Pell, Minchin et al

I think most people would assume that George Pell has, in the past, not been as sensitive to the issue of clerical child abuse as we now expect Church leaders to be.  He may deserve some criticism for that.    On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the worst claims about things he is supposed to have said are from single sources and are unlikely to warrant serious findings against him.  I could be wrong, but in the terrible matter of child abuse, not every claim made by victims recalling events decades ago is necessarily credible.

That said, I am tired of the circus like quality to the media interest in Pell giving evidence again to the Royal Commission.  I don't know, for example, why all media outlets (including the commercial ones, not just the ABC - despite Bolt's silly frothing that they are following the story closely) have given such huge coverage to Minchin's song.

I've never cared for Minchin - he's always struck me as the embodiment of arrogant and crude Left wing comedy.  (And I say that fully aware that virtually all comedians are going to be Left leaning; it's just that some are more annoyingly arrogant and self assured that they understand every issue the "right" way.)

I also don't know why, with cheap and reliable video calls being the norm these days, the Commission did make such an initial issue of Pell appearing in person.

But having said all of this, in a broader sense, the value of this commission has been much greater (in the sense of the public feeling that grave wrongs have had the full airing they deserve) than any of  the politically motivated Abbott enquiries into the Labor government.   It's an absurd Right wing meme that it was called to harm Abbott - a man who left the seminary because he felt it wasn't macho enough, and whose connection with Pell seemed to be largely diminished in recent years anyway.

But it will still be good to get this over with.