AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Peter FitzSimons
I genuinely have no firm view as to the likely guilt or innocence of Cardinal George Pell on the grave charges of child sexual abuse levelled against him, and do not seek to pre-judge the legal process in any way.
But whatever happens in his particular case, it is worth noting the accolades coming Australia’s way for the fact that the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse begun by the Gillard government has accomplished so much in turning a much-needed spotlight onto the horrors of rampant sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy over the decades.
The charges brought against Cardinal Pell, the highest-ranked Catholic ever so charged, have brought world attention to the fact that – as pointed out by Gold Walkley-winning journalist Joanne McCarthy, whose work was responsible for it – we are the only country in the world that gone to the level of a national royal commission in examining Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
It has been inspirational for myriad other abuse survivors around the world, with, for example, the highly influential US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) noting, its “hope that the Australian government’s long and extensive investigation into institutional abuse inspires other countries to follow in their footsteps and hold similar hearings”.
Again, I say, take a bow, Joanne McCarthy and Julia Gillard and all those who have had the courage to step up. Pell is only a tiny part of the whole story, but it is a victory for the law, and for abuse survivors worldwide, that even so powerful a priest can have those charges tested in a court of law.
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