652 Face the Music, Cardinal Pell
“Perhaps you will come home and frickin’ sue me!” … the closing words in Tim Minchin’s song. If only! It would make our day. Daisy Dumas (SMH) has a good grip on the story, nothing much to add there …
Daisy Dumas
Newsmaker (excerpt):
Mud thrown by Tim
Minchin's insult-hurling whirl of a protest song
has stuck to Cardinal Pell
"The Vatican may sit in gilded
resplendence, its 108 acres armed by the Swiss Guard, centuries of faith and
theism. But men in striped, ballooning pantaloons, feathered helmets and
theatrical halberds are no match for a single, three-minute message. Tim
Minchin's song Come Home (Cardinal Pell) has spread through the gates of
the internet, along the braying corridors of social media and into the reach of
every smartphone and computer user on the planet, including those within the
Roman city state's intimidating walls.
"Search for the name of
Sydney's former archbishop George Pell this week and you'd have most
likely landed on a song written and performed by Perth-raised comedian
Minchin.
"Written, recorded and edited in a
total of three days, Come Home (Cardinal Pell) has been praised as the
"pitch-perfect protest song", as it carefully tiptoes from sweet
deference to an insult-hurling whirl.
"I want to be transparent here,
George, I'm not the greatest fan of your religion, and I personally believe
that those who cover up abuse should go to prison," sings Minchin on the
track, released on Tuesday.
"But your ethical hypocrisy,
your intellectual vacuity, and your arrogance don't bother me as much as the
fact that you have turned out to be such a goddamn coward."
"No amount of purple liturgical
silk could protect the cardinal from the wrath of his fellow Australians
on social media as Minchin's ditty worked its magic, a smartly timed
hand grenade thrown into a cauldron of deeply scarred sexual abuse
victims, pissed-off onlookers and law-abiding citizens who see the double
standards at play in the upper echelons of the church. If the cardinal is well
enough to attend mass at St Peter's Basilica, they reason, he may be well
enough to board a flight to Australia to appear in person before the child sex
abuse royal commission."