George Pell can lift veil of secrecy around church sex abuse, by Frank Brennan, Sydney Morning Herald (March 17, 2014)

Cardinal George Pell is about to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He will face a detailed cross-examination under oath by Justice Peter McClellan and counsel assisting Gail Furness, SC. They will focus on the archdiocese of Sydney's handling of the John Ellis case. But they will also take the opportunity to question Pell about the history of the Australian Catholic Church's handling of abuse allegations.

Pell has often expressed his disgust and regret at the sexual abuse of children by church workers, especially priests. Since 1996, when he was appointed archbishop of Melbourne, Pell has worked hard to reduce the prospect of such abuse and to set in place procedures for helping victims and weeding out perpetrators. Initially, he decided to establish his own process in Melbourne, rather than working with the other bishops and religious leaders who were developing the Towards Healing protocol.

Pell has already faced the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse. Having been auxiliary bishop in Melbourne between 1987 and 1996, he told that inquiry: ''As an auxiliary bishop to Archbishop Little, I did not have the authority to handle these matters and had only some general impressions about the response that was being made at that time but this was sufficient to make it clear to me that this was an issue which needed urgent attention and that we needed to do much better in our response.''

The Victorian inquiry was critical of Frank Little and the Catholic Church processes before 1996. Many people inside and outside the church were left wondering if Archbishop Little didn't respond adequately between 1987 and 1996, why didn't his auxiliary bishop, Pell, do something? And if the archbishop knew during those nine years, why didn't his auxiliary?

In November, the Victorian parliamentary committee reported. Welcoming the report, Pell admitted past mistakes by the Melbourne archdiocese during his time as auxiliary bishop there. Signalling a change of approach, he wrote: ''The report details some of the serious failures in the way the church dealt with these crimes and responded to victims, especially before the procedural reforms of the mid 1990s. Irreparable damage has been caused. By the standards of common decency and by today's standards, church authorities were not only slow to deal with the abuse but sometimes did not deal with it in any appropriate way at all. This is indefensible.''

It is only part of the story to lay blame at the feet of deceased church leaders such as Little. The opaque hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church leaves many Australian citizens wondering about the clerical culture inside the church and its lack of transparency and accountability. While in Melbourne, Pell was able to say that, as an auxiliary bishop, he was not responsible for the supervision of erring priests. In Sydney, when he became archbishop, he had to deal with the Ellis litigation, where the court found that an archbishop and his auxiliary bishops were responsible for appointments and supervision. The differing role of auxiliary bishops in different dioceses will need to be clarified before the commission.

In Sydney, Pell brought in Corrs, his favoured lawyers from Melbourne, as his primary legal advisers. They ran the Ellis litigation very hard. Monsignor John Usher, chancellor of the archdiocese of Sydney, wrote to John Ellis on August 6, 2009, stating that he was distressed to learn that the archdiocesan lawyers had never responded to an offer of compromise and that the cardinal ''will do all in his power to ensure that this sort of legal abuse is never repeated again''.

Major firms briefing senior counsel in the appeal courts incurring six-figure expenses are careful to act on instructions from their clients. The commission will want to establish who in Pell's office was responsible for authorising or failing to arrest the legal abuse.

In preparation for his pending appearance, Pell made a second and more specific admission of the need for a change of approach. He wrote: ''Whatever position was taken by the lawyers during the litigation, or by lawyers or individuals within the archdiocese following the litigation, my own view is that the church in Australia should be able to be sued in cases of this kind.''

We need to know which diocesan personnel appoint and supervise church workers, including priests, and which diocesan personnel actually run the show, issuing instructions to lawyers who, in the past, have pursued individuals such as Ellis.

The spotlight on the Ellis case should lead to better church administration for the good of everyone, especially those abused or wronged by those in authority. Together, Pell and McClellan can provide us with a better-lit path through the thickets of past abuse and maladministration.

Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest and professor of law at the Australian Catholic University.