Cardinal's Evidence Puts Abuse Crisis in Perspective

The Australian
May 28, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/cardinals-evidence-puts-abuse-crisis-in-perspective/story-e6frg71x-1226651672839

THE Catholic Church, like the Australian Defence Force, state-run children's services and other churches, has been forced to learn hard lessons about the criminal abuse of innocent victims by those in positions of trust. In some cases, such depravity led to lifelong damage and even contributed to suicides.

For two decades, Catholics have suffered a sense of betrayal as the church's propensity to cover up criminal activity, shield perpetrators and transfer them from parish to parish or school to school has been exposed. Victims naturally seek justice, comfort and closure from the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Abuse and the upcoming Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The inquiries, however, have another important task: to ensure that safeguards are enacted to prevent abuse in future. Judging by the evidence of Australia's most senior Catholic leader, Cardinal George Pell, to the Victorian commission yesterday, the church has made some progress towards putting its house in order.

Two months after his appointment as Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, Archbishop Pell set up the Independent Commission into Sexual Abuse headed by independent QC Peter O'Callaghan, with a separate panel assessing compensation payouts of up to $50,000, in line with state criminal compensation. At the time, the move was cutting-edge, putting the Archdiocese ahead of the rest of the church and other institutions. The process was more transparent than the Towards Healing protocol established shortly afterwards in other parts of the Catholic Church in Australia and well ahead of most of the US and Ireland, where the main government inquiry did not start until 1999. As the Cardinal said, the fact that 242 abuse complaints had been upheld from the 1970s, 82 from the 1980s, between 22 and 24 from the 1990s and fewer than 20 since 2000 indicated the problem was being contained.

It was obvious from Cardinal Pell's evidence and that of Archbishop Denis Hart that moral responsibility for the inaction, cover-ups and callous disregard for the protection of children rested squarely with an earlier generation of church leaders - archbishop Frank Little in Melbourne, who failed to keep records, and bishop Ronald Mulkearns in Ballarat, who destroyed records. In Brisbane, newspaper investigations in the 1990s found similar problems had occurred under archbishop Francis Rush. Unfortunately, the reluctance of church leaders decades ago to discuss the issue, mentioned by the Cardinal yesterday, often extended to lay people and in some cases parts of the media.

The royal commission must recommend effective safeguards. But it must not allow itself to degenerate into a kangaroo court. Yesterday's suggestion by Victorian MP Andrea Coote, for example, that the church sell its "splendid palace" in Rome - a guesthouse open to all - smacked of prejudice and hostility, as did the tone of some other questioners. In his 4 1/2 hours of evidence, Cardinal Pell was patient, open and credible. He and Archbishop Hart are in the forefront of dealing with the abuse and mismanagement that has undermined the church's credibility. They are part of the solution, not the problem.