Where Is Your Compassion, Cardinal Pell?

Herald Sun
June 2, 2015

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/where-is-your-compassion-cardinal-pell/story-fnpug1je-1227378620416

Before there was Oprah and her famous tear-jerker telefessions, in which a remorseful subject perched on her couch and sought absolution for admitting their sins, there was confession of the religious kind.

For his sake, the sake of his church, and most importantly, for the victims of abuse, George Pell must return to Australia and address these allegations head on. Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

In principle, it is a practice to be admired. A ritual that encourages a person to be honest in owning up to their transgressions and in turn enjoy the clean slate that forgiveness provides.

In reality, however, things can unfold somewhat imperfectly. At least they did for this former Catholic schoolgirl, who recalls mumbling apologetically about throwing my uneaten lunch away upon being initiated to the sacrament of reconciliation aged seven years old.

Having been absolved of any wrongdoing and sent away to rattle off a few Hail Marys, I remember feeling only relief that I had been spared an eternity in hell for my habit of regularly discarding any stale or uninspired sandwiches straight into the nearest bin.

Rather than prompt any serious soul-searching about how I could avoid such needless waste in future, my experience with confession left me feeling I had covered my bases. Now that my sins had been forgiven by the Almighty’s local representative – the parish priest – I was confident reconciliation would shield me from any further accountability.

I have been reminded of this disconnect between faith and character, of the chasm that can lie between a church and its conscience, as Cardinal George Pell has come under scrutiny during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Already facing accusations of being dismissive and unsympathetic to victims, and forced to deny he attempted to bribe another to buy his silence, Cardinal Pell has now found himself on the receiving end of a scathing attack from Peter Saunders, the Pope’s appointed commissioner for the protection of children.

“Personally I think that his position is untenable because he has now a catalogue of denials,” Saunders told 60 Minutes.

“He has a catalogue of… acting with callousness, cold-heartedness… this lack of care.”

Defenders of Pell are adamant he is the real victim; that far from being slow to act on such matters he has been proactive in confronting claims of abuse within the church.

But the claims of many victims’ families draw a contrary picture: a picture of a man who appears indifferent to the suffering endured by innocents whose young lives have been destroyed by the reprehensible behaviour of those who preyed upon them.

For a man of Pell’s stature, it is simply not good enough to stand by passively and let others spring to his defence. For his sake, the sake of his church, and most importantly, for the victims of abuse, he must return to Australia and address these allegations head on.

If the Royal Commission achieves anything – and for those who have finally been given a forum to share their harrowing tales it has already achieved much – then surely it is a vow that the complicity of those who fail to intervene will no longer be tolerated.

What Pell appears not to understand is that for a person already grappling with the devastating breach of trust that takes place in a case of abuse, to have those complaints not taken seriously by senior figures only compounds the initial betrayal.

As much as he may bristle at the characterisation, Pell projects an aura of a man who seems to lack empathy.

It’s a less-than-endearing quality in anyone, even if they don’t happen to be Australia’s most senior Catholic.

But for someone in Pell’s position, the embodiment of an institution from which followers are expected to take their moral cues, his apparent lack of compassion is staggering – and from a professional perspective, surely could be terminal.