The Pell haters are all at See

The Rome Trip

Pell's triumphant return to Rome is no doubt motivated by the fact that Rome was his most recent home, other than Spencer Street Melbourne and Barwon Prison. Rome is where his friends and colleagues largely are, and where the bulk of his personal items are. The trip has naturally caused a combination of curiosity and angst, just like everything else he does. No doubt the recent departure from the Vatican of one of his erstwhile Roman curial critics – the sacked Cardinal Becciu – has added to the spice.

As the National Catholic Register in the USA reported:

"The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances … and is to be thanked and congratulated on recent developments," Cardinal Pell stated in reference to his brother cardinal's dismissal. "I hope the cleaning of the stables continues in both the Vatican and Victoria [Australia]."

This amounts to a complete vindication of the Cardinal at each end of the world. Neat bookends and a nice homecoming present from across the Tiber.

The despondent local Pell haters here have struggled to find a nasty angle on the Rome trip, but not for want of trying. According to one American left wing, diatribist organ owned by a Democrat billionnaire, the "disgraced" cardinal "slithered" back into Rome. Disgraced? Slithered? Here are seven paltry attempts at local denigration:

• He has no real reason to be there now – so why did he go?
• His return will cause mixed feelings in Rome – they don't want him back;
• He previously said he wasn't returning to Rome – he is a liar;
• He is a formerly jury-convicted sex abuser – so there (surely that is defamatory, Lucie Morris Marr?);
• How on earth did he obtain government permission to travel – he is unjustifiably privileged;
• He is returning to yet another Vatican financial scandal – so it must have something to do with Pell;
• Pell was heckled by a Melbourne woman in Rome – we still hate him and he has no escape.

Each of these pathetic attempts at spin is either inaccurate or irrelevant or both.

Why People Cling to Rubbish Beliefs

Now, there are four possible explanations for people clinging to patently false beliefs, of refusing to admit they were just wrong about something. In particular, they may help to explain why the Pell haters and their useful idiots have come out of their bunkers over the past few days. These are the reasons they simply cannot let go, and the reasons that they have to keep searching to find something new and damning to say about the man.

The first explanation is virtue signalling. It is the need perpetually to vent their defiant-in-the-face-of-evidence, "we believe you" gesturing. They just cannot let it go because of their innate noble cause sanctimony. They are in endless campaign mode for the victims, if not of Pell, then of all the other perpetrators, alleged and real.

The second explanation is ideological blindness. It is what I have elsewhere argued is the path dependent, ideology-driven compulsion to believe and say stupid things because your belief system and world view demand that you believe and say things that might conform to the ideology but which simply don't pass the smell test. This drives many of the bizarre and easily disproven climate alarmist claims.