Andrew Bolt: Time for institutions to apologise for Pell witch hunt

Christmas is a time for reflection and goodwill, and there’s one apology at the top of Andrew Bolt’s wishlist.

Institutions should apologise for how they treated George Pell, Andrew Bolt writes. Picture: David Geraghty.

Here’s what I’d like for Christmas. A big, fat sorry. A sorry that proves our institutions regret spreading one of the most vicious falsehoods of our time.

Let’s start with Melbourne University.

In 2017 its publishing arm, Melbourne University Press, published Cardinal: the Rise and Fall of George Pell, by ABC journalist Louise Milligan.

It was packed from cover to cover with smears and hearsay to paint Cardinal Pell as a paedophile. It retailed claims by two convicted criminals that as a popular young priest, horseplaying with children in a pool, Pell had fondled them.

More critically, it peddled the claim by one anonymous man that Pell as an archbishop had sexually abused him and a friend, after finding the two boys in a normally busy changeroom right after Mass.

Of course, that was nonsense. The rapes – denied by witnesses, including even one of the boys, now dead – simply could not have occurred as alleged, and the High Court this year threw out Pell’s conviction, seven to zero.

As for the pool allegations, they were so weak that they did not even go to trial.

So why hasn’t Melbourne University apologised even now for publishing this trash, which contributed to such a frantic witch hunt that Pell spent 405 days in jail before being exonerated?

Where is the ABC’s apology for Milligan’s role?

Where is the apology from the Walkley Foundation, which claims it “benchmarks the industry standard for excellence and best practice journalism”, yet made Milligan’s diatribe its Book of the Year?

Where is the apology from the barristers of the Sir Owen Dixon Chambers, who, even before Pell faced trial, made Milligan their “legal reporter of the year” for her book, further poisoning the well of public opinion – and the minds of potential jurors?

Where is the apology from the Melbourne Press Club, which gave Milligan its highest award for articles on Pell, one of which – about the pool allegations – has had to be pulled from the ABC website, being so unfair?

Our society destroys people so easily. But do we know how to admit a grave injustice to someone who was unfairly damned, ruined and jailed?

All those institutions were part of probably the worst witch hunt in Australian history. They crucified Pell.

Christmas is a time of goodwill. A time when some might now atone for their sins.