AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
David Marr
When George Pell dumped on Melbourne’s Catholic Education Office in March the question was: would the church strike back or hunker down behind the cardinal? On Wednesday the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse gave the answer: strike back hard.
At issue is Pell’s credit. Time and again as he has defended his record as a priest in Ballarat and bishop in Melbourne, the cardinal’s best answer to his accusers has been: my word can be trusted against yours.
That’s not looking so good now.
To recap: when Pell came to Melbourne as an auxiliary bishop in 1987 there was an erratic and violent priest called Peter Searson terrifying children at the parish school in Doveton.
He hit them. They fled screaming from the presbytery. He packed a gun. He hung round the boys’ toilet. He sat little girls on his lap during confession. He took gruesome delight in showing kids a corpse in a coffin. He stole parish funds.
Father Searson was plainly nuts, but the Catholic Education Office couldn’t get rid of him. They’d run complaints up to the then archbishop of Melbourne, Frank Little, but nothing would be done.
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