In Australia, Cardinal Pell is public enemy number one. His evidence on Tuesday to the country’s abuse inquiry, when he said the case of abusive priest Gerard Ridsdale didn’t particularly interest him, has led to a vilification in the press.
The news was on the front page of at least two newspapers with the Herald Sun carrying a picture of the cardinal with the headline “see no evil, hear no evil, stop no evil” while the Courier Mail had “not my cross”. And there is far, far worse on social media.
In the Vatican, however, things are not seen in such black and white terms.
One thing is for sure though: the cardinal’s evidence to the commission into institutional responses to the abuse of children is being monitored closely by senior
02 March 2016, The Tablet
Where does the royal commission leave Cardinal Pell in the Vatican?
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User comments (4)
Which is exactly what we saw on-line during 4 nights of excruciatingly evasive near monosyllabic testimony.
Testimony which made Cardinal Pell’s many many years of study at the most prestigious of institutions both church sponsored and lay, at Monash, in Rome and at Oxbridge (both branches), culminating in a D Phil from Oxford University entitled “The exercise of authority in early Christianity...”seem like so much money down the drain. Especially given how tenuous apparently was the cardinal’s grasp of the natural moral law obligation on adults, irrespective of the presence or the absence of “hierarchical authority,” to move heaven and earth to protect children from any harm whatsoever. Still less from vile sexual abuse.
What sort of message is that?