AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail
Karen Brooks
The Courier-Mail
AS THE Academy Awards were presented and Spotlight, (the film about the Boston Globe exposé on the clergy and child sex abuse) won the Oscar for Best Picture, Cardinal George Pell began giving evidence at the child abuse royal commission from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome.
Ironic really, as Pell’s adamant stance he “knew nothing”, “was deceived” and his consistent use of the “hierarchical defence” (it was someone else’s responsibility) was a performance in itself.
From confident and articulate to almost bumbling and vague, what became very clear over the four days of questioning was that, regardless of Pell’s protestations of innocence and/or ignorance, he never once asserted himself on any victim’s account, nor went out of his way to prevent what was clearly happening from continuing.
On the contrary, Pell did the minimum required at all times and then, it appears, dismissed it from his mind.
Like the stories of Father Gerald Ridsdale’s abuses, they were sad stories “and of not much interest to me”.
But, after all, Cardinal Pell had a career to shore up. Is it a coincidence that the more he “didn’t know” and act upon the harrowing tales of sexual abuse of children, the higher up the Catholic ladder he climbed?
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