Dickens tale of the 21st century tells of the bleakest house, by Kieran Tapsell, Sydney Morning Herald (March 26, 2014)

Remember Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol? Ebenezer Scrooge is a cantankerous miser who thinks Christmas is all humbug. He is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner, and, as a result of a series of apparitions, he has a change of heart. He decides to spend the rest of his life being generous.

Cardinal George Pell never thought that the claims of clergy sexual abuse victims were humbug, although a number of his colleagues in the Vatican certainly did. In October 1996, as archbishop of Melbourne, Pell set up the Melbourne Response for dealing with the victims of sexual abuse by clergy and others. It provided for an independent tribunal to determine the amount payable to victims, but it had a cap of $50,000. The other scheme, Towards Healing, set up by his fellow bishops, had a provision for negotiating and mediating compensation, but with no cap. In 2001, Pell became the archbishop of Sydney, where he decided to continue the Towards Healing system.

John Ellis was an altar boy at the Bass Hill parish where he was sexually abused from the age of 13 by Father Aidan Duggan. Ellis became a gifted lawyer and a partner in a prestigious Sydney law firm. As a result of psychological problems, he lost his job, and in 2002 he approached the Sydney Archdiocese through its Towards Healing program about his difficulties. An assessor, Michael Eccleston, was appointed to look into the claim, and in a report that Justice Peter McLellan, heading the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, described as ''legally perfect'', Eccleston found that on the balance of probabilities, Ellis had been abused by Duggan, and his psychological difficulties could be traced to the abuse.

Ellis offered to settle the claim for $100,000 in the Towards Healing process, but that was rejected. He started proceedings to extend the limitation period, naming Pell, the trustees of the archdiocese and Duggan as defendants. He made a formal offer to settle for $750,000, which was also rejected. Duggan in the meantime died, and the case against the other two went all the way to the High Court. Pell and the trustees of the archdiocese won the case - after spending $756,000 on lawyers' fees - with findings that the ''Catholic Church'' did not exist in law, that Pell was not liable for any negligence of his predecessors, and as the trustees had no role in the appointment of priests, they were not liable either. Ellis was ordered to pay costs, estimated on a party/party basis at $500,000.

Now a truly Dickensian character, both in name and appearance, the Reverend Monsignor John Usher, enters. He tells Pell that enforcing the costs order against Ellis was likely to be very damaging to him. Pell agrees to waive the claim for costs, and to have a meeting with Ellis, who is no ghost, but his gaunt appearance would give anyone the guilts, even the granite-faced Pell. According to Ellis, Pell declares that he knew nothing about the offers of settlement and says: ''If I knew that, there is no way I would have spent more on legal costs than you were asking for.'' In a scene reminiscent of Bleak House, Ellis says that Pell blamed his lawyers for subjecting Ellis to ''legal abuse'', a claim the lawyers reject. Pell disputes some of this conversation, but in any event, he agrees to pay for Ellis' continuing psychiatric treatment, and pays for some repairs to his house and a holiday, at the cost of some $570,000.

The Ellis case sent a clear message to all victims of sexual abuse and their lawyers: come cap in hand to the Catholic Church's compensation schemes with their official limit of $50,000 in Melbourne and an unofficial limit of the same amount in Sydney, or you will end up like Ellis if you try to sue the church. The saving to the church is in the order of $550 million at the expense of victims, if payouts in the Toowoomba diocese are any yardstick.

Then the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears, in the form of the three royal commissioners. Pell realises the writing is on the wall, and he announces that whatever his Bleak House lawyers might have done, ''my own view is that the church in Australia should be able to be sued in cases of this kind''. Just how that is achieved will be a matter for the commissioners, but the disquiet over the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing, and in particular the Ellis case, will make sure that not only will victims be properly compensated but that better systems of protection for children will be established.

In the end, Pell might have done for the world, what Scrooge eventually did for Christmas, made it a happier place for children.