His Eminence Cardinal George Pell, World Youth Day, 2005
"With respect," said the committee chair, Georgie Crozier, "I don’t want to hear about the Saxons."*
Nor do I. What I'd like to hear more about--and this time clearly and without evasions and deceptions--is the surprising news that the Cardinal Primate of Australia only discovered post factum and to his shock that there was extensive cover-up of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the Australian Catholic church.
A cover-up he wishes us to imagine he had no role in engineering.
Tell us about that, Cardinal Pell. The Saxons we'll study in our history books, if you please.
*David Marr in The Guardian, "George Pell: Everything Except His Testimony Spoke of Power"
P.S. Marr reports that, having been asked by Mr. Crozier not to talk about the Saxons, His Eminence went right on and talked about . . . the Saxons.
P.P.S. And then there's this, Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith writing in the Catholic Herald UK about the story of Cardinal O'Brien of Scotland: "Instead, reading what Ms Deveney has to say, we get the impression that headless chickens are still ruling the roost, partly as a result of the way power is devolved in the Catholic Church."
