‘Have a bit of respect for the survivors’: Advocate says George Pell should not be hailed a ‘saint’

“It leaves a really sour taste in victims’ mouths.” Beyond Abuse founder Steve Fisher says clergy child sexual abuse survivors are furious late George Pell is being remembered as a “saint”.

Former Catholic priest and activist Julian Punch has warned Pell’s death could also reignite buried trauma in the LGBTIQA+ community as well as survivors of child abuse.

TASMANIAN survivors of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy are “very, very angry” that George Pell is being posthumously hailed as a “saint”.

Beyond Abuse founder Steve Fisher, who was preyed upon as a teenager by an Anglican priest, said politicians and senior Catholics needed to stop describing Pell as “a wonderful man of integrity”.

“I would say to the card-carrying politicians and people in power – have a bit of respect for the survivors and what they went through,” Mr Fisher said.

Mr Fisher said it shouldn’t be forgotten the federal royal commission found Pell had long turned a blind eye to the actions of Catholic paedophile priests like Gerald Ridsdale, and knew they were moved parish-to-parish to protect the church’s reputation.

He also said Tasmanian survivors of clergy abuse were saddened by Pell’s passing – but not for the man himself.

Steve Fisher CEO of Beyond Abuse at his office at his Dowsing Point office. PICTURE CHRIS KIDD

“The reason that they’re sad is that he will now never be brought to justice for what the royal commission found him liable for and what a court of law found him liable for,” Mr Fisher said.

“They’re very sad, the people I’ve spoken to, but only for that fact. They will never receive justice and Pell will never pay for what it was proved that he did.”

Mr Fisher said it was “really disgraceful” that although Pell was found guilty of child sexual abuse by a jury of his peers in 2018, he used his power and status to appeal the decision “until he got the result that he wanted”, with his convictions overturned by the High Court in 2020.

“When you put that all together, it leaves a really sour taste in victims’ mouths.”

Following Pell’s sudden death on Wednesday morning, Australian time, former prime minister Tony Abbott described the Vatican Cardinal as “a saint for our times”, while Federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton said Pell had been “an important intellectual figure” and a “towering presence” in the church.

Closer to home, Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous described Pell as a man of “deep personal faith with a profound love for the church” who “was to suffer greatly” in his later years.

Death of Pell could reignite buried trauma

THE death of controversial Cardinal George Pell has been described as a “triggering” event for survivors of child sexual abuse.

But former Catholic priest and activist Julian Punch has warned Pell’s death could also reignite buried trauma in the LGBTIQA+ community.

The Hobart-based Punch said he trained with Pell at the Corpus Christi College seminary in Victoria during the late 1950s, and said the young Pell had been a bully towards anyone he saw as gay or diverse.

Cardinal George Pell leaves the Melbourne Magistrates' Court with a heavy Police escort on October 6, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Punch – who came to Tasmania in 1970 before running an experimental parish at Chigwell – said he was never friends with Pell when they were young trainee priests.

He said he resigned as a priest in 1979, largely due to the attitudes of Pell and other conservative bishops – who he said thought of the LGBTIQA+ community as “immoral, abnormal and decadent”.

“They’ve done enormous damage. Our community is very vulnerable,” he said.

“People are today being advised to get counselling if they’ve been sexually abused. That also applies to the LGBTIQA+ community.”

Punch said there had been plenty of gay young men at his and Pell’s seminary – and that Pell “targeted them”.

He said, on the death of George Pell, that gay people should remember the message of the gospel was “one of love”.

“I’d say to any gay person – you’re a child of God, you’ve been created and your sexuality is God’s gift.”

Pell famously refused communion to openly gay parishioners at more than one of his masses.

In December 2018, he was convicted of molesting two Melbourne choirboys during the 1990s, and jailed, but his convictions were ultimately overturned in the High Court two years later.

Punch’s book, Gay with God, was published in 2017.

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Originally published as ‘Have a bit of respect for the survivors’: Advocate says George Pell should not be hailed a ‘saint’