Fury over Pell absence from abuse inquiry opens purse strings

A MASSIVE groundswell of protest about Cardinal George Pell’s absence from the child abuse inquiry is peaking, and people are reaching into their wallets, writes Wendy Tuohy.

Cardinal George Pell attends a press conference at the Vatican Radio headquarters, in Rome, Tuesday, March 31, 2015. The Vatican finance minister has said he hopes to avoid financial scandal with the upcoming Jubilee year, saying the plans will be subject to new Vatican procedures to ensure they follow international standards for transparency and accountability. Cardinal George Pell outlined the Vatican's financial reform during a conference Tuesday to launch a book on better managing church assets, a priority for Pope Francis after years of financial scandal and mismanagement at the Holy See. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

IF people’s willingness to put their hand in their pocket to help fund something that makes them furious counts, then Cardinal George Pell’s abstention from coming home to face the child sex abuse royal commission is making him one unpopular guy right now.

People *really* want him to look child sex abuse victims in the eye, so much so in just 15 hours more than 75,000 have clicked on the scathing new song Come Home Cardinal Pell by hit Aussie comedian Tim Minchin, who released it to demand Pell speak face to face with the church’s victims.

A massive groundswell of protest about the Cardinal’s absence from the hearings of the Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse (of which complaints against clergy make up the bulk of submissions) is peaking today as people put money and shares behind a campaign to get the churchman home.

MORE: TIM MINCHIN RELEASES SONG TO BRING PELL HOME

To mangle the famous line from Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, the priest is getting the message ‘Ask not for whom the Pell tolls, it tolls for thee’.

And isn’t it heartening to see how much the wider community cares about what happened to innocent little boys whose childhoods were stolen by paedophiles.

When Melbourne broadcaster and social activist Meshel Laurie put out the call for people to help pay for victims of sex abuse by ministers of the Catholic Church to fly to Rome to witness Cardinal Pell’s testimony to the royal commission, social media users stumped up a massive $91,839 in a little over a day.

Comedian Tim Minchin penned the song Come Home Cardinal Pell.

Many celebrated on Twitter last night as the gofundme campaign’s total kept shooting heavenward.

Many donors expressed anger that the Cardinal will be able to avoid facing abuse victims in person, as he has stated he is unable to come to the hearings from the Vatican because a heart condition means he cannot fly despite the offer of senior Australian doctors to help him travel safely.

Survivors of the insidious culture of child sex abuse among Catholic clergy based in the diocese of Ballarat have told Melbourne radio how harrowing it was for them to stand in hearings full of faces “friend and foe” and talk about the sexual molestation they experienced as children.

They have every reason to demand Cardinal Pell testify in similarly transparent and trying conditions. The sense of amazement that a man in a massive financial administration job at the Vatican (who has until recently been living in the Vatican bank) cannot he assisted to fly safely seems justified.

Victims simply want the clergyman, who shared a dwelling with one of the most notorious paedophile priests, the now-jailed Gerald Ridsdale, to tell them face to face what he knew about the entrenched culture of sexual molestation of young boys that has ruined many families’ lives and has according to police triggered a spate of 40 men’s suicides in Victoria.

Ridsdale was convicted of 46 counts of child sexual offences including buggery, indecent assault and gross indecency committed over two decades.

It is truly heartening to see how much of support survivors of child rape have from the wider community, and that so many are willing to put money behind their concern is brilliant.

Online activism is frequently criticised for not achieving anything in the real world but the fact that 15 people whose lives were dramatically changed by having their childhoods robbed will get the chance to fly to Rome to, they hope, witness the churchman answer questions about the shifting around of paedophile priests, alleged cover ups of their crimes and maltreatment of victims and their families by church authorities demonstrates the rubber can and does hit the road when good people get mad enough.

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