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Cardinal Pell’s conviction disgraces the Australian justice system
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<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/cardinal-pells-conviction-disgraces-the-australian-justice-system">https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/cardinal-pells-conviction-disgraces-the-australian-justice-system</a><div class="gmail-article-text-wrapper">
<p>August 30, 2019 (<a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=1358">CatholicCulture.org</a>) <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>— The conviction of </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Cardinal George Pe</b>ll </span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>on sex-abuse charges, despite</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>the complete absence of</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>evidence against <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">him</span></b></span>, <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=1316" target="_blank">was a shock</a> and <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>a black mark against the Australian justice system. The decision by an appeals court to <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=43072" target="_blank">uphold that verdict</a> compounds the problem and the disgrace. </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>The cardinal <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-pell-to-appeal-to-australian-high-court-63353" target="_blank">will appeal</a> to </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>Australia's highest court</b></span>. <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b>And in that appeal, Australian society will be on trial.</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>The prosecution of </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Cardinal Pell<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> </span></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>threatens to become Australia's
version of the Dreyfus Affair, </b></span>the disgraceful conviction that troubled
the French political world for more than a decade around the turn of the
20th century. <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">Captain Albert Dreyfus</span>,<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> accused and twice convicted of
espionage, was a convenient target: unpopular because </span><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">he</span> was Jewish</span>.
</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>When evidence emerged showing that he was not</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> guilty, powerful military
officers concealed</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"><b> that evidence</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>and falsified <span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)">evidence</span> against </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>him.</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> The
French public was howling for a conviction, and the ruling class
decided that it was better to betray </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>an innocent man</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>than </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>to admit <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">an
injustice</span>.</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>In Australia today, the government — specifically the justice system —
is now also heavily invested in the conviction of</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Cardinal Pell.</b></span> To
admit an error would be to admit an unreasonable verdict, brought about
by an unreasonable prosecution, and now buttressed by an unreasonable
appeals-court decision. To say that Cardinal Pell is <em>not</em> guilty is to imply that the judicial system <em>is</em> guilty in its treatment of his case. Will the country's top court have the courage to reach that verdict?</p>
<p>Like Captain Dreyfus, <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>Cardinal Pell</b></span> is an unpopular figure in his own
country. <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>He </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>has been vilified by the media, hounded by accusations that
he covered up sexual abuse, </b></span>made to appear as the principal cause of
the scandal in Australia. <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>That characterization</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b> is unjustified.</b></span> Although
he was not blameless in his handling of abuse cases — and has admitted
as much — his "Melbourne Response" was the best set of policies at the
time; his reaction to the crisis was considerably better than that of
other Australian prelates. The truth of the matter is that<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b> Cardinal Pell
</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>became the favorite target of the media because </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>he was an
unapologetically orthodox (call him "conservative" if you must) Church
leader,</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>in a country where</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>such courageous Catholic leadership<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"> </span></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>is a
rarity. </b></span>He was, like Dreyfus, a convenient target; ideologues <em>wanted</em> him to be guilty.</p>
<p>However, the cardinal's unpopularity is — or rather should be —
irrelevant to the case at hand. The question at issue before the courts
is not whether he was likable, not whether he was sympathetic, not even
whether he was effective in dealing with abusive priests. The question
was whether or not he personally molested two choir boys. And there was —
and is — absolutely no evidence to support that charge, except the word
of one accuser.</p>
<p>The appeals court ruled that the jury was not unreasonable to believe the cardinal's accuser. But as <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/cardinal-pells-unsuccessful-appeal-and-reason-for-hope" target="_blank">Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley points out</a>,
the court was obliged to weigh the accuser's testimony against the
other available evidence, and when weighed in that balance, it was
indeed unreasonable to credit the accusation.</p>
<p>Consider:</p>
<ul><li>The accuser said that he was one of two choir boys molested by
then-Archbishop Pell. But the other boy, who is now deceased, denied
that he had ever been molested.</li><li>The accuser said that he was molested in the cathedral on two
separate occasions. But on one of those occasions the cathedral was
closed for renovations.</li><li>The accuser said that he and his alleged comrade had left the
procession of choristers, but no one noticed that they were missing and
choir directors said that it was highly unlikely anyone could slip away
unnoticed.</li><li>The accuser said that he was in the sacristy sipping sacramental
wine, but the wine was locked away. He said the wine was red. It was
not.</li><li>The accuser said that the archbishop came upon him alone in the
sacristy. But multiple witnesses said that the archbishop was never
alone in the cathedral sacristy: a room in which the door was always
open, a room buzzing with priests and acolytes and other archdiocesan
functionaries.</li><li>The accuser said that the archbishop parted his vestments to expose
himself. But an archbishop's vestments do not allow that action.</li></ul>
<p>Unless there had been a video camera running constantly in the
cathedral sacristy, what more could the Pell defense team have done to
defend the cardinal against this charge?</p>
<p>Consider, too, that the accuser said nothing about this alleged crime
for years. He came forward in June 2015 — two years after police began
hunting for evidence of wrongdoing by Cardinal Pell. And his story of
the alleged incident in the sacristy was <a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=41317" target="_blank">suspiciously similar to a story that had been published in <em>Rolling Stone</em></a> nearly four years earlier. Keith Windschuttle of Australia's <em>Quadrant</em> magazine
remarked that "the two accounts are so close to being identical that
the likelihood of the Australian version being original is most
implausible."</p>
<p>Justice Mark Weinberg, the appeals court jurist who voted in favor of
the cardinal's appeal (in a 2-1 decision), made the obvious point that
the accuser's credibility was questionable at best. He remarked that
"the complainant's account of the second incident seems to me to take
brazenness to new heights, the like of which I have not seen."</p>
<p>Against this single shaky witness, the court heard more than twenty
witnesses who testified not simply that the archbishop did not molest
the boy, but that it was <em>literally impossible</em> for him to have committed the crime as described.</p>
<p>The appeals court seems to have fastened on that concept — the notion
that the crime was impossible — and found it wanting. It's true; it is <em>possible</em> that Cardinal Pell committed this crime — in the same sense that it is <em>possible</em> I'll be hit by lightning this morning, although at the moment I don't see a cloud in the sky. Nearly anything is <em>possible</em>. But is it <em>plausible</em>?
Does it satisfy the standard — in Australia as in the US — that a
defendant must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Not even
close.</p>
<p>So how is it that the Australian courts found the accuser's evidence
compelling? The only possible explanation, I think — apart from the
evident eagerness to convict an unpopular figure — is the growing
tendency to believe that anyone who brings an accusation of sexual
abuse <em>must</em> be believed, regardless of the specific
circumstances. And haven't we seen that tendency at work in our own
American courts — especially in the court of public opinion?</p>
<p>In the vast majority of sex-abuse cases — especially those involving
incidents from the distant past — there is no hard physical evidence,
and the only witnesses are the accuser and the accused. A "credible
accusation" is not a legal conviction. How many innocent priests have
been suspended from ministry on the basis of a single "credible
accusation," which they cannot disprove? After years of winking away
reports of abuse, have we swung so far in the opposite direction that we
now demand convictions without evidence? Angry Americans want to see
abusers punished, and rightly so. But beware of empty accusations and
convenient victims.</p>
<p><em>Published with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=1358">CatholicCulture.org</a></em><em>.</em></p></div>
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