Truckers Outraged by Cardinal George Pell's Sex Abuse Comparison
By Melissa Davey
The Australian Trucking Association has joined child sexual abuse victims and their advocates in expressing outrage at comments made by Cardinal George Pell while giving evidence before a royal commission on Thursday night. While facing questions from the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse, Pell said the Catholic Church was no more responsible for child abuse carried out by church figures than a trucking company would be if they employed a driver who molested women. “If the truck driver picks up some lady and then molests her, I don’t think it’s appropriate, because it is contrary to the policy, for the ownership, the leadership of that company to be held responsible,” Cardinal Pell told the commission via video link from Rome on Thursday. His comments left chair of the Australian Trucking Association, Noelene Watson, fuming. “There are more than 170,000 professional truck drivers in Australia,” she said. “They have families and children. Cardinal Pell’s analogy is a deep insult to every one of them.” The comments were a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the commission’s questioning of the church, she said. The commission hearing, which began on Monday, is examining the Melbourne Response, a scheme Pell introduced to the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne in 1996 to investigate sex abuse claims. Danny Hewat, who was sexually abused by two Christian Brothers at a St Vincent De Paul boys orphanage in South Melbourne, sat in the public gallery to hear Pell’s evidence. The comment had left him feeling “empty inside”, he said. “It was laughable.” Anthony Foster, whose wife Chrissy gave evidence before the commission on Monday, described Pell’s analogy as an invalid one. The Fosters’ daughters, Katie and Emma, were repeatedly abused by Father Kevin O’Donnell at Sacred Heart primary school in Oakleigh. They suffered severe depression and turned to drugs to dull the pain. Emma died as a result of a drug overdose, a suicide, while Katie suffered permanent brain damage after being hit by a car while crossing a road after binge drinking. “He [Pell] could have said things that could have influenced the church to make the necessary changes now, but he kept talking about the past and about how things were different then,” Foster said. “Above all the church should be a moral leader. His comparison was completely invalid.” The co-founder of the Care Leavers Australia Network, Leonie Sheedy, whose organisation supports those abused in orphanages and foster homes, said Pell’s comments were insulting to all victims of the church. “The church did absolutely have a duty of care to us,” she said. “The government paid them to look after us and they failed us in that duty miserably when they exposed us to pedophiles and to cruelty.” The commission chair, Justice Peter McClellan, challenged Pell on his comments during the hearing. “When a priest, through the act of the parish or in any other way, gains access to a child who comes to the church with parents … that is quite different to the relationship between the truck driver and the casual passenger, isn’t it?” McClellan said. Pell replied: “Yes, I would certainly concede that.” Pell’s evidence on Thursday evening went for more than two and a half hours and was marred with technical difficulties. He appeared via videolink from the Vatican in Rome, where he is the financial controller. Ex-gratia payments made under the Melbourne Response by the church to May 2014 amounted to more than $17m. Between October 1996 and March 2014, 351 complaints had been investigated under the scheme. Earlier in the week, the commission heard from victims whose child sex abuse claims were investigated under the scheme, who described it as flawed and lacking compassion. The hearings are the first time the Melbourne Response has come under formal review in almost two decades.
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