Whatever your view of George Pell, he did not have the opportunity to do the crime he was convicted of
“The primary question is not what went wrong. The High Court has said what went wrong. This is a real call to consider whether there should be judge-alone cases in Victoria.”
“For each person who has been abused and wants to come forward and tell their story, we need to listen to and respond to find a way to support, and care and heal,’’ Archbishop Comensoli said. “There has also been a cumulative effect of all of these matters that have come to light over these past few years.In a letter to parishioners, the Archbishop acknowledged that Cardinal Pell had become “emblematic” of clerical abuse.
Whether he serves in a future ministry is a matter for the Cardinal and the Vatican. The decision will depend on what the redacted findings of the royal commission reveal whether Cardinal Pell was involved in covering up clerical abuse in Ballarat in the 1970s and 80sArchbishop Comensoli says that for the Catholic Church in Australia, the task ahead is largely unchanged by Tuesday's judgment.
Where the choirboy said he and another chorister were assaulted by Cardinal Pell, shortly after Sunday mass in the priests’ sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral, this could not be reconciled with the evidence of other witnesses who said that, at the time of alleged assault, Cardinal Pell would have been elsewhere in the cathedral or otherwise attended.
Justice Ferguson, in taking personal responsibility for the high profile appeal, chose to empanel one of Australia’s most experienced and highly respected criminal jurists, Supreme Court Justice Mark Weinberg. Having done so, she was apparently unmoved by his lengthy dissenting judgment which spelt out the same deficiencies in the evidence that troubled the High Court.
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