Posted on 06/04/2019 5:27:21 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Jailed Cardinal George Pell's appeal against his historical child sex abuse convictions has begun at the Supreme Court of Victoria in front of a packed court room.
The 77-year-old is fronting the hearing in person, after being taken to court in a prison van and escorted in by guards.
His appeal is being heard by three Court of Appeal judges and is being live-streamed on the court's website.
The courtroom was full as the hearing got underway.
Some of Pell's relatives and supporters were in attendance, as well as abuse survivor advocates and reporters.
Sitting in the dock for the proceedings, Pell is wearing his clerical collar, which he did not wear when he was sentenced.
Pell is serving a six-year jail term for sexually abusing two choirboys when he was archbishop of Melbourne.
Last December, a jury found him guilty of abusing the boys at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral after a Sunday mass in 1996, and abusing one of the boys a second time several months later.
The former senior Vatican official pleaded not guilty at trial, but was convicted of one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child.
Pell is first requesting leave to appeal — that is, permission for his appeal to be considered.
But his application for leave to appeal and the appeal itself are being argued at the same time, which is the Court of Appeal's usual practice to avoid separate hearings and save time.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
Homosexuality is good. Homosexuality is bad. They just can’t seem to make up their minds.
The “victim” told an incredible, absurd story, but the jury apparently bought it. There are rumors of a Vatican-led conspiracy against Pell that led to this phony case and conviction. The story goes that certain shadowy figures at the Holy See wanted Pell out of the way as he was cracking down on financial corruption. Theory seems plausible.
Cardinal Pell was falsely accused.
Of the two accusers, one has admitted that they made up the story.
Their accusations are not credible.
What I will never understand is why the church is harder on fornicating priests than on pedo priests.
Fornicating priests have been defrocked, and I’m not talking about the secretly married ones, given that if married they axiomatically then cannot fornicate.
Multiple offender pedo priests get shuffled around, but multiple offender fornicating priests get sent packing.
Yes, I didn’t know Vatican-led, but he definitely is a conservative, outspoken, courageous man and has been done wrong. Shine your LIght, Lord.
I expect that his conviction will be upheld.
Not because he's guilty. Because the COURT is guilty ... and to overturn his conviction would be tantamount to admitting that the court which convicted him is hopelessly corrupt.
And we can't have that.
That would be doubleplusungood wrongthink.
I don’t know about the Vatican, but I can vouch for a vendetta by Victoria police, who commenced their action by literally advertising for complainants! Two mentally disturbed gentlemen obliged, one of whom has since died, having admitted on his deathbed that his complaint was entirely made up.
Pell was a good administrator who did a lot to clean up the problems in the church here. He is a clear headed person who doesn’t pay obeisance to the issue du jour and he is hated because he can see through the climate change scam and doesn’t hesitate to say so. He has written excellent articles on the subject.
I am more than willing to believe in his innocence. If you read the details of what he was accused of, it is literally impossible. I cannot imagine how he was convicted (second time around, the first jury didn’t come to any conclusion) and have to assume that the jury was influenced by total atmosphere of hate created by the media. The facts of the matter speak for themselves. Even the judge was astonished by the verdict.
I’m not convinced by the idea of some Vatican lead conspiracy.
Pell has been Public Enemy Number One in Australia as far as the left is concerned since the mid to late 1990s when he stood up in support of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. It is difficult to convey to people outside Australia just how hated he is by the ‘progressives’ in Australia. They’ve been trying to get him for something ever since.
Because he was the most senior Catholic cleric in Australia when the first major stories about abuse by clergy and coverups broke, he’s also associated with that in the eyes of many, even though that occurred before he had any significant power, and in fact, he was probably the first senior figure in the Church to actually try and do something about it. A lot of people don’t seem to get the chronology - because he was in charge when it became public they think he’s responsible for things that happened decades earlier.
I’m inclined to doubt he’s guilty for all sorts of reasons. If so, I hope his appeal succeeds.
But if he is guilty, he should rot in prison and then burn in Hell.
The thing is there have been two recent cases in Australia where the appeal Courts have overruled guilty verdicts against Catholic Priests - in one case against an Archbishop - basically saying that there has been a witch hunt atmosphere that prevented them getting a fair trial. The appeal Judges do seem to be willing to do this when they believe it is justified.
Knowing nothing about this particular case I can't be sure how justified,or unjustified,the accusations are.
>Fornicating priests have been defrocked, and I’m not talking about the secretly married ones, given that if married they axiomatically then cannot fornicate.
This is a mistaken impression of secretly married, since the clerical state automatically impedes the marriage vow from being a valid one, so the priest is not only fornicating in truth, but such a priest also simulated the sacrament of matrimony and violated his oath of celibacy and scandalized his community.
Granted I’m not saying that pedophilia is not a whole hugely nefarious evil in comparison. Its just that I saw you post something that is mistaken. In the Catholic Church it is quite possible for marriages to be invalid or unlawfully celebrated.
Prayers up for Cardinal Pell.
My problem with the idea that Pell is guilty (and many other people have the same problem) is logistical.
The allegations are that he caught two choirboys in the Sacristy of St Patrick's Cathedral misbehaving (drinking Sacramental wine) immediately after celebrating High Mass (his first or second Mass after becoming Archbishop of Melbourne) and induced one of them to fellate him.
There is only a five minute window in which this could have possibly happened and during that five minute window numerous people would have been entering and exiting the room this supposedly happened in - without noticing the fact that the 6'3" Archbishop was having oral sex in the corner with two young boys.
The clothing he was wearing - full ceremonial vestments of an Archbishop would seem to make it impossible as well.
Nobody in the Choir noticed the boys were missing?
Nobody noticed the Archbishop was missing from the steps of the Cathedral where he generally met with people leaving the Cathedral? Again, bear in mind, that this was just after he had taken over - a lot of prominent people would have likely been attending the Mass to see him and be seen by him.
Then we have the fact that another senior Priest says he was with the Archbishop the whole time that this supposed event was happening?
And the fact that of the two alleged victims, one insisted to his mother until the day he died that he was not molested - now, all right, victims do sometimes go into denial about these things, but it does create a situation where there is only one witness - the alleged victim - because the other alleged victim is dead and could not be questioned, but consistently said 'nothing happened'.
There were also two trials - the first one failed to reach a verdict (some reports say they voted 10-2 Not Guilty - in Victoria, you need 11-1 or a unanimous verdict - but I've never seen that absolutely confirmed as true), and so a second trial was held.
Both of these trials were held in secret - supposedly to protect the integrity of a potential trial on other allegations that would have been held earlier this year - but that trial was abandoned by the prosecution on the basis that there was not sufficient evidence to proceed.
There have been many allegations made against Pell over the years - all but this current case have been thrown out because of lack of evidence. It would be easy to conclude there has basically been a witch hunt to get the man.
He is incredibly hated by the progressive left in Australia. He's the bogeyman for many, more or less.
So which is worse then, heterosexual fornication or pedophilia, when Paul condemned homosexuality, fornication and adultery all equally in 1 Corinthians but Jesus previously set a higher bar by saying it would be better that a millstone were hung around a person’s neck than that a little one should be offended?
If pedophilia is worse, as it is a sexual union between an adult and a little one, then why not then send both packing, the pedo priest along with the priest who secretly marries, at equal rate when found out and immediately report the pedo priest as adult fornication between heterosexuals is not illegal?
The other “victim” had died some time before, so the police were pretty safe in not worrying about his testimony.
It's true that in the West today the Catholic Church is fair game for "progressives" as well as gold diggers looking for an easy million dollars.
I suppose the success of his appeal (assuming that he deserves success) will depend on how "progressive" the judges on your Supreme Court are.
He was railroaded and hung out to dry by Bergoglio.
Unfit to hold public office...
If guilty, yes.
That’s the question though.
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