BishopAccountability.org
	Pell War a Cardinal Shame By Christopher Pearson The Australian July 19, 2008 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24040493-7583,00.html ABC television's Lateline is well-nigh indispensable viewing for anyone who takes an interest in Australian politics. The program makes the most of the luxury of examining complex issues in depth. While there can be no mistaking the broadly left-liberal sympathies of its host and the team who produce it, the debate it encourages is on the whole urbane and well-informed. I've had occasion to single out Lateline for praise, especially in its determined pursuit of the scandalous sexual abuse and violence against children in remote indigenous communities. Once Tony Jones, its main presenter, had aired and then overcome his reservations about the political incorrectness of the subject matter, the show's coverage left no stone unturned. Unfortunately, the program also has a relentlessly secularist agenda and a markedly hostile attitude toward the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell. In 2004, when the opportunity arose to suggest that there had been a conservative conspiracy to buy the Catholic vote at a mid-election meeting between Pell and the Coalition's health minister at the time, Tony Abbott, Lateline stooped to the worst kind of "gotcha!" tabloid tactics. That the meeting was before the election being called and concerned a personal matter -- both facts readily available if a journalist had cared to ask -- wasn't allowed to get in the way of a good story that favoured federal Labor. There have been other attempts to discredit Pell during the intervening years, but none as reckless and ill-considered as last week's, just before the opening of World Youth Day. Lateline had been given evidence that Pell had given conflicting versions of the facts regarding a sexually predatory priest to two of his victims in letters signed on the same day. Prima facie, it looked like a pretty damaging attempt to avoid paying compensation to a claimant, and once again the program rushed to judgment, convinced that the only possible explanation was a shameful cover-up. If Lateline had done its homework, it would have discovered that this was not an open-and-shut case and made an effort to tell all sides of the story. Had it paid more heed to the fraught state of the claimant under the spotlight and the outcomes of previous criminal proceedings and litigation, it would probably have decided that this was a story it shouldn't touch with a barge pole. Instead we got prosecutory TV and a second helping the next night with three of Pell's critics. Pell promptly admitted he'd mishandled matters but said that he'd acted in good faith. As anyone who regularly deals with a vast stream of correspondence and relies on a dictaphone knows, to err is human. I hope that other religious leaders will learn from his embarrassment and retain diligent lawyers to make sure they've got the facts right before signing off on letters to complainants in cases such as these because it's crucial that they receive due process, regardless of the merits of individual cases. Had Lateline accorded the cardinal the journalistic equivalent of due process, it would have acknowledged from the outset that the case turned on the complex question of whether the complainant -- as it happens, another Tony Jones -- had consented to the sexual encounter he says wrecked his life, and for which his lawyers demanded a settlement of $3.5 million. The audience should have been told when first the story went to air that the evidence was by no means as clear-cut as the complainant seems to think and that Pell had a duty of prudent management of the resources of his archdiocese. Attention should also immediately have been drawn to the readily available sentencing remarks of the judge in the criminal trial and to David Marr's press commentary on what was seen at the time as a paradigm of victimless crime. Instead, the show treated as definitive evidence of the lack of consent, an admission to the complainant Jones, in a phone call tapped by the police, by the priest to the effect that he'd taken advantage of the 29-year-old teacher and that he'd behaved very badly. This admission was included in the statement of agreed facts at the trial. But it was the kind of vague confession that guilt-stricken clergy often make in the circumstances and cut so little ice with the NSW judge that he sentenced the offender to be detained "until the rising of the court", in this case a period of four seconds. It is regrettable that the impartiality of judge Philip Bell has been called into question because he'd been one of the many in the legal profession investigated by the Wood royal commission into pedophilia in the mid-'90s. He had also been charged with offences against under-age males in the late '60s, following allegations by Franca Arena in the NSW parliament. However, he's never been convicted of any offence and was not subject to any adverse findings by the royal commission. The chief judge of the NSW District Court went out of his way to say that Bell "shouldn't have to withdraw from sexual assault cases" or mention the dismissed charges in open court. I'm inclined to think that Bell would have felt obliged to frame his sentencing remarks with exemplary clarity and balance, knowing the kind of scrutiny they'd attract. The judge found that, after the first unwelcome pass, "the adult victim was aware of the situation he was in and he did not seek to leave it" before the second attempt. That he had an immediate erection on both occasions was noted in the statement of agreed facts. As to the suggestion of a traumatic reaction and that, having undressed in the priest's bedroom, he made no protest because "paralysed with fear", Bell was dismissive. "There is no support at all in the evidence for such a proposition and it is rejected." Jones has had two nervous breakdowns since then and lives on welfare support. He claims to have been a normal, well-adjusted young man with a girlfriend before this encounter and to have had to give up his teaching job as a result, fearing he might become a danger to his students. "I had a sense that if I couldn't trust a priest, who could I trust, who could trust me?" For some, the real question will be whether he was a homosexual man who couldn't come to terms with the fact. Marr summed up the situation, saying "the teacher does not deny being a gay man". That noted, I think it's fair to add that Marr would not generally regard virginity lost at age 29 after a candle-lit supper as much of a loss and that for him "being a gay man" is more of a manifest destiny than just another option. Still, pious young men, whatever their inclinations, are entitled to try to live chastely, to be accorded respect for making that difficult choice and not to be lured into temptation by a priest. In the '80s, identity politics often wrought havoc with people uncertain or divided about their sexual orientation. In this case, there are difficulties in trying to pin a hard and fast identity tag on the person he was 26 years ago. There remains the issue of compensation, which seemed sensibly settled a few weeks ago until the media furore reopened the matter. His lawyers and, through its preparedness to tell his side of the story, Lateline, in their various ways, have left Jones expecting a big payout. At this juncture, it's hard to see that they've done him any favours. Questions seem to me to arise over why his advisers stood by while he mortgaged his house to fund legal action against the Catholic Church and the TV show that used him, albeit a willing conscript, to attack Pell. A fresh ecclesiastical inquiry has been convened, which may or may not end up recommending that Jones be given a modest lump sum. But his unassuageable sense of grievance and entitlement don't augur well. A week ago he told reporters: "I'll never give up. I'll keep fighting until I have to give in and that would mean ending my life. I'll be a thorn in their side forever." Industry sources tell me that the other Tony Jones, Lateline's presenter, is presently preoccupied with bedding down Q and A, which he also hosts. That means, of course, that someone else with the program may largely be responsible for Pell's latest trial by TV.
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