Though many local Catholics don’t hold the
Australian cardinal primarily responsible for the wrongdoing there, his
recent video testimony from Rome has refocused attention on the
archdiocese’s painful past.
It’s Palm Sunday at St. Bede’s Church in Balwyn North and parishioners
have filled the pews to the brim for late-morning Mass. It’s an
impressive attendance for a church in a sleepy eastern suburb of
Australia’s second city, less than a third of which identifies as
Catholic.