AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Peter FitzSimons
Columnist
The Cardinal’s sins means he is finished
Staggeringly, even after all the testimony of Cardinal Pell this week at the royal commission, there is still a scattered band of supporters who refuse to accept the obvious: it is over, and he is finished. The absolute best case that can be made in his defence is that, instead of wilfully ignoring atrocities going on all around him, he just didn’t get that it was his duty to do something, to act for the children. This line of defence has it that he didn’t get it because that was the way things were done in those times, or, more to the point, not done. Now, even if you accept that – and I don’t – how obvious is it that the times have completely passed him by? The Catholic Church sits atop a crisis of its own making. For centuries it has made the sexual starvation of its employees a specific condition of their employment, even while placing many of them around vulnerable children. Notwithstanding the many great priests and nuns who have done wonderful work, such a policy has both attracted and helped to create deviants of indescribable evil, and has demonstrably done so around the world, for centuries. This royal commission is just one example of light currently being shone, globally, upon the horror. Now, in the wake of Cardinal Pell’s testimony, who thinks he is the man who should be in the vanguard of leading the church to the light? Please. “Still,” the supporters cry, “what about the Melbourne Response, that Pell pioneered?” Exactly. You only need to know one thing about the Melbourne Response. Beyond putting a cap on damages paid to victims, it did not result in a single call being made to police. Not one! As victims came forward, deals were done, and money paid, but not a call. Now, who still defends it? Yes, yes, yes, but apart from you, I mean, Gerard.
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