George Pell: the Catholic Church's performance at the royal commission is farcical

Cardinal George Pell was due to appear at the royal commission but asked to be excused, citing blood pressure problems. Photo: AP

For three weeks, the County Court of Victoria has been host to countless victim survivors of Catholic clergy child-sex crimes. The severe psychological and psychiatric harm caused by these crimes was evident not only with the primary victims giving evidence, but also the many family members of loved ones who had killed themselves because the pain and damage of the sex crimes were too great to bear.  

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse fastidiously scheduled four weeks of hearings into the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and the Diocese of Ballarat. These were to be concluded this week by three days of evidence and cross-examination of Cardinal George Pell. But such an apotheosis was abruptly truncated on Friday as Cardinal Pell belatedly made an application to the court to have his evidence heard from Rome via videolink, rather than attend in person in Melbourne, as previously contracted. Pell's blood pressure, it seemed, was elevated. He was well enough to give evidence, but not to travel.

As well as refusing the application, Justice Peter McClellan​ categorically quashed any perceived or real conflict of interest by declining to accept Pell's invitation that his senior counsel, Allan Myers QC, be granted a private and confidential audience to determine Pell's application to not travel to Australia. It is the imperious quality of this request that highlights Pell's hard-wired sense of entitlement – that same sense of entitlement that has underpinned decades of rebuff and cruel dismissal of victims and their families by Pell and his henchmen. 

The royal commission is addressing, inter alia, a critical element of justice for victims of child sexual abuse – that of the truth and its acknowledgement. But, as my research into sexual abuse and the Catholic Church shows, a two-way exchange of the truth is required. Not only do victims want to tell their own story and have that acknowledged by the hierarchy, it is paramount that the hierarchy tell the truth about the full extent of its cover-up of the sex crimes and protection of the clergy sex offenders. The commission is very successfully addressing the first element. The second element, though – and not for lack of trying and perseverance – is not occurring. This is resulting in ongoing harm and injury to victims and their families.

The senior members of the Catholic hierarchy from the Melbourne Archdiocese and the Diocese of Ballarat who have given evidence over the past three weeks, have included an archbishop, bishops, vicars general, senior priests and various members of curia and personnel advisory committees, including those emeritus.

Archbishop Denis Hart's evidence, the blueprint of which has been adopted by all clergy witnesses, included multiple confessions and plenty of mea culpas. Yes, there were cover-ups; yes, offending priests were moved from parish to parish with the knowledge that they were raping children; yes, children were not believed and neglected; no, matters were not referred to the police; yes, under the threat of excommunication, there was a decree from on high, the Vatican, to keep all sex abuse matters seriously hush hush; yes, we are so very sorry for those evil crimes.

Astonishingly, though, the above concessions, or admissions, were not associated with any of the clergy witnesses at the commission; they were, instead, the actions of those who are either dead – archbishop Frank Little and his predecessors and vicar general
Gerald Cudmore​ – or too ill to give evidence, such as former bishop Ronald Mulkearns​. Apparently, these once revered and powerful pillars of the Church were so dictated by secrecy and confidentiality, that, for decades, they spoke not a word about their fellow clergy colleagues – the serious sex offenders.

What followed, the commission was told, was that the highly educated, often opinionated and equally powerful advisers and bishops encircling Little and Mulkearns had no knowledge of the sex crimes. Or if they did have knowledge, they held no power, they say, to do anything about it; intimidation, fear and a primary duty to the Church left these powerful men impotent to act.

As well as the truth and its acknowledgement, criminal accountability of the hierarchy for concealing sex crimes is an equally crucial element of justice that was identified in my research. Despite this, there has not been one conviction of any member of the Catholic hierarchy in Australia for concealing clergy sex crimes (although one priest and one archbishop have been charged).

This conspicuous and disgraceful absence of successful prosecutions, or impunity, causes further pain and suffering to victims, for as long as that impunity lasts. A Chilean psychiatrist, Paz Rojas Baeza, who treated victims of human rights violations of the Pinochet regime, argues that such impunity, or the lack of prosecutions, results from a human decision to intentionally disguise and cover up crimes – and it is this impunity that is so injurious to victims and their families.

Last Friday afternoon, when it was announced at the royal commission hearing that Pell would not be attending to give evidence, the outrage and frustration of victims and families of those who had committed suicide was raw and shattering. Combining this insult with three weeks of ongoing denials and multiple memory failures by senior clergy in the witness box, the message to victims and their families has been one of arrogance and disdain.

All that is needed is one brave person to 'fess up, blow the whistle and tell the truth about the extensive and inordinately damaging cover-up of child sex crimes in the Catholic Church. If nothing else, the millions and millions of dollars being spent by the Church to defend the indefensible at this royal commission, could be given to victims and their families for the unspeakable harm they continue to suffer.

The performances by the Catholic Church at the royal commission hearings are but a public charade. How contemptuous.

Dr Judy Courtin is a lawyer representing victims of institutional sexual abuse.