Pell a Victim of Left-wing Witch-hunt

By Gerard Henderson
Daily Telegraph
June 2, 2015

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/pell-a-victim-of-left-wing-witch-hunt/story-fni0cwl5-1227378511061

Is Cardinal George Pell the victim of a left-wing witch-hunt?

CARDINAL George Pell is the victim of a modern-day witch-hunt. As a social conservative, Pell has a number of opponents within the Catholic Church. But his main attackers are presenters and journalists employed by the ABC and certain other outlets who rarely, if ever, allow an alternative voice to be heard.

Yet, on all available evidence, Pell was among the first bishops in the world to address child sex abuse by clergy. He was appointed archbishop of Melbourne in July 1996 and announced the creation of the Melbourne Response the following October.

Pell was a leader on this issue not only within the Church but well ahead of many secular and government institutions. For example, the royal commission heard complaints against a Sydney doctor in 1998 were not investigated until many years later.

The ABC coverage of Pell has been replete with ignorance and prejudice. On Radio National, presenter James Carleton described Pell as a former “bishop of Ballarat”. Pell was never in control of priests in the Ballarat diocese. The Drum website contains an article by lawyer Michael Bradley that describes Pell as a “def­endant”. The cardinal has not been charged with any offence whatsoever.

Last week ABC News Breakfast opened its coverage of the Ballarat royal commission hearings with the claim that “new evidence” had been discovered with respect to Pell. Claims that Pell offered bribes in a bid to obtain a victim’s sil­ence were first made — and refuted by Pell — in 2002.

Pell admits to mistakes in the handling of child sexual abuse cases. But there is no evidence he was “complicit” in covering up child sexual abuse.

In his book The Prince, Guardian journalist David Marr wrote Pell “noticed nothing” when he shared accommodation with paedophile priest Gerard Ridsdale in 1973. Marr has said nothing about journalist and former priest Paul Bongiorno, who also said he noticed nothing when he shared a presbytery with Ridsdale about the same time. Bongiorno received an empathetic hearing from ABC RN presenter Fran Kelly. Pell is entitled to the same understanding of his time in Ballarat. But he won’t receive it because, unlike his one-time fellow priest, Pell is a social conservative.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute. This is an edited version of his column in The Weekend Australian.