Cardinal George Pell convicted for a lacklustre display of empathy

In this age of public shaming and histrionics, the cardinal didn’t conform to the emotional script.

Only a week after being exonerated by the High Court, Cardinal George Pell is now, we are told, the subject of yet another historic sexual assault accusation by a new accuser. This “news” was leaked to the Herald Sun, pre-empting Andrew Bolt’s revealing interview with the cardinal that finally made clear to the public, who were not aware of proceedings at the trial, that despite many witnesses providing contrary evidence, the cardinal was condemned by the word of just one accuser.

What is more, he would not be surprised if the Victorian police had yet another go at him. How can they now deny an irrational “get Pell” agenda? The case against the cardinal should not have even been prosecuted because the magistrate in the committal hearing who sent the cardinal to trial noted: “If a jury accepted the evidence of Monsignor Portelli and Mr Potter (the sacristan) … then a jury could not convict.” The High Court went as far as stating that no jury acting “rationally” would not have found reasonable doubt. So why didn’t the jury act “rationally”?

Obviously, the main reason was the huge campaign instigated by the Victorian police led by the ABC to denigrate the cardinal as a covert sexual predator. The bizarre accusations about swimming pools, a libellous book, even nasty songs, all of it was aimed at Joe Public.

The trial itself might not have been a referendum on the church but the public broadcaster, under the guise of investigative journalism, prosecuted a type of vendetta journalism against the man and the church. And it continues, as shown by the recent efforts of the ABC’s amanuensis, Sarah Ferguson, whose cleverly timed documentaries on priestly sex offen­ders neatly coincided with the cardinal’s resounding acquittal.

In all this brouhaha, few ask why the word of only one person can send another to jail. Very few will examine the idea of “victimhood”, the notion that all accusers in sexual assault cases, especially of minors, are now considered victims. This has become a sort of taboo. We have been told over and over that we must believe victims.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews reiterated the “we believe you” mantra. Child protection campaigner Hetty Johnston made it clear in an interview with Chris Kenny on the day of the High Court verdict that in child sexual assault cases, campaigners want the onus of proof shifted so that we begin from a point of belief in the “victim”. Children don’t lie, she says. But Pell’s was an adult accuser. He might have been sexually molested at some stage in his life, or he might not.

There is another recent case against a high-ranking prelate that illustrates this point. Max Davis is the Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force. He has had a long, distinguished career and is well thought of by ordinary soldiers, particularly as he has been to various areas of deployment, including the base at Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan.

However, in June 2014, Davis was charged with having indecently assaulted a 13-year-old boy in 1969. The one com­plain­ant was followed by more and eventually there were six counts related to the period between December 1968 and October 1972. Davis had been a young teacher and a dorm master at St Benedict’s College New Norcia, for some of that time. The charging of Davis was sensational as, until Pell, he was the highest ranking prelate charged with this offence.

But what happened next well illustrates the problem of shifting the onus of proof. All the victims swore that their abuser was Davis, that he was one of the brothers, even to describing the famous Benedictine habit. However, contrary to that testimony, Davis was a lay person — he was not ordained until 1971 and he was never in the Benedictine order. Davis left the school in the late 1960s, went into the seminary and was ordained in 1971. While he was at the school he was not “Brother Max”, as was claimed, he was simply Mr Davis. The trial became a fiasco when it became clear the police had not checked the enrolment records at the school at the same time as Davis was there. One of the accusers was not enrolled.

Eventually, the defence, and Davis himself, accepted that some of the boys were abused, but it was a case of mistaken identity. Davis was acquitted of all charges on February 15, 2016, and although he returned to public ministry in December 2017, he has had a battle to properly clear his name. The media was almost silent on his acquittal, his working-with-children clearance was withheld, the army has treated him with great disdain and he feels this will hang over him for the rest of his life.

As for the case against Pell, victimhood seems to have been misapplied. It is Pell who was the victim in this trial. Even some within the church who knew nothing of the trial and the facts, no doubt relying on the ABC’s coverage, thought the cardinal should just “take one for the team”, since the team had let so many people down.

Even his attempts to make redress in a practical way through the Melbourne Response has at best been ignored; at worst called a cover-up. The public willingness to brand the cardinal as “the boss”, who must be made responsible for the crimes of others, overlooked all his efforts to do the right thing for victims and exposes the real crime that he has committed in the eyes of some.

In this age of public shaming, of bathos and histrionic displays of “empathy”, the cardinal just didn’t seem to have enough “empathy”. He was too rational, too focused on the practical. He didn’t conform to the emotional script. He just didn’t have emotional “credibility” — a credibility, however, that one accuser did seem to elicit.