There seems to be an effort by this author to emotionally manipulate his readers for his own purposes.

Why does he speak of scandal reporting rather than reporting? Why does he feel the need to try and justify it? There is no need to justify the act or reporting the facts – everyone can accept that reporting the facts is a reasonable thing to do. The aim of reporting is not to cast judgement but to present the issues so that the consumers of media can make their own judgements. The word scandal is a judgement. It immediately says that the acts reported are scandalous and that is a derogative word meaning acts which the reporter believes are bad acts and should be punished. It is for the justice system to make those decisions and not for reporters. No matter what anyone thinks about the acts or any subsequent cover-ups they have to be treated with the same caution and equity as any other facts about any behaviour which breaks the law.

Child abuse and the miss-handling of it are not special cases outside our justice system and any accused person must be assumed innocent until proven otherwise. That is one of the fundamental values of our society and it is more important than achieving justice for victims of abuse or cover-ups. Any victim who does not hold to those values does himself no favours by trying to usurp those values. By all means seek justice but only within the confines of the justice system.

Similarly the phrase ‘moral panic’ is equally emotional. Something done in a panic is usually not done very well and there is more risk of injustice because of that. Every issue before the justice system should be attended to with due diligence. Everyone has the right to be heard – that too is a fundamental cornerstone of our civilisation.

Trying to manipulate the justice system by words which are irrelevant to that system shows a serious lack of priorities.

I think the real problem are people with power giving mere lip service to a belief system they clearly don't share?

Were that not the case, most of these offenders would have been handed over for the punishment their crime or crime deserved?

Deliver unto God what is God's and unto Caesar what is caesar's.

And suffer little children to come unto me.

Meaning that the church and those who purport to serve her, have ironclad duty to protect the most vulnerable.

And make good a much as they can and as possible where they have failed little children!

The man was well enough to fly to rome!

Enough with the excuses and cover ups already, front up Mr Pell and do your claimed Christian duty.

Anything less, would be a Cardinal sin?
Rhrosty.

I wouldn't pay any attention to what Amanda Vanstone has to say in defence of Cardinal Pell. After all, isn't she just defending someone of her own class? And isn't that all that really matters to her? Pell could have been a paedophile himself and she would claim that he is the greatest thing to happen since Jesus Christ. The world now knows that Pell was covering up child sex abuse in the Church and now Vanstone is covering up Pell not to protect the man but to protect her own class. I suppose that's the problem with evil: it permeates all classes in society.

Rhosty:

“Meaning that the church and those who purport to serve her, have ironclad duty to protect the most vulnerable.”

The church does not have any duty to anyone. Just because they claim that duty does not mean it is theirs. Who gives out such duties? The church has no power unless it is freely given to them by those who are its members. If you give up your freedom to an institution then you have to take responsibility for what befalls you since no one made you give up your freedom.

You cannot blame an institution for not living up to its own values which you do not have to accept but you can blame individuals for abusing vulnerable children and those individuals should be subject to the same law which any other non-church person is. What has happened to many children is reprehensible but it is no worse because the institution is a self-styled moral guardian. To the children they were simply adults who harmed them. Child abuse does the same damage no matter who the perpetrator is.

If there is blame to be laid at anyone other than the individual abusers it may well be at the hands of some parents who turned a blind eye to the abuse because of their own emotional dependence on the church. Many denied such abuse of their own children because they could not allow themselves to accept that the clergy had human failings.

A lot of the anger that abused children feel is not really in relation to the church and their abusers but towards their parents who did nothing even when the abuse was reported to them by their kids. It is ‘emotionally safer’ for many adults who were victims to focus on what the abuser did than on what their parents failed to do and they did have a duty of care.

I agree with the comment that Ms Vanstone is defending Pell because of his class. Many people seem to believe that elite members of society are somehow immune from prosecution. My own case, where the abuser has an OBE, has never resulted in more than a cursory investigation by the police. Even when it was mentioned in an independent report, one of the report's authors, who is a senior legal figure closely associated with the Melbourne Response, warned me not to contact the family of the only other victim brave enough to report the same abuser to the Diocese involved. So much for the independence of the judiciary.

Amanda Vanstone completely fails to recognise that the reasons for the disquiet among the community with respect to George Pell, or perhaps she does know it, but is trying a "look at that over there!" tactic.

The real problem is that child sexual abuse within the church has been covered up for far too long. The same goes for the Anglican Church as Vanstone mentions, but the difference with the Catholic Church is the obvious suspicion that the cover up of pedophile priests went right to the top. So far Pell has failed to dispel the view that he was involved in covering up pedophile priests and protecting them from prosecution. He may well be too ill to travel to Australia, he is after all an elderly man. However, this will look to many like Pell once again trying to evade responsibility.

Perhaps the most amazing revelation out of the Royal Commission so far is how everything that happened was always someone else's fault and no one who is currently alive in the Church had sufficient knowledge or ability to alert the authorities to what was happening. It is truly unbelievable.