' No transferring abusers from one place to another. No automatic denial of children's complaints. Most certainly no 'staying over night' alone with a carer. No sitting of kids on laps.'

All sounds good Loudmouth, the only problem is there is now many teenagers from dysfunctional backgrounds who are pathological liars and know that the word paedeophile will excuse any despicable behaviour including destroying innocent people. Some mothers lie in order to stop men access to their kids

Bridge jenny, it is in no way 'clear' that Pell knew nothing about the abuse occurring around him during all those years in those parishes. For a supposedly intelligent man to not ask any questions about why certain priests were continually moved on to other parishes beggars belief.

I too watched all of his testimony and I am certain he structured his answers to escape being held to blame for allowing the abuse of kids to continue for so long by the same group of priests and brothers, both personally and for the church. He is a piece of work.

So Pell finally agreed to meet the small group of abuse survivors, some of whom have been on his case for over 30 years, for two measly hours? Big of him.
The whole sorry story makes me sick.

It is not unusual for women who were molested as children to have a an either greater hatred for there mother than the father committing the crime. Maybe they feel the mother covered for the father (maybe true maybe not). I kind of see Pell's situation like these mothers.

Runner:

“It is not unusual for women who were molested as children to have a an either greater hatred for there mother than the father committing the crime. Maybe they feel the mother covered for the father (maybe true maybe not). I kind of see Pell's situation like these mothers.”

This a very insightful point. Pell could be covering up because he believes that is the greater good. So many people have become disillusioned and saddened by this sorry mess because of their dependence on the Catholic Church and whilst he has sympathy for those who were abused he also has concern for the thousands of church members who have been shaken to the core. These are all rationalisations of course and should not be considered in a Royal Commission but lots of people live not by logic but according to rationalisations.

Women who do not act when they know their daughters have been abused by their fathers also rationalise away their inaction by telling themselves that it’s better to keep it quiet and keep the family together. That is not a logical response but it is that kind of denial that makes it worse for children and compounds the damage done to the daughter.

While justice has to be done there is often a lot more than justice which is being sought. A lot of people are out for blood - they want revenge. Which of these is not guilty of living by rationalisations? He who is without rationalisations should cast the first stone.

A lot of people are like the daughter you spoke of but they cannot bring themselves to confront their mothers – it would be too traumatic. A safer option for them is to project that rage onto others like George Pell.

I think there is a world of difference between a mother protecting her small family unit (if indeed that happened), and a Bishop who is aware of multiple paedophiles at work abusing kids while pretending to be moral crusaders in multiple parishes, who does nothing about it because he wants to protect his own job and the church.
Blind Freddy can see the difference there.

One assumes that Pell was acting in accordance with canon law when he turned a blind eye to all the things going on around him - things that were common knowledge in the parishes affected.

I don't think he was rationalising anything beyond toeing the Church line, knowing at the time that paedophile priests had been shuffled around between since time immemorial.

When you have a church organisation that mandates celibacy, like the Catholic Church, it's necessary to institute laws within the organisation to counter the abuses that arise. That's what that canon law does.

Pell, unfortunately being a mere church lackey - big on dogma, small on morality - saw fit to ignore what should have been patently obvious to anyone above a half-wit - and allowed "business as usual" to continue around him.

What a midget of a man.