George Pell and the Leadership Lesson of a Leaderless Organisation

By Leo D'Angelo
The Brw
May 28, 2013

http://www.brw.com.au/p/leadership/george_pell_and_the_leadership_lesson_bZdWpFLYRP4UaS2AyUCo7I

The Archbishop of Sydney George Pell insists he is not the head of the Catholic Church in Australia

Cardinal George Pell is Australia’s most senior Catholic, but he rejects the assertion that he is the head of the Catholic Church in Australia. At his marathon four-and-a-half-hour appearance before the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse on Monday, Pell admitted to many things, but he did not agree that the buck for systemic abuse of children by Catholic priests stopped with him.

“I’m not the Catholic Prime Minister of Australia. I am not the general manager Australia. The Catholic Church is. . . a very interesting example of a flat organisation,” he told the at times openly-hostile inquiry.

It may well be an organisational nicety of the Catholic Church hierarchy that Pell does not carry the title “chief executive officer, Catholic Church Australia Ltd” on his business card, but nobody was under the illusion that Pell was not speaking for the church as the titular, if not actual, head of the church in Australia.

When Pell told the inquiry, “I’m fully apologetic and absolutely sorry” and admitted “that lives have been blighted”, that “these crimes have contributed to too many suicides”, and that priests who had abused children in their care had been deliberately moved from parish to parish, and that “in some cases, unfortunately” paedophile priests were placed above the law – these were not the admissions of a mere parish priest. The weight of these shocking admissions about the church’s failings came from the authority of Pell’s leadership of the church.

Until now, admissions, when they have been made at all, have been grudging, circuitous and presented as isolated examples rather than the systemic and widespread horrors that everyone except the church seemed aware of.

The church’s position on the existence of systemic abuse within its organisation, and the enormous damage it was doing to the lives of many hundreds – countless thousands around the world – is not unlike the refusal of tobacco companies to admit to the cancerous properties of cigarettes and the deaths they were causing.

As the Catholic Church has at last discovered, organisations behaving badly can only cover up their malfeasance and culpability for so long. Perhaps it is not a total certainty, but as rules of thumb go, truth will always out.

If honesty, integrity and decency are not an organisation’s philosophical drivers, then Crisis Management 101 will dictate that the best way of not being caught out is to do the right thing in the first place.

What a shame that, of all possible organisations, such basic advice should have to go to a religious institution.

But if there were any doubts that the Catholic Church, in its wholesale denials and half-admissions of the past, has been behaving as just another cynical organisation, Pell dispelled those doubts at the parliamentary inquiry.

Explaining the cover-ups, Pell admitted: “The primary motivation would have been to respect the reputation of the church. There was a fear of scandal …”

But in any case, who knew the problem was so serious? “I don’t think many. . .  in the leadership of the Catholic Church knew what a horrendous mess we were sitting on.”

Pell denied that the systemic abuse was a failure of culture or inadequate organisational structures: “The problems are with mistaken decisions and/or inactivity of officials in those structures.” One official in particular was explicitly singled out for covering up allegations of criminal behaviour by priests: “You’ve got to blame the [former] archbishop [of Melbourne, the late Frank Little]. The way he did it was reprehensible.” So much for not speaking ill of the dead.

But now that these admissions have been made in such unambiguous language, what next for the Catholic Church?

Although he is the most senior Catholic in the nation, Pell insists that he is not in charge of the church in Australia. If he were, there would be a strong case for demanding his resignation.

Pell defended his own record before the inquiry, pointing out that he created the Melbourne Response system to consider “Complaints of sexual and other abuse by priests, religious and lay persons under the control of the Archbishop of Melbourne” upon becoming archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. (Pell is currently the Archbishop of Sydney.)

But Pell has also faced accusations of arrogance, insensitivity and inadequacy when dealing with individual cases of alleged abuse and criticism of widespread abuse within the church. When his words or actions are not giving the impression of a haughty, remote and unfeeling response to allegations of child abuse, his body language very often does.

If not Pell, then who will take responsibility for the systemic failings of the church – from crimes perpetrated by priests to cover-ups knowingly undertaken by the church leadership? The church’s failure are surely failures of policy, oversight and leadership.

When Pell reflected on the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, who unexpectedly resigned in February, he raised eyebrows by stating Benedict was a “magnificent” teacher and theologian but was lacking as a leader. Pell cited the leaking of classified Vatican documents by the Pope’s butler – the scandal dubbed Vatileaks – as an example of poor “governance” under Benedict.

Before the election of Francis, Pell explained to Italy’s La Stampa newspaper the qualities the new Pope should possess: “I think we need somebody who is a strategist, a decision-maker, a planner, somebody who has got strong pastoral capabilities already demonstrated so that he can take a grip of the situation and take the church forward.”

Benedict’s resignation has set the precedent for a church leader to step down, and Pell himself has underlined the importance of administrative, as well as theological, leadership in the modern church.

If it is technically so that Pell is not leader of the Catholic Church in Australia, then perhaps it is unfair that he should shoulder the ultimate blame. But the church’s failure’s having been conceded, who is going to put the church right in Australia?

The reforms that must take place cannot take place by committee. And even if a committee is to dictate reforms, then they must be implemented by a leader and leadership team; and somebody must take responsibility.

The church in Australia has many failings to face up to, and one of them is a failure of leadership. If the Catholic Church in Australia does not have a leader, then it’s time it got one.