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Posted on 04/06/2020 5:50:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Cardinal George Pell will be freed from jail after Australia's highest court overturned his convictions for child sexual abuse.
The ex-Vatican treasurer, 78, had been the most senior Catholic figure ever jailed for such crimes.
In 2018, a jury found he abused two boys in Melbourne in the 1990s.
But the High Court of Australia quashed that verdict on Tuesday, meaning the cardinal will immediately stop serving a six-year jail sentence.
The Australian cleric has maintained his innocence since he was charged by police in June 2017.
A full bench of seven judges ruled unanimously in Cardinal Pell's favour.
It was his final legal challenge, after his conviction was upheld by a lower court last year.
Pell was among the highest-ranking figures in the Church's global hierarchy.
Made a cardinal in 2003, he was summoned to Rome in 2014 to help clean up the Vatican's finances.
He forged a reputation as a disciplined Church leader who held strict conservative views against same-sex marriage, abortion and contraception.
This is a breaking news story - more to follow.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
This case could have been called "ludicrous" had it not been so vicious.
Pell is a good guy the Aussie Left had been gunning for, for literally decades.
They convicted him for an alleged crime which he could not have committed, (physical impossibility), since it would require him to leave a solemn procession and practically fly from one end of the Cathedral to the other, remove heavy, brocaded chasuble and then de-vest from an alb (a garment with no front, back or side openings), sexually abuse two drunk adolescents, and then re-vest and fly or sprint back to the doors of the Cathedral to chat with congregants, unnoticed by any and all.
Plus many other details to absurd to recount.
It's chilling to think that this 78-year-old man, being held in solitary, could have died in prison before his legal vindication.
Thank God, again, that he's been freed.
Praise God!
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I hope somebody posts another one with more of the background.
Ping to you.
Hope you are not on lockdown...
Yes - been following and have been posted a few articles.
We’re at the stage here that we are only supposed to leave our homes to shop for essentials, attend medical appointments, or exercise alone, but so far Australia has been relatively lightly affected by all this.
This was nothing but a public lynching.
Makes it a little pictorially clearer how impossible it would be for an old man to slip away from a procession crowd, de-vest, abuse two teenage choir members in a bustling, open sacristy with people criss-crossing to and fro, re-vest and get back to the front doors --- unnoticed at that. And--- according to the accuser's timeline ---IN SIX MINUTES. And the two drunk choristers both made it to choir practice on time, which was to start "immediately" after Mass.
Praise God for the truth to finally come out. I think we all knew he was innocent.
Did he have a really bad lawyer or just a stupid jury?
I think they’ve been after him for years.
NOVEMBER 2018: Retrial starts. Jurors aren’t told of the previous hung jury. Judge deems vital evidence inadmissible, no new evidence is allowed, just re-arguing the old evidence.
DECEMBER 2018: Pell is found guilty on all charges by an unanimous jury. He appeals to High Court.
APRIL 7, 2020. - Australia's High Court unanimously (7-0) quashes conviction. Pell free to go after 400 days in supermax prison, almost all in solitary.
It was not a bad lawyer. It was not even about a supposed crime. It was about Pell being anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, "right wing," at odds with Liberals on immigration policy and Muslims, a Catholic Bishop who talked like a Catholic Bishop. And a coast-to-cost Left-wing media frenzy.
Plus the Vatican hung him out to dry, because at the time of the charges being made, he was investigating Vatican Bank finances. This is why the Friends-of-Francis permitted him to be extradited in the first place, which they didn't have to do. Truly squalid story if you want to go into it.
"on the uncorroborated say-so of a single accuser"
Praise God for this innocent man getting justice.
What a travesty his earlier, false conviction was
This is all one need s to know why this happened. It will be interesting to see what deep state Pope Francsis does now.
Of a crime which supposedly happened 40 years before an accusation was ever made.
The report released today from the Australian Royal Commission link reveals the evidence that Pell was deeply involved in the coverup of Ridsdale's 130 acts of sexual abuse against children, some as young as FOUR YEARS OLD.
But no - let's "Thank God for his release".
That's your "good guy". You can have him, and the whole rotten institution.
As it is, they spent years literally trying beg, borrow, plan, frame or fabricate evidence of wrong doing, and ended up with the pathetic miscarriage of justice we saw play out over the past 2 years.
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