For whom the Pell tolls
The coverage since this days-old conviction doesn’t give us much insight into Cardinal Pell, but it does give us a good look at how ‘mateship’ and corruption in Australia works.
As soon as the matter became public the flak machine went into overdrive, casting doubt on the unanimous verdict and blaming everyone who had opposed Pell and his ‘conservative’ mates; though what they are conserving apart from their own peer group is a mystery.
They’re like children playing ‘imagination’, but with real-life consequences. It doesn’t suit them to believe it, so it must be made up by people who hate them and their mate Pell.
A jury of ordinary people reviewed the evidence and all the think-pieces in the world won’t change the outcome. Pell’s mates in government and the press need to come to terms with this.
It doesn’t matter how much you despise gay people and women, or cling to egocentric certainties. There is a line and you cross it at your peril. The public may not remember arcane economic theories but they remember sexual abuse.
Pell’s sexual violence was an abuse of his position over the powerless and that’s why they rush to defend him.
After all, the hydra has many heads.