Commentators have joined several archbishops in speaking out against attacks on Cardinal George Pell in what a major Australian newspaper has labelled a “witch hunt”, one which “ill-served” the victims of child sexual abuse of the Catholic Church.
The comments largely follow an interview on 60 Minutes in which Peter Saunders, a British clerical abuse survivor and member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, described Cardinal Pell as “callous”, “dangerous” and “almost sociopathic”.
The Vatican moved to distance itself from Mr Saunders’ remarks on Monday, saying that his views were his own and did not reflect the opinion of the commission which “does not have the task of investigating and pronouncing judgment on individual cases”.
In unsubstantiated remarks Mr Saunders accused Cardinal Pell of being “a massive thorn in the side of Pope Francis’ papacy”, of “making a mockery of the pontifical commission” and of being “a serious obstacle” to its work.
He called on Pope Francis to send Cardinal Pell back to Australia from Rome where he serves as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, having been handpicked by the pope to tackle financial reform in the Curia and any resistance to it.
An editorial in The Australian newspaper on 2 June said justice for victims was “being overshadowed by a nasty sideshow” in the pursuit of Cardinal Pell, saying Mr Saunders’ comments “ignored the main facts” in denigrating a person whom he had never met.
“Mr Saunders is the victim of grave injustice, abused as a child by two priests,” the editorial stated.
“But that is no excuse for inflicting a serious injustice on another innocent man.”
The Archbishop of Melbourne, Archbishop Denis Hart, also defended his friend and predecessor in an interview with the ABC on 2 June.
He said he didn’t doubt the passion of Mr Saunders in trying to seek justice for victims but said that Mr Saunders “didn’t know the Australian situation” and was “possibly being fed by words and phrases that others were using”.
“I would describe George Pell as a man who courageously, when he became archbishop [of Melbourne], introduced the first system for dealing with child sex abuse, trying to bring relief to victims, trying to bring care and also some financial compensation,” Archbishop Hart said.
“And he is a world leader in this regard … he has made some mistakes and he has admitted them and apologised for them.
“But very clearly he comes across as someone who is totally dedicated to putting right this awful, awful scourge.”
The Royal Commission announced on 1 June that it intended to call Cardinal Pell as a witness when it meets again in Ballarat again, later on this year.
The announcement came after weeks of criticism of Cardinal Pell for not fronting the commission; something he said in a statement he had always been willing and prepared to do but which he had no power to initiate himself.
A number of senior journalists at major media outlets including the ABC, The Saturday Paper, and Fairfax wrongly described Cardinal Pell as having been the Bishop of Ballarat, a mistake Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, the Archbishop of Sydney, corrected during an interview with the ABC on 22 May.
Archbishop Fisher reiterated his position and the position of all Australian bishops that the Church would not run from compensation claims by seeking to protect assets and was already engaged in helping victims identify legal entities to sue.
“It may be it happened in the past, and I’m ashamed if it did, but at present what we do … is ensure that people know the right people to sue; if they want their matters resolved outside of court, that we do that in a very pastoral way; and we are calling on the government to give people a third option of having an independent redress project [a proposal the government has so far rejected]”, Archbishop Fisher said.
Asked what message it sent to victims that Cardinal Pell was “promoted” to Rome after making mistakes in handling abuse cases, Archbishop Fisher said Cardinal Pell had been chosen for his “real record in cleaning up corruption” and “failures of transparency”.
“He was very open about the mistakes he made and apologetic about them and I hope that people can hear that.
“I understand that some people are cynical about Church leaders apologising. They think we don’t really mean it or that we’re just protecting ourselves.
“I think he was very genuine when he said he was sorry about the way the Ellis case was handled or the Fosters or some of the other cases.”
The sentiments Archbishop Fisher expressed in the interview were similar to those he expressed in a statement of 25 May, writing that “many things were being said about the Church at the moment, some of them fair, some of them not so fair”.
“My predecessor, Cardinal Pell, was the first Church leader in Australia to introduce a more contemporary process to confront this evil and he repeatedly apologised when mistakes were made.”
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Church and sectors of media defend George Pell
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