Posted on 02/28/2019 9:48:14 AM PST by ebb tide
I’m not even going to attempt to present this one as a straight news piece. The inescapable feeling one gets when looking at the story is that it’s a farce.
After months under an Australian court’s gag order, the December conviction of Cardinal George Pell on decades-old sex abuse allegations has just been announced. The news comes after another trial scheduled to happen this month has fallen apart. The question of whether the cardinal is guilty or innocent remains.
It’s currently breaking news pretty much everywhere.
Cardinal George Pell isn’t a man I have a particular affinity for. He’s known as a “conservative,” which means only so much to a traditionalist like me. He’s a politician, like most bishops of note, if a little more rough around the edges. But he was brought into the Vatican to do a job — audit and reform the Vatican bank — and when he found over a billion Euros in the Vatican mattresses, he was suddenly called back to Australia on decades-old sexual abuse allegations as papal hatchet man Archbishop Becciu swooped in to put a stop to any momentum the financial reforms might have.
In July of 2017, I wrote a piece entitled “The Destruction of Cardinal Pell.” In it, I noted that he had fallen from the good graces of Francis when he signed the 13 Cardinals Letter, and that as soon as the years-old allegations of decades-old sexual abuse against him became formal, there were signs of it being a witch hunt. As I wrote at the time:
One can’t help but wonder whether decades-old allegations — usually impossible to prove — will do anything but leave Pell a man with a ruined reputation. Certainly, a guilty verdict under such circumstances seems unlikely. But with headlines like “The Pope’s Pedophile?” now circulating in the mainstream press, even an complete acquittal will never restore his good name.
Apparently, I underestimated the Australian courts.
Despite the Australian media gag order, the Catholic News Agency under the helm of J.D. Flynn went ahead with stories last December about Pell’s conviction — even after they received a cease and desist order from an Australian judge. In a piece by Ed Condon, the verdict was described in terms that very much called into question whether justice was even attempted. Allow me to quote from it at some length:
CNA has spoken to several sources familiar with the Pell case, all of whom expressed disbelief at the verdict. The sources spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the legal gag order imposed by the court.
“They have convicted an innocent man,” one source directly familiar with the evidence told CNA. “What’s worse is that they know they have.”
An individual who attended the entire trial in person but is unconnected with Pell’s legal team, told CNA that Pell’s lawyers had made an “unanswerable defense.”
“It was absolutely clear to everyone in that court that the accusations were baseless. It wasn’t that Pell didn’t do what he’s accused of – he clearly couldn’t have done it.”
The allegations are understood to concern Pell assaulting the two choristers in the sacristy of Melbourne cathedral on several occasions immediately following Sunday Mass.
The defense presented a range of witnesses who testified that the cardinal was never alone in the sacristy with altar servers or members of the choir, and that in all the circumstances under which the allegations are alleged to have taken place, several people would have been present in the room.
The sacristy in Melbourne’s Cathedral has large open-plan rooms, each with open arches and halls, and multiple entrances and exits, the defense noted.
Defense attorneys also produced a range of witnesses who testified that Pell was constantly surrounded by priests, other clergy, and guests following Sunday Masses in the cathedral, and that choristers had a room entirely separate from the sacristy in which they changed as a group, before and after Mass.
Observers also questioned whether some courtroom tactics used by state prosecutors were intended to stoke anti-clerical feelings in jury members.
One priest, a Jesuit, was called as an expert witness by the defense, but was consistently referred to as a “Christian Brother” by prosecutors – a move, the court observer told CNA, that seemed calculated to invoke the religious order at the center of a widely known clerical sexual abuse scandal in the country.
“It was a blatant move, but it sums up the sort of anti-Catholic, anti-clerical drift of the whole trial,” CNA’s courtroom source said. “The jury were being winked at.”
Full discussion of the charges and the evidence laid against Pell remains impossible because of the media blackout. The gag order was imposed at the request of prosecutors in June, who argued that media attention could bias the case.
“It’s absurd,” another source directly familiar with the trial told CNA. “Any Catholic in Victoria can tell you that our media has been steeped in anti-Catholic, anti-clerical and especially anti-Pell coverage for more than two decades. The prosecutors were perfectly happy with all of that leading up to the trial, and for it to carry on now.”
“The only thing you can’t talk about are the facts of the case,” the source said.
Of course, we will never know for certain the truth of Pell’s innocence or guilt. It’s my understanding that this is why the 8th Commandment is meant to be taken seriously. But despite the Church revisiting the clerical sex abuse crisis in all its debauchery these days, there are reasons to question Pell’s guilt.
He was seen as an enemy by the Australian media, who disliked his conservatism.
He was seen as an enemy by the entrenched powers within the Vatican, who resisted and resented his financial reforms.
He makes a convenient scapegoat for media and anti-Catholics of all kinds in the kind of trial that, by nature, can provide zero physical evidence, and only testimony against testimony — testimony from a single accuser — in a moment where public sentiment against the Catholic Church and its abusers is at an all-time-low.
To the last point, a quote from The New York Times’ piece on the conviction says a great deal:
“There are no winners,” said Andrew Collins, a clergy sexual abuse survivor from Ballarat. But, he said, “It’s part of the bloodletting that’s needed to happen for the Catholic church.”
Part of the bloodletting that’s needed to happen.
I suppose it doesn’t matter if it’s symbolic, then.
Pope Francis expelled Pell from his C9 in December, at the same time as he dispensed with Cardinal Errazuriz of Chile — himself accused of covering up the abuse of Fr. Fernando Karadima. Two other cardinals said to have failed to deal appropriately with clerical abuse in their dioceses — Marx and Maradiaga — remain in the pope’s council of advisors.
As for Pell, he is expected to be sentenced despite concerns over the injustice of his treatment and an appeal against the verdict. He faces a maximum 50-year prison sentence. The cardinal is 77 years old.
Ping
Reading this I am reminded of one of Saul Alinsky’s major tenets - to accuse your opponent of what you are really doing so that when your opponent takes the media hit it won’t seem so bad when they find out about your own guilt.
Frankie is letting Cardinal Pell take the hit.
When Cardinal Pell began to uncover the irregularities in the Vatican money situation he disturbed more than a few little fiefdoms. He was conveniently dismissed at precisely the same time as old alleged unproven charges in Australia reared up again. A planned collusion?
So, with all the media focused on Pell, I wonder if Frankie is feeling like he has gotten away with something?
**When Cardinal Pell began to uncover the irregularities in the Vatican money situation he disturbed more than a few little fiefdoms. He was conveniently dismissed at precisely the same time as old alleged unproven charges in Australia reared up again. A planned collusion?**
I agree.
Does anyone have any information on this? I assume this is the swimming pool one.
Shame trial. Altar wine was always kept locked in a safe.
With all of this, one must wonder what they will do to Cardinal Burke and the other Cardinal that signed the letter before the fake synod.
Once the Catholic Church is broken by governments, all other churches will be easy pickings.
Right when I saw him do that I believed it was a signal. "Do your jobs" I believe referred to their task to take Vigano out at all costs - dig into everything about him and find the dirt and expose it.
Likewise, I believe he set the Australian media and his other pals to go after Cardinal Pell "at all costs."
If Frankie was helped in his elbowing into the papacy, then he was not canonically elected. We got Judas instead of Peter.
Judas was more interested in power than he was in saving souls.
We need to dedicate our rosaries to Cardinal Pell.
He is in the clutches of Judas.
Correct. The prosecution have abandoned that case at this point.
"At this point"?
Didn't you earlier say the prosecution had a deadline on whether or not to pursue this charge? What's up with that?
There was a Magistrate's Court hearing last year which looked at a range of charges that had been alleged against Pell, and decided which ones should proceed to be tried at the County Court level because the Magistrate felt there was a reasonable prospect of those charges succeeding. The Magistrate threw out a whole lot of charges, but decided out of all the allegations made there were two cases which should proceed - the alleged incidents at the Cathedral in 1996, and the alleged incidents at a public swimming pool in Ballarat in the early 1970s. Because these were not closely connected, they would be dealt with at separate trials.
The first case (the Cathedral) was dealt with in the two trials that have been discussed quite extensively now. The trial in the second case (the swimming pool) was supposed to begin this past week. But as it was about to begin, the prosecution announced they would not be proceeding. They had to do so by Tuesday of this past week (they could have applied for an extension, but they had to at least do that). They elected not to proceed with the trial. So that case is now over.
However, because there has been no trial, it would be theoretically possible at some stage in the future, for another attempt to be made. It would have to start from scratch - which would mean the Director of Public Prosecution would have to decide there was a case to answer. Then it would have to go to the Magistrate's Court again, where the Magistrate would have to decide there was a strong enough case to be presented at County Court level, and then they'd be back where they were at the start of this week.
For that to happen, they would almost certainly have to present new compelling evidence because at the moment the DPP's response would be - "You've already decided once the case wasn't strong enough - what has changed?" and the Magistrate would ask the same question. But it is theoretically possible.
I can't see it happening. But it is possible.
(to make the distinction between courts clear - Magistrate's Courts can deal with relatively minor criminal matters themselves, with trials heard only before a Magistrate without a jury. But Magistrate's also hear virtually all criminal cases in the first instance to decide whether there is a strong enough case to refer to a higher court. The County Court deals with most serious matters referred from the Magistrate's Court through trials by jury.)
Do we know for a fact that they decided not to pursue the swimming pool trial because they felt there wasn't enough evidence? Is it possible they decided not to go forward simply because they already got a conviction in this trial?
I heard it mentioned on EWTN that one of the people who accused Pell recanted according to his mother. Not sure but I thought they said death bed.
I've read so much on the case over the last week that it's now difficult to remember exact details, but the Judge had ruled in a pretrial hearing for the second trial, a week before it was due to start (and therefore a week before it was abandoned) that some of the evidence the prosecution planned to present was inadmissible. The Prosecutor stated that that evidence was essential to any prospect of the case succeeding, and that's the reason they abandoned the case.
I know there was an interview with the parents of one of the alleged victims aired on television in Australia last night, but I haven’t watched it yet, so I don’t really know any details from it.
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