The church bureaucracy has been defensive about the sex abuse of children and prone to blame the media.

By transferring offending priests from parish to parish and failing to bring them to the attention of police for their criminal acts, the Catholic Church has behaved as if it is exempt from the rule of law in Australia.

How odd that these Catholics seem to have missed that whole "Sins of omission" thingy...

"Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." ~Saint James the Just.

Cardinal Pell is primarily concerned to defend and uphold the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation' of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church pretty much deserves what it has had so far, and what it will get. It has acted not to help the victims but to cover up, shield the institutions from bad publicity and lawsuits, and to shuffle malefactors around, rather than to report them for punishment.

The church and its leaders should have their noses rubbed in it until they really get it.

WWJD?

One very concerning factor that has yet to receive publicity or attention in this affair is the current role the churches, Roman Catholic in particular via Centacare and other affiliates, in the provision of various services on behalf of the government of Australia [and SA] that relate to the needs of people but particularly women and children.
For example all govt funded regional services for domestic violence in SA are run by the Catholic Church via Centacare.
The Catholic Church is a political organization famous for being patriarchal in its command structure, that has religious and ideological beliefs, central to its very core, that directly relate to the inferior position of women and yet this organization is allowed, indeed paid public money, to deliver services around counselling involving abortion, divorce and domestic violence.
Social workers et al, in regional areas who work in these fields have only one choice of employer - an employer who has a millenia long history of sexism and misogyny and whilst the organization is running such services on the one hand it is simultaneously directly involved at a bureacratic level in unsavoury [to put mildly] activities that have given cause for the extreme step of calling for a Royal Commission into such.

Bizarre.

Cardinal Pell has blamed a smear campaign against the Catholic Church for public pressure that led to a royal commission into child sex abuse.
He said on Tuesday that the commission would help separate fact from fiction after a "persistent press campaign" and "general smears that we [the church] are covering up and moving people around".

The Australian says that "radical secularists are proposing a separate royal commission to consider the abolition of the Catholic Church."

It's a defence of the Catholic Right which includes Tony Abbott.

Thankfully the power that religious leaders have over institutionalised children is much deminished.

Pell needs a good flogging in the street.

"The Australian says that "radical secularists are proposing a separate royal commission to consider the abolition of the Catholic Church.""

Where is the Gillard Government proposing to move against, or breach, the First Section 116 of the Constitution that bans the commonwealth from prohibiting the "free exercise of religion".

The argument is that freedom of religion must give way before the right against abuse. The High Court has in the past tolerated restraints on religion if aimed at some other legitimate objective.

Addressing child abuse in the Catholic Church would one such objective.

So, the last defence they've got after generations of covering up of hundreds of documented assault cases is that it's a commie plot?
Puhlease.