Opinion: Scapegoating of Pell gains emphasis after release of redacted reports

AUSTRALIA
Japan Herald

May 23, 2020

By Peter O’Brien

— Summarising, Cardinal George Pell has been made a scapegoat.
— There has been a suggestion that Victoria Police are re-examining the Report to ascertain if new criminal charges can be brought against the Cardinal.
— There are no grounds for charging Pell with any crime unless they also to choose to charge a multitude of other surviving clerics.

Summarising, Cardinal Pell has been made a scapegoat. Whether that was the intention of the Royal Commission, I cannot say. But that has certainly been the outcome of the almost obsessive examination of the actions and recollections of a man whose direct involvement in the management of these offenders was minimal at best. The blame falls squarely and overwhelmingly at the feet of Bishop Mulkearns, Archbishop Little and various Provincials of the Christian Brothers. Contrary to natural justice, and contrasted with the treatment meted out to Cardinal Pell by the pack-hunting media, these men are not today the objects of infamy and rebuke that they should be.

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