Go into any Australian church on a Sunday and you will find a seat. If you're lucky, the church will be half-full.

An argument could be made that this is a reflection of a cynical and godless age. But an argument could also be made that the market just isn't buying what the church is selling because it's an unattractive message.

Christ preached empathy and inclusion. The church has highlighted what separates. This can, and must, change if the church is to be a positive force in the spiritual and emotional life of our community.

This week we found out Australia's most senior Catholic has been convicted of the sexual abuse of children. The offence is reprehensible and it is good that justice has now (belatedly) been served.

But for many Catholics, this development will represent yet another failure of the church to protect the most vulnerable. Much of the commentary since the conviction was publicly disclosed is that this is a terrible outcome for Catholics and priests who have laboured to preserve their faith while their leaders have failed.

This chorus is incomplete if it does not also acknowledge that the conviction of Pell is an opportunity for the Catholic Church in Australia to alter its trajectory and find a better, more Christ-like mission and message.

Pell's legacy

Pell positioned himself very much as the public face of the Catholic Church in Australia. And what a cold, stony, Easter Island statue of a face it was.

Pell was the man who established the problematic Melbourne Response to child sexual abuse, undermining a more generous regime preferred by the Bishops Conference.

Family members who met with him to discuss their anguish and loss report that he was dismissive of their suffering. He was the man who deemed homosexual activity to be a "much greater health hazard than smoking" and suggested that, if young kids did not want to be the victims of homophobia, they should not be gay.

He counselled Catholic politicians that their "place in the life of the church" would be affected if they supported embryonic stem cell research. He opined that condoms encouraged promiscuity and, ultimately, the spread of AIDS.

How were those seeking spiritual guidance to react to this?

Could the abuse victim whose growth was stunted by a prepubescent assault, seeking full compensation and justice, find a place in this man's organisation?

Would a gay couple trying to find connection with God be welcomed?

The messaging was emphatic: this is our church, not your church.

Faith and good deeds were meaningless, unless who a person was matched who the church wanted them to be. And underpinning it all was the arrogance of a man who deemed his views immune from challenge because of their doctrinal purity.

In so many ways, Pell was the archetypal Pharisee, strictly observing and parroting dogmas while luxuriating in his superior sanctity, indifferent to the human toll.

One theologian, a Mr Jesus Christ, had some views on such people:

Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees — I mean their hypocrisy. Whatever is covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known. So then, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the broad daylight. Luke 12:1

The Cardinal might see some prescience in those observations.

The church can be more

Following the conviction, the Easter Island statue has cracked and crumbled. The church must consider how it moves forward when its most visible flag bearer has been revealed as utterly unworthy of the post.

What the church must do is acknowledge the failings of its figurehead and let the exclusionary dogmatism, typified by Pell, fall away with him.

Speaking personally, I know that these are the unwelcome musings of an ex-altar boy who long ago lost his faith. But I am not so far removed that I can't see the strength that faith can lend to a believer, and the support he or she can gain in a community of diverse people celebrating the better angels of our nature.

There are so many good and kind people in the church, and among its congregations, and it should break our hearts that an organisation that could be such a source of love and interconnectedness has chosen to position as its public face a cabal of hateful men who choose bigotry in a misguided attempt to be dogmatically constant.

Now that their leader has fallen, the church has the opportunity to be something more. We should pray they take it.

Robert Gascoigne is a writer and lawyer.

Editor's note: On Tuesday April 7, 2020, the High Court in a unanimous decision upheld Cardinal Pell's appeal and quashed his convictions on all five charges.