THE London newspaper shouted "It was
The Sun wot won it" the morning after the slim, unlikely and widely
untipped Conservative victory in Britain's 1992 elections. I thought of that amusing headline last week when Catholic Cardinal George Pell curiously blamed the media for the pressure that last week led Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call a royal commission into child sexual abuse.
But it's not "the Herald Sun wot won it".
Persistently unavoidable reports in this newspaper and others, and on radio and television, merely reinforced the fact that such an inquiry was needed, and inevitable.
That deep exhalation you heard last Monday morning was a national sigh of relief.
But the cardinal was angry; indeed, he sounded rattled, with his uncharacteristic "ums" and "ahhs", and was in no mood for turning the other cheek. There is an anti-Catholic bias, he believes.
Really?
Might be that Jewish-sounding fellow down at The Age, religion editor Barney Zwartz. But I know Barney. It's not him (and neither is he Jewish). Perhaps it is 3AW's Derryn Hinch, jailed for naming and shaming paedophile Catholic priest Michael Glennon all those years ago. But I know Derryn well, and it is not him.
It is not me, either. It is none of us.
It is time the Catholic Church realised it is not about the media.
It is about disgusting criminal opportunism - sex crimes against vulnerable children - by cunning and vile paedophiles who particularly infest the Catholic Church not just here, but across the globe.
Dreadful and widespread though Catholic clergy sex crimes are - in Ireland, Germany, Spain, Canada, Belgium, Norway, the United States, and elsewhere - what interests local media is the local issue.
And what a problem it might be.
On the day Cardinal Pell's response to the royal commission was published, a court was told that a senior Catholic priest facing child sex charges had once told another priest: "God made us this way, and it's His fault". That preliminary hearing continues, and any guilt is yet to be established.
The Catholic Church is under siege.
Not by the media, but by state and federal bodies: parliaments, police forces, and the courts.
They are all quite properly seeking the truth of the multiplying complaints of ferocious sexual attacks on minors by Catholic clergy and of the church's inadequate, sometimes complicit, response to those crimes.
Other religions are implicated.
But as the senior and respected Catholic priest Fr Kevin Dillon said last week: "Certainly there's no doubt this goes across different organisations and different denominations and within the wider community. But there's also no denying that we're the clubhouse leaders. By far."
That analogy is sadly appropriate; some of the now convicted paedophiles allowed to work as Catholic clergy did treat the rape of children in their care as a sport.
Fr Dillon appears to understand the issue better than Cardinal Pell, who would rather implicate others: "We object to be described as the only cab on the rank."
Cardinal Pell, it is not about cabs and ranks. It is about fear and death.
It is about often violent sex with children, many of whom went on to kill themselves. Their blood stains the ermine of the over-dressed Catholic hierarchy.
Cardinal Pell: "One of the reasons why we welcome the royal commission is that this commission will enable those claims to be validated or found to be a significant exaggeration."
With priests and brothers in jail and with the church compensating hundreds of victims, it is no longer about "claims".
It is about criminals.
Cardinal Pell's comments about supporting the now jailed serial paedophile Fr Gerald Ridsdale were confronting. He went to court with Ridsdale "in a priestly act of solidarity".
If only the Church had shown such "solidarity" with its raped and discarded little children.
Ridsdale had "done other good things", the cardinal explained. And I'm sure Hitler kissed babies.
Cardinal Pell continued: "At that stage none of us - well, at least I had no idea of the enormity of, and the number of, Ridsdale's crimes."
So what number did Cardinal Pell need to know of before deciding it was unwise to speak up for Ridsdale?
10? 50? 100?
It should have been one.
Cardinal Pell: "In retrospect, I didn't realise what a wrong impression it would give to the victims."
Being out of touch is a Catholic trait.
When he was asked why the Church had been slow to respond to the crisis of clergy rapes, the late Monsignor Gerry Cudmore, then Melbourne's Vicar General, said: "We didn't know the effect (sexual abuse) would have on children."
I'm no expert, but I'd have thought that grotesque acts of sexual perversity forced on you by the parish priest would have quite an impact.
Cardinal Pell: "There's certainly a cynicism in elements of the press (that the church is doing enough)."
I'd say so.
Be sure to include me in that group.
I am indebted to Cardinal Pell.
In his early days as Archbishop of Melbourne, he did me a favour, and with a humour long since evaporated. He is a deeply educated fellow and is mostly eloquent. His masterful panegyric for B.A. Santamaria was perhaps the best ever heard in this city, and I told him so.
But the cardinal's response last week reeked of bad advice from an overpaid PR firm better placed to "grow brands" than save an ancient institution.
Nonetheless, he insisted "I will comply with the law of the land".
That's good news.
If only his criminal clergy had such standards.