An Australian royal
commission on clerical crimes finds damning evidence that one of the
Vatican’s most senior cardinals turned a blind eye to sex abuse. So why
doesn’t the pope fire him?
ROME
— Whatever one’s religious affiliation or belief, it must be argued
that the Gods of Glorious Coincidence were at work this week. Just as
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was handing out the
Oscar statuette for Best Picture to Spotlight last Sunday night, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s No. 3 official, was seated in a dingy hotel event room testifying by video link about the very same sort of systematic clerical sex abuse exposed in the film.