AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times
May 21, 2015
Madonna King
If George Pell had headed a company and not the Catholic Church in Australia, he would have been chased out by shareholders before he was transferred to the Vatican.
If he’d run a school, and not shown a willingness to investigate serious and systemic accusations against his senior staff, he would have had his contract ended.
Indeed, if he’d led a suburban scout chapter while a litany of crimes went on around him, he would have been stripped of all badges.
But he escaped all of that, by being the head of the Catholic Church in Australia. And now – because of that – the Church’s response to the endemic sex crimes it hid for so long is being seriously dented.
Yesterday’s evidence to the royal commission – in the form of allegations against the former Archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney who now handles the Vatican’s finances – is jaw-dropping.
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