ROME
The Guardian
David Marr
Thursday 3 March 2016
Pity poor George Pell. He was such a sensitive young priest that even reading about child abuse caused him pain. He did it as little as he could.
“I have never enjoyed reading the accounts of these sufferings,” he confessed on Thursday. “I tried to do that only when it was professionally absolutely appropriate because the behaviour is abhorrent and painful to read about.”
Pell’s pain …
That he said this to a roomful of survivors gathered in the Albergo Quirinale in Rome defies belief. And just as incredible is the fact that Pell offered this line to clarify his earlier “very poor” words about paedophilia in Ballarat being a “sad story” that didn’t interest him much.
Was there no one to tell the cardinal what a terrible idea it was to appeal for sympathy in the face of such pain? Where were his advisers? Are they the same crew that let him argue last year that paedophile priests and their victims are like truck drivers and hitchhikers?
Character is the great subject of cross-examination. Pell has emerged from four days harshly exposed. There is so much missing.
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