Pell’s fraught legacy

Saturday Jan 14

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This week in Crikey we brought you a range of perspectives on the complicated life and legacy of George Pell. Michael Bradley made the case that the late cardinal doesn’t deserve our respect, Guy Rundle weighed in on Pell, progressives and the culture war, and ACU’s Miles Pattenden mapped the biography of Australia’s most senior Catholic.

Years after Pell had his conviction for child sexual abuse overturned, problems persist in the way courts approach child abuse cases. Maeve McGregor wrote about the importance of tendency evidence, while Julia Bergin spoke to a child sex abuse survivor about his reaction to Pell’s death.

But if you’d rather not read another word about the man, we had plenty of coverage of other matters too, including a change at News Corp, The Chaser’s war on AI, a case for abolishing local councils, and much more.

Thanks for your support,

Gina Rushton,
News editor

Australian satirical site The Chaser to paywall content to prevent use as AI training material

CAM WILSON

'Even now, [artificial intelligence] is a more competent writer of satire than most of the people I've worked with.'

Members of The Chaser team during The Chaser's War on Everything (Image: Supplied)

Remembering George Pell

There are enough facts to judge George Pell on what he was — and what he was not

MICHAEL BRADLEY

We should respect the High Court's decision to acquit the dead cardinal on appeal. But that doesn't mean we need to respect the man himself.

Cardinal George Pell (Image: AAP/Jenny Evans)

The Blundstone Borgia was merely ruthless. It was the church that descended into evil

GUY RUNDLE

The Catholic Church's disdain of sex meant it has never fully acknowledged just how thoroughly its priests destroyed people's lives. Yet progressives gave Pell one final victory.

Cardinal George Pell (Image: Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio/Sipa USA)

For George Pell, the church was nothing if not a bastion of conservatism

MILES PATTENDEN

Even in his final years, Pell was reiterating his combative philosophy: there was no benefit to seeking compromise with critics.

Cardinal George Pell in 2006 (Image: AAP/Jeremy Piper)

Why Pell was never found ‘innocent’ — and why it matters

MAEVE MCGREGOR

Years after George Pell had his conviction for child sexual abuse overturned, many problems persist in the way courts approach child abuse cases.

(Image: AAP/David Crosling)

‘It re-traumatised me again and again going through his system’: a survivor on George Pell’s death

JULIA BERGIN

For victim-survivors of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the death of George Pell has dredged up traumas old and new.

Cardinal George Pell in 2008 (Image: AAP/Tracey Nearmy)

The late cardinal in his own words

CRIKEY

Pell was said to speak the 'truth as he found it, however difficult or unpopular'. Here are just some of his controversial pronouncements.

George Pell with the Sydney archdiocese's response to sexual abuse in 2012 (Image: AAP/Paul Miller)

Dan’s plan for Danistan: why the push to abolish local councils would benefit Labor

GUY RUNDLE

A new poll has revealed there's strong appetite to remove or shrink local councils. But why the move against them now?

(Image: Mitchell Squire/Private Media)

‘People will start waking up’: sovereign citizens hijack local protest to recruit members

CAM WILSON

A campaign against a council development is being organised out of a Facebook group run by an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist.

Herald Sun coverage of the protest and sovereign citizen Darren Bergwerf (Image: Supplied, Facebook/Darren 4 Dunkley)

Echoes of Labor’s disastrous 1988 referendum in Voice to Parliament debate

DENNIS ATKINS

Liberal Leader Peter Dutton wants to use the fight over the Voice to give the government its first big fat fail. But it mightn't be quite that simple.

Liberal Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

COVID-19 tests for Chinese arrivals pose a wicked problem for Labor

WANNING SUN

China ending its zero-COVID policy left Australia facing a conundrum: to test or not to test Chinese travellers. The jury is still out on its decision.

A man takes a COVID test in Shanghai (Image: CFOTO/Sipa USA)

News Corp’s youth media title, The Oz, gets the axe after nine months

JOHN BUCKLEY

The site, a passion project of Christopher Dore, the recently departed former editor-in-chief of The Australian, was dumped by his replacement.

The Oz homepage (Image: Supplied)

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