March 1, 2019
George Pell had powerful friends.
The first was (Sir) James O’Collins the Bishop of Ballarat. He saw in Pell a future Church champion and was responsible for moving Pell from the Catholic Seminary in Werribee to the prestigious international Vatican seminary in Rome, the Pontifical Urban University. This gave Pell his first whiff of life in Rome and he thrived on it. In 1966 Pell was ordained priest in St Peter’s Basilica. From that time Pell saw it as his destiny to return to Rome. Where all power was centered. Where all fealty was due.
Pell’s association with Bishop O’Collins brought him to discipleship of BA Santamaria and the Movement. This was the time of the acrimonious creation of the DLP (Democratic Labor Party) and the fight against communism. Pell followed the calls of Santamaria all his life and assisted him at his deathbed.
Pell’s most powerful friend in Rome was Pope John Paul II, who was Pell’s hero. Within hours of Archbishop (Sir) Frank Little resigning in July 1966 due to ill-health, the Vatican – John Paul II – announced Pell as his replacement. There was no process of consulting Australian Bishops. In 2003 it was John Paul II who gave Pell his “red hat”, that of a Cardinal.
Pell’s further powerful friend in Rome was Pope Benedict XXVI. Pell has campaigned for the election of Cardinal Ratzinger and it was rumored that Pell would succeed Ratzinger as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sometimes referred to as the Headquarters of the Vatican Secret Police, charged with implementing the Cardinal’s rule of law without fear or favor.
George Pell continues to have powerful friends.
Former Prime Minister John Howard has always backed George Pell. Beginning 2002, while claims of child abuse against George Pell were being formally investigated, John Howard preempted the outcome by publicly stating he believed completely George Pell’s denial. George Pell in turn publicly supported John Howard’s GST policy, thus going against the decision by Australian Bishops to refrain from commenting on the issue. In our own days John Howard has publicly provided a glowing witness statement on behalf of Pell.
Tony Abbot, declaring himself both a Catholic and a close friend of Pell, has questioned the guilty verdict of the Court.
Andrew Bolt, campaigner extraordinaire for the ultra-right, has likewise questioned the guilty verdict of the Court whilst stating he is neither a Christian nor a personal acquaintance of Pell.
Like Andrew Bolt, George Pell has no self-doubt. From his youth he was sure of himself, sure of his calling to a command post in the church, sure of the church itself. He has never waivered in his belief in the church and the function of the papacy. His mission was to maintain the Catholic tradition and loyalty to the papacy, the source of all moral law and authority. The primacy of individual conscience was anathema to him, it was the rot that led to the erosion of western civilization. His was a doctrinaire form of belief wherein “Jesus gave punishments and consequences”.
However, the rot in the Victorian Catholic Church did not come from primacy of conscience, it came from systemic abuse of children over decades by members of the clergy. The parents and families of these children begged for perpetrators to be removed from parishes and called to account. Their need was a person in authority – priest, bishop, archbishop – to listen, respond and act to protect their children.
In George Pell they met not a pastor nor a shepherd. They met a prince of the realm who gave them no hearing. There was no empathy nor sympathy, no belief nor understanding. Pell from the beginning was in total denial and when parents of raped children insisted, he demanded they go to court. The pomp and ceremony of his ordination as priest and consecration as Archbishop then Cardinal was a scandal to the world. His lies and failure to act a negation of any or all good he might have done in his lifetime.
Pell’s single-minded determination was to defend his church. His church, not the people who were in fact the church. He played the victim, the press was out to get him, he was misunderstood, it was all a conspiracy.
When finally Pell was confronted by his own abused, he remonstrated in his own defense that he was the first in Australia to put in place a system of redress for sexual abuse victims known as the Melbourne Response. Yet the Melbourne Response was but a cynical ploy by Pell to protect church asserts by reducing payments of compensation to $50,000 maximum on the condition the victim signed away the right to further hearing or action.
It has been stated that Pell’s epitaph could well be “He saved the Church a lot of money”.
He may even have failed in that project. Should Pell’s appeal against the guilty verdict not be upheld and he goes to jail for an extended period, lawyers of victims are preparing litigation against the church that could amount to hundreds of millions.
In all this church misery and sin, well might we hear again the words of the prophet Jeremiah, words fulfilled by the slaughter of the innocents by Herod:
A voice was heard in Ramah, Sobbing and loudly lamenting: It was Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comfortedBecause they were no moreBecause they were systemically abused by their priests and bishops And not protected by their bishop nor by their Popes
