AUSTRALIA
John Menadue: Pearls and Irritations
Posted on 10/03/2016 by John Menadue
Cardinal George Pell must now be regretting not having come back to Australia to give his evidence to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the relatively small town of Ballarat in the State of Victoria. By claiming that his medical condition did not allow him to travel, and offering to give video evidence in Rome, he has turned his performance in the witness box into a media feast that otherwise might have gone unnoticed in the international press.
First there was the Tim Minchin song that went viral, “Come Home Cardinal Pell”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHOmforqxk . Then the extraordinary donations by Australians of some $A 200,000 to pay for abuse survivors to attend at the Quirinale Hotel in Rome to watch Pell give evidence.
Pell’s performance in the witness box ensured an even greater media coverage. It was repeatedly put to him by counsel assisting the Commission that his claim of lack of knowledge of child sexual abuse in Ballarat was “implausible”, which gives you some idea of the findings that are likely to be made against him in the Commission’s Report. Ever since the Erebus Royal Commission in New Zealand, the Commission is obliged to put to parties being investigated a likely finding to allow them to respond. Pell’s responses only made such a finding more likely.
After the completion of his evidence, Pell met with the survivors in Rome. Survivor David Nagle said that they talked about “the future”, and what Pell could do in his position in the Catholic Church.
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