Either the church or law has failed — both are devastating

For victims of clerical abuse who have been in an undeserved hell for decades, George Pell’s conviction may offer some satisfaction. But what of those who still respect the Church and have always admired Pell, asks Peta Credlin.

Wherever you were in Australia this week, indeed overseas too, Cardinal George Pell was the universal topic of community debate following his conviction on historic child sex charges.

On one side, there’s revulsion at a monstrous crime and breach of trust; anger at a church that for too long covered up for the predators in their midst; and implacable resentment for an institution that’s so old, so male and so out of touch.

On the other side, there’s frustration at a media that, for two decades, has made Pell personify the sins of the Church; dismay at the modern blindness to all the good work that the Church and its priests still do; and, yes, some real doubt about how a jury could convict on the basis of uncorroborated testimony in unlikely circumstances.

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Who doesn’t have a view on this case?

As a Catholic, a woman, a lawyer, and someone who grew up in the Ballarat diocese that was the epicentre of the abuse epidemic, this has been a very hard week where institutions that have been so important to me, church and law, have collided.

A couple of nuns aside, who might have administered (well-deserved) corporal punishment with too much enthusiasm, I had nothing but good from the Mercy sisters and the Jesuit priests who taught and mentored me at school and university.

Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty of child sexual abuse after a trial in Melbourne. Picture: AAP/David Crosling

I would not be who I am today without the quality of my education and the confidence they instilled in me, to dream big, and work hard to make it a reality. Without the Catholic Church, so many charities and hospitals would not exist, and an education as good as mine would be out of the reach of a family on an ordinary income.

Yet for all this good, like so many, I’ve seen first-hand the pain that the Church’s outdated views on premarital sex and unmarried pregnancy have caused to so many sincere Catholics.

I’ve been on the receiving end of the moralism on IVF and, even as a schoolgirl, I stood up and argued for the right of women to freely use contraception without censure.

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And I acknowledge the grim toll, in long-term mental illness and early death, of innocent children preyed upon by the very clergy they should have been able to trust.

As so many have asked before, how could decent men (and women) not have known what was happening and done more to stop it?

Yet Pell, now the arch-villain, was actually the first bishop to make it mandatory to report predator priests to the police and remove them from the ministry. Yes, some victims weren’t taken seriously; many were not responded to sensitively; and compensation wasn’t sufficient enough, or timely.

As well, Pell’s orthodoxy and traditionalism upset some. His determination to speak out on issues where he disagreed with the Zeitgeist (such as climate change) angered the usual suspects and set him up as a figure of scorn in some quarters, and hate in others.

Yet he remains the first major bishop in the country to lay down the hard and fast rule that a priest who couldn’t be trusted sexually couldn’t stay a priest and, in this respect, Australian Catholics led the world.

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Under Pell, once misbehaviour was reasonably certain, there was no more shuffling between parishes or shocked disbelief that someone dedicated to God could actually do evil. It was the sack, then most likely prison.

In my own lifetime, I’ve seen the shift — from child sexual abuse being something no one ever discussed openly, to something we learned to talk about and something we have now, at all levels of our public life, tackled head-on.

The victims of clerical abuse have been in an undeserved hell for decades. For them and their families, there may be some satisfaction at the fate of Australia’s most prominent church leader. To those who despise Christianity and scoff at faith, Pell’s conviction must come as a triumphant vindication.

But what of those who still respect the Church and have always admired Pell? For them, and there must be millions, this week has just added to the load of doubt and confusion, and disappointment.

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For me, either way, this has been a dreadful challenge to faith.

Yes, the Church has been on trial, but so has our system of justice and, as someone who respects both institutions deeply, one or other of them failed this week.

As the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne George Pell launches Centenary Celebrations for St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1997. Picture: News Corp

The lawyer in me has many serious concerns about the police investigation, conflicting evidence, the implausibility of time and place following a Sunday mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral (I was married there, so I know its procedures well) and the incongruence of all of this with the man I know.

If George Pell had been found guilty of a no less heinous crime such as murder, but with the same legal concerns, there’s no doubt it would be easier to raise questions about this decision.

The mere phrase “child sexual abuse” is a stain that even exoneration finds hard to remove.

Either a man who was respected and trusted has turned out to be fraud, and an institution that millions look to for guidance and support has failed spectacularly.

Or, alternatively, a jury of peers has come to a decision that was based more on prejudice than fact and has subjected an innocent man to a modern form of crucifixion; of reputation ruin, of Salem witch trial humiliations following years of media monstering.

I will await his appeal. But either way, it’s been a pretty shattering week.