Three Magi from Victoria Police journeyed to Rome last week, not in search of the Messiah but to question the Messianic Cardinal George Pell about sexual assault allegations against him spanning three decades.
It was a longtime hoped-for pilgrimage not writ in scripture but in secret religious and other text as elusive as dead sea scrolls; in the past jealously sealed from the wider public by predatory sects and those who protected them.
The Magi rode not camels adorned with embroidered and perfumed fabric of exotic silk and texture, but instead boarded the great silver bird, travelling, we are told, business class, as befits their ilk and enterprise agreement.
No babe in a manger did they seek, but a man in his mid-seventies, who is a prince of the Church and who once harboured ambitions to be the Roman Catholic King of the World and claim for himself the coveted throne of St Peter.
He is a man believed by many to have “absconded” to Rome and the gated Vatican city to evade his accusers, further scrutiny, paparazzi and journalists, taking up the post of Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.
They bore not gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. No bright star guided them.
Instead they took to the Holy See investigative files and statements from Pell’s alleged victims in Australia, Lyndon Monument and Damian Dignan both now in their forties and former students at Catholic schools.
The VicPol detectives are members of the SANO task force, first established to investigate allegations expunged during the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse involving religious and non-government organisations, and now working on allegations unearthed during the continuing Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
News of the visit to Italy by VicPol detectives has richocheted around the world.
A statement from the office of Cardinal Pell regarding his interview by the Victoria Police rejected all and every allegation of sexual abuse.
Yesterday, the international Catholic weekly, The Tablet, also confirmed a statement from Cardinal Pell:
“The Cardinal repeats his previous rejection of all and every allegation of sexual abuse and will continue to cooperate with Victoria Police until the investigation is finalised”.
It is important to note that the brief statement from Pell’s office again bore no letterhead or logo from the personal desk or Cardinal’s office as chief money man in the temple, the Vatican, or even the Catholic Church.
This is a deliberate move to disassociate the Father Church (“Mother” Church is a patriarchal misnomer) from the criminal activities of wholesale child sex abuse and pedophile rings that operated with impunity within the Catholic Church in Australia — the Catholic Ballarat diocese likely holding the ignominious title of the world’s capital of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy, per capita.
And sadly, it is argued, the same is said of the suicide rate of victims.
For decades, Cardinal Pell has inexplicably evaded formal police investigation.
For decades, he has got away with slyly asserting he was “exonerated“ of personal allegations against him by an in-house Church investigation, its findings known as the Southwell Report.
This is false.
He was not exonerated.
In February this year, Independent Australia confirmed this falsehood in an article headlined the ‘Southwell Report, the truth about the so-called exoneration of George Pell’, much to the chagrin of the Cardinal’s formidable spin factory and his acolytes.
Among them is the former Governor of Hong Kong, Lord Christopher “Mount” Patten, as we revealed in our March exclusive.
Here again is the text of the Southwell Report so there can be no ambiguity in the matter.
Disturbingly, the Report was removed from a number of Catholic websites months ago.
Independent Australia categorically states that it makes no imputation whatever against George Pell.
Although Pell has given evidence by video link to the Royal Commission, on the grounds of ill health, he has deftly avoided appearing in person in Australia since 2014.
The highly respected and well researched Broken Rites Australia provides a comprehensive analysis of Pell’s avoidance profile.
Pell’s personal repugnant arrogance has always had more than the rancid stench of lese majeste about it.
But in relation to the overall issue of child sex abuse by clergy, we are dealing not with kings. Nor are we dealing with gods. We are dealing with mere mortals, regardless of what gods they profess.
Let us hope that the three wise persons from Downunder bring home with them the joyous gift of justice, for justice remains one of the many elusive treasures long hidden within the Vatican’s vaults and internationally denied to so many of its its sexually abused laity — most of them vulnerable children.
Justice for Australian victims is a defaced and defiled artefact covered in dust, filth and stale semen from pedophile priests who abused in the name of their God and as the evidence attests, for their sexual gratification even used crucifix to stick up the anuses of children.
Justice has too long been delayed. A godless prayer that it no longer continues to be denied.
This feature, courtesy IndependentAustralia.net
TOP IMAGE: George Pell (Library image)