Tim Minchin released a new song earlier this week—a fucking scathing and fucking brilliant attack of a song—and it's making news all around the world. Sydney Morning Herald:

Comedian Tim Minchin has taken aim at Cardinal George Pell in a provocative song in which he calls Australia's highest-ranking cleric in the Catholic Church scum, a coward and a pompous buffoon. The musical attack aired on Network Ten's The Project on Tuesday night and immediately attracted a swell of support from viewers and social media users, despite outrage from The Project co-host Steve Price. Minchin welcomes legal action from the Cardinal in the musical attack in which he tells Pell to "come home and frickin' sue me".

Cardinal Pell claims he's too sick to travel back to Australia from Rome to give testimony before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is investigating cases of sexual abuse—the rape of children—that happened on Pell's watch, under Pell's nose, and possibly even in Pell's home. BBC:

Tall and imperious, seen as aloof and arrogant by detractors, the 74-year-old has repeatedly faced allegations from abuse victims of a cover-up. These include that he was involved in moving notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale around parishes rather than reporting him, and that he attempted to bribe one of the victims of the now jailed priest to keep quiet. Cardinal Pell, who studied at Oxford and was a promising Australian Rules footballer in his youth, has repeatedly denied all allegations.

Testimony received by the Royal Commission paints a different picture:

Cardinal George Pell was overheard in the 1980s discussing the sexual abuse of boys at the hands of convicted paedophile Gerald Ridsdale, a royal commission has been told. The explosive allegations about what Australia's most senior Catholic knew of abuse by priests in the Ballarat diocese before he became the Archbishop of Melbourne were aired at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. A man, referred to as BWE during the hearing, told the inquiry he overhead a conversation between Father Frank Madden and then-auxiliary priest George Pell at St Patricks Cathedral in 1983. He said Father Madden asked: "How are things going down your way?" He said Cardinal Pell replied: "I think Gerry has been rooting young boys again."

Minchin writes on his blog:

Cardinal George Pell is the most powerful dude in the Catholic Church of Australia. He’s currently working at the Vatican, but The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has demanded his presence in Australia. But George has sent a doctor’s note saying he’s too unwell to fly. The whole thing stinks to high hell, and many people in Australia are very, very angry…not least of all, the survivors in Ballarat, where abuse was sickeningly rife. Pell was born and educated in Ballarat, and at one point actually lived with Gerry Ridsdale, one of the most prolific (and allegedly protected) paedophiles in Australian history. He has been accused of covering up the actions of others, and of sexually abusing a kid himself.

The song can be purchased on iTunes and other sites, and Minchin is donating all proceeds to a Go Fund Me campaign aimed at raising money to send victims of the abuse Pell either tolerated or enabled—or took part in—to Rome to confront the coward in person as he gives his testimony. The goal was $55K but more than $200K has been raised since Minchin released "Come Home (Cardinal Pell)." Let 'em fly first.

Minchin is a huge star in Australia—actually, scratch that. Minchin is a star over the world. He's an icon in Australia. Imagine the shit storm if an American star of similar stature—an American icon—had gone after Boston's Cardinal Law with the same wit, ferocity, and moral clarity, and had done at the time that scandal was unfolding. (Spotlight was great, but it came years too late.) Can you imagine it? Good, because it could only happen in our imaginations. No American artist of Minchin's stature would have the guts to take on the Catholic Church the way Minchin did this week and has in the past...