Why Defending Pell is a Problem

by Gunther Simmermacher · March 1, 2019

On Wednesday, Cardinal George Pell was taken into custody after having had his bail revoked pending sentencing for his conviction of sexual abuse in a Melbourne court. Since his conviction, the Internet and Catholic media have been awash with articles defending the cardinal’s innocence. GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER argues that, whatever the merits of the arguments posted, defending Pell sends the wrong message.

Cardinal George Pell arrives at the County Court in Melbourne on February 27. Cardinal Pell was jailed after being found guilty of child sexual abuse. (CNS photo/Daniel Pockett, AAP images via Reuters)

Only last week the Church pledged to put the victims of abuse first, to listen to them with an open heart, to root out the culture of protecting priests accused of abuse. Now a number of lay Catholics are undercutting all these good and overdue intentions by challenging the guilty verdict of Cardinal George Pell.

Let’s be clear about it: Nobody can claim to know conclusively whether Cardinal Pell is guilty of the charges put against him except for the two people alive who were in that room on the day in question.

The jurors in the trial believed there was no reasonable doubt about Pell’s guilt. It would be absurd if they all were in on a conspiracy, as some have suggested. Maybe the jurors were mistaken; maybe they got it right. Maybe Pell’s defence was inadequate and the prosecution made its case well. We don’t really know; less so if we did not follow the trial every day in the courtroom, as the jurors did. … the enthusiasm with which Pell’s defenders — who include both ideological warriors and reasonable people — protest the cardinal’s innocence is misplaced.

So the enthusiasm with which Pell’s defenders — who include both ideological warriors and reasonable people — protest the cardinal’s innocence is misplaced. It’s one thing to wonder about whether justice was truly done in this case, but another thing altogether to protest the cardinal’s innocence (in arguments usually drawing from the defence’s case, which evidently failed to persuade the jury).

But that’s not the biggest problem with defending Pell. What should trouble us is that in the first instance of a cardinal being convicted of abuse, so many Catholics immediately jump to his defence. They instinctively believe the accused cleric, and not the victim. And this is exactly the mindset that helped create the scandal in the first place.

How do we communicate to the victims of clerical abuse that the Church will hear them when Catholics are implicitly or even explicitly label Pell’s victim/accuser a liar or as deluded? What should trouble us is that in the first instance of a cardinal being convicted of abuse, so many Catholics immediately jump to his defence. They instinctively believe the accused cleric, and not the victim

How can we say that we have no tolerance for abuse and that those accused of abuse must face justice when fellow Catholics side with the cleric over the complainant and dismiss the bona fides and/or competence of the judiciary system?

Hear the victims

Whether or not Pell is indeed guilty, within the context of the abuse scandal some of the specific arguments raised in the lay defence of Pell are intrinsically problematic and are best left to the review of competent authorities in the courtrooms. the argument that Pell should not have been convicted on the basis of the “uncorroborated” testimony of his accuser is appalling

Firstly, the argument that Pell should not have been convicted on the basis of the “uncorroborated” testimony of his accuser is appalling. It is a strategy that is deployed to disempower the victims of rape everywhere. Testimony of sexual violence tends to be nearly impossible to corroborate exactly because rape is not a spectator sport. It happens in secret, usually without witnesses.

In the Pell case, we have to assume that the prosecutors would not have risked an expensive trial and retrial if the accuser wasn’t reasonably credible, and they undoubtedly tested his credibility thoroughly.

This carved wood memorial and place of reflection is seen at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat, Australia, where Cardinal George Pell attended school. (CNS photo/Jonathan Barrett, Reuters)

Secondly, Pell’s defenders refer to the denials by the second victim — who has since died of a drug overdose — to his suspicious mother that he had been abused. Perhaps his denials were indeed true. But there may be many reasons why a victim of abuse might issue such denials. There is the shame which abuse inflicts on them, and there is the fear that they might not be believed. If the second alleged victim feared that he might be disbelieved, his denials of having been abused would be understandable — and the doubts which Pell’s defenders now directed at his friend would justify these concerns.

If the second alleged victim feared that he might be disbelieved, his denials of having been abused would be understandable — and the doubts which Pell’s defenders now directed at his friend would justify these concerns.

Such fears must be taken into account and respected. This tragic man’s denials might have been true, but if we do not even entertain the possibility that they weren’t, then we exhibit a troubling lack of understanding of how the victims of abuse might deal with what was done to them.

A Throwback to old ways

Thirdly there is the precarious argument put forward by some of Pell’s defenders that the cardinal had no pattern of abusive behaviour.

Indeed, there are no previous cases that proved Pell guilty of abuse, but the allegations that have landed him in jail are not the first levelled against him. A canonical investigation in 2002 into allegations of abuse by Pell, committed when he was a seminarian, was dropped due to lack of corroborating evidence. But there is a record of allegations, and when such a record exists, one cannot claim an absence of a pattern.

Judicially, we must presume his innocence in that case, and we cannot declare him guilty of it simply on a hunch. But there is a record of allegations, and when such a record exists, one cannot claim an absence of a pattern.

But even if the previous allegations were baseless, and even if Pell had never faced any accusations at all, using that argument in his defence is a throwback to the times when allegations of clerical abuse was covered up because Father was not known to do “that sort of thing” (with the attendant belief that the accuser was lying). Perhaps he is suffering the consequences of public anger about the clerical abuse and their cover-up (the latter he has been accused of as well). Or maybe the jurors in that Melbourne court got it perfectly right. That will be for the appeals court to decide.

Perhaps Cardinal Pell is the casualty of an injustice. Perhaps he is suffering the consequences of public anger about the clerical abuse and their cover-up (the latter he has been accused of as well). Or maybe the jurors in that Melbourne court got it perfectly right. That will be for the appeals court to decide.

In the interim, those inclined to defend the cardinal ought to take a step back and consider how their actions, whatever the merits of some of their arguments, are sabotaging the Church’s response to the abuse scandal, and how their protestations are an act of abuse to all the victims of abuse — especially those whose suffering was ignored, denied and rejected.