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The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard’s, decision to establish a royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has received overwhelmingly public support. We know, on the available evidence, that the wide-ranging and expensive inquiry will focus on past crimes and whether people in authority, in Gillard’s terminology, ”averted their eyes” with respect to abusers.
We also know, on the available evidence, that indigenous children in some Aboriginal communities are being sexually assaulted in 2012. Despite the efforts of Commonwealth, state and territory authorities, these crimes continue. Moreover, regrettably, there is scant public outrage about this contemporary abuse.
Sections of the media have focused on the Catholic Church’s deplorable inability in the past century to stop the crimes of some priests and some brothers with respect to primarily male children.
However, as the Jesuit priest Frank Brennan said on Lateline, the Catholic Church reformed its handling of sex abuse allegations in 1996. Soon after Pell became Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, he set up the Melbourne Response, which was aimed at confronting abuse of children by clerics and assisting victims.
The terms of reference for the royal commission will be announced before the end of the year. However, the Prime Minister has indicated the inquiry will not be limited to the Catholic Church or, indeed, other Christian churches. All religions will be covered, as will secular bodies. This approach is supported by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. On Tuesday, child migrant David Hill said ”you won’t hear only kids from Catholic institutions coming forward … I think it will go to all of the children’s institutions over the last 40, 50 years”.
The Gillard government faces a difficult task in drawing up appropriate terms of reference. If they are too limited, there will probably be accusations of a cover-up. If they are too wide, the financial costs could be huge and the inquiry might drag on for years with few if any recommendations of prosecutions.
The Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney is a media target. Many journalists do not like Pell since he is a moral conservative who publicly upholds the Vatican’s teachings on abortion, same-sex marriage and divorce.
Pell was interviewed by Geoff Thompson for the Four Corners ”Unholy Silence” program which aired in July. The Cardinal made it emphatically clear that, as Archbishop of Sydney, he is only responsible for his own diocese and reports to the Vatican.
Four Corners not only failed to run Pell’s comment. More seriously, it edited the extended interview (which is on the ABC’s website) and deleted the Cardinal’s comment about the extent of his authority. Continue reading
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