by a nasty sideshow: that is, the pursuit of Cardinal George Pell by those who loathe his muscular Christianity, his social conservatism and his robust style. British anti-child abuse campaigner Peter Saunders, appointed by Pope Francis to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, is the latest to join the hounds. On Nine Network’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, he demanded action. The Australian agrees. Mr Saunders should apologise to the cardinal for calling him dangerous, callous, cold-hearted, “almost sociopathic” and claiming he treated victims with contempt. Mr Saunders is the victim of grave injustice, abused as a child by two priests. But that is no excuse for inflicting a serious injustice on another innocent man. Mr Saunders did not bother to speak to the cardinal before denigrating his reputation. He has ignored the main facts, as have much of Australia’s liberal-Left media.
George Pell became archbishop of Melbourne in August 1996 and two months later established the Melbourne Response. It was a trailblazing initiative, the first of its kind in Australia with few, if any, parallels in the church overseas. It involved an independent commission, run by an experienced QC, counselling services and a compensation panel. It worked. Dozens of priests have been stood down and convicted, and scores of victims compensated and counselled.
Those who respect Cardinal Pell’s immense contributions to the church, the nation and cleaning up the Vatican’s financial shambles recognise that hysteria over events 30 and 40 years ago, already answered by him in detail, is diverting attention from matters that warrant more attention. Relatively little has been said, for example, about the inhuman treatment meted out by unholy nuns to Ballarat orphans, one of whom had his teeth yanked out by pliers, was tortured with electroshock therapy, locked in a dungeon and forced to fondle a priest as he heard confessions.
Contrary to what The Saturday Paper and James Carleton on the ABC reported, Cardinal Pell was never in charge of the diocese of Ballarat, his home town. He served there as a priest under Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who assigned him to the large, rambling St Alipius presbytery. He had no authority over any other priest. His time there, when he led the Aquinas Catholic teachers college, overlapped with several priests in the house, including the now-defrocked Gerald Ridsdale, a master at hiding his depravity. Journalist and former priest Paul Bongiorno, who once shared a presbytery with Ridsdale in Warrnambool, said last week that he knew nothing at that time about Ridsdale’s evil behaviour.
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