https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2019/08/22/opinions-divided-in-reaction-to-pell-decision/ So what does everyone think of the Pell case? I really don't know. On the one hand, the legal system seems thorough and has come up with a clear verdict. On the other hand, the evidence certainly seems suspect, and he maintains his innocence.
@Botolph might know the Australian specifics on the ground... From what I know he got convicted of pedophilia, but reading the Roman Catholic trad websites they are seething with anger because there’s actually no evidence of his crime, and he was merely convicted in the court or public opinion (being a conservative traditional Roman Catholic) On the other hand, reading secular Australians, they are so fed up with RCC pedophilia that they’ve got bloodlust in their eyes, incapable of looking at the specifics here It’s a messed up situation all around
I don't, and I guess if I did I couldn't say much. Pell has never managed the media well, and has always come across as aloof, (a little or a lot depending on your perspective) with an unhealthy dose of ecclesial arrogance. Most Australians would argue that he is guilty of being not a nice person. He has proclaimed an enormous lack of knowledge of what was going and an cover ups involved, and a great many people would conclude that he was at the very least willfully blind, or less than completely forthright about what he knew, suspected, or should have been prepared to pursue further on the basis of what was apparent. The case involved here has to do with two charges where he himself is the accused perpetrator of underage sexual assault. He was found guilty, and appealed, and the appeal court has upheld the judgement on a split decision 2:1. The two judges who ruled in favour found that the appellant's testimony was credible, and that Pell's testimony was less than credible. The dissenting judge found that there was reasonable doubt as to the events as they have been spelled out. Some part of that goes to what could happen in a busy cathedral vestry on a Sunday Morning immediately after Mass. In the end I don't know, and I believe that Cardinal Pell will appeal the matter to the High Court, who have the freedom to hear or not hear the appeal. Given the prominence that the matter has had to date I imagine that the High Court would choose to hear it, yet it is also possible that they may exercise some caution given that the matter has largely been determined in the minds of the media. Congratulations on your mastery of the understatement.
If they refuse to hear it because of the Media attention they are not worthy of being judges in the High Court or any other court of final appeal. The Supreme Court in the US I frequently disagree with, but I trust they are impartial, at least most of the justices, to media pressure. For that matter, the Law Lords (House of Lords, Lords of Appeal In Ordinary), and their successor, the British Supreme Court, and the Canadian Supreme Court, which I dislike but consider impartial, I would both trust to not bow to media pressure. And this also goes for the criminal appellate division of the High Court of Justiciary in the Kingdom of Scotland. But the important thing for any High Court, or Supreme Court, or House of Lords, or Court of Cassation, or Constitutional Court, is that these courts ignore media pressure when it comes to ruling. So if you are worried your High Court might refuse to hear a case due to publicity, you should petition to have the judges surrender their robes, gavels and acoutrements of office. On that note by the way, just out of curiosity, do your High Court judges wear red and ermine robes like the judges of the Canadian Supreme Court and the members of the British House of Lords?
I don't think they do as a rule. Most of the images I have seen they look like school teachers of old, or protestant clerics. I have few doubts about the impartiality of the High Court of Australia, though I think they lean a little to the left, however the intense media interest in the Pell case is concerning. There were a thousand or so people in the street outside the court of appeal who burst into cheering when the appeal was lost. I wonder (with some alarm) what would have happened if it went the other way. Despite our commitment to the separation of judiciary and legislature there is a relationship, and a media whipped up public sentiment may not always want that separation. I would not want to see Pell guilty for all the one that got away. That is not justice.
An update on the Pell case: it appears to have been conducted more justly against Pell than seemed to me at first... His own lawyer stated that Pell had just 'plain vanilla sex' when describing the incident with a child........ https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ight-to-jail-as-bail-application-is-withdrawn A graphic description of how he had perpetrated this fact with a child in the sacristy, after the Service: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...und-guilty-of-child-sexual-assault/ar-BBU4HTz Next, what will happen is that Pope Francis will spin Pell's perversion as an outcome of his strict conservativism, and smear Roman Catholic conservatives as 'mentally unstable', as happened during the 70s and 80s when the liberal revolution against Catholic traditionalists was conducted
Those news reports go back to the original case in February. I think the lawyers remarks were reported out of context, and made to mean some other than the point he was making at the time. There is a dissenting judgement from the appeal, and Pell has taken leave to appeal to the High Court. The Vatican has said it will wait till that has happened, and I gather has also a canonical tribunal of some sort reviewing the matters which will no doubt be part of the Vatican response. The options here at the moment are: The High Court does not grant leave to appeal The High Court Does grant leave to Appeal The High Court Quashes the Verdict on unanimous decision The High Court Quashes the Verdict on split decision The High Court Upholds the Verdict on unanimous decision The High Court Upholds the Verdict on split decision Pell dies - he is not in especially good health Something else I haven't thought of How the Vatican will respond to any of those possibilities would simply be a matter of conjecture. The difficulty with the media is that given Pell's persona is generally disagreeable and there is a huge public outrage at the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Abuse Cases, and there is a feeling that someone should pay, so Pell in some sense gets the target hung on him. If justice is to be served it must refer to the matter before the court, and not to everything else, and being a serious criminal case, it needs to be not simply on the balance of probabilities, but beyond reasonable doubt. The last thing I want is for the High Court of Australia to become a Kangaroo Court. Th media and the court of public opinion (often heavily influenced by the media) has at time in Australia be flat out wrong. We destroyed the Chamberlains marriage and threw Lindy in gaol, and ultimately it proved they had told the truth from the beginning. The media should be the friend of truth, however often they seem but distant acquaintances.
They may or may not bow to media pressure. However, they are far from impartial and often vote politically.
I think we have to accept Pell is guilty. We cannot simply accept the decisions of courts or reject them on the basis of who the accused is. I would agree with Botolph's assessment of the man. Whenever, I have seen him speak he is certainly aloof and arrogant. That will have done him no favours. I do not know how he behaved in court but it would not surprise me if I were to learn that he took the attitude how dare they even try me. Of course, the saga is not over as the case may yet go to the High Court of Australia.