More doubts about controversial Pell guilty verdict

Interesting article. I fear the truth is going to a hard thing to find. Whether the pope covered anything might be less important that his relative silence on the matter.

Michie said:

*You are in the Catholic forum*

The resolution of the case of Cardinal George Pell, now in jail after his conviction for sexually abusing two 13 year old choristers in 1996, must wait till an appeals court hand down its judgement.

But in the meantime, commentary is being published which raises further doubts about the controversial verdict.

Continued below.
More doubts about controversial Pell guilty verdict

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The thing about 'Billy' and 'Billy the Kid' and 'the kid' seem a bit uncanny.

I picked up a copy of the "Quadrant" magazine in a newsagent today. I suppose "Quadrant" is the closest magazine Australia would have to conservative "intellectual" journalism. I don't normally buy it, but I suppose I should read it more often.

However with my usual gift for procrastination I haven't read the article yet.

I've linked a brief Wikipedia article about "Quadrant" here. You might notice that at some stage George Pell was himself a contributor.

Quadrant (magazine) - Wikipedia

Bob Crowley said:

I picked up a copy of the "Quadrant" magazine in a newsagent today. I suppose "Quadrant" is the closest magazine Australia would have to conservative "intellectual" journalism. ....

However with my usual gift for procrastination I haven't read the article yet....

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Having decried responsibility on account of my gift for procrastination, I thought I better read the article. It was only three pages after all. So I read it.

The OP's original post gives most of the details, with some verbatim quotes from Keith Windschuttle's article, so I'm not going to repeat the article here.

For what it's worth I've attempted to display the cover of the May 2019 issue of "Quadrant" here. As you should see, the George Pell article gets prime billing.

Magazine Articles – Quadrant Online

As I see it however, the problem is that we are all going to be biased one way or another - either for or against Cardinal George Pell. If we are for him and think he is innocent, we will see the similarities to the two cases as evidence that the charges were fabricated, and based on the earlier US case.

If we're against him, we will see the similarities as just one more tiresome attempt to cover up the church's woeful handling of the paedophile crisis.

I think we'd be better to leave it to the appeal process. I have no doubt Mr. Windschuttle thinks an innocent man is rottting in jail. But his article doesn't "prove" Cardinal Pell's innocence - it does point out the similarities between the US case which saw Fr. Engelhardt die in prison after being accused by a man who was a "chronic liar and drug abuser." Fr. Engelhardt maintained his innocence to the end, refusing a plea bargain.

In the end we'll just have to hope justice prevails.

There's a bit of an addendum to the proceedings, in that Cardinal Pell "will not seek reduced sentence if guilty verdict is upheld".

George Pell will not seek reduced sentence if verdict appeal fails

The relevant extract from that article states that -

The Australian Associated Press news service confirmed an appeal against Pell's sentence would not be added to that application. An appeal against sentence would have to argue the sentence was "manifestly excessive".

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In other words, the legal team is not going to argue the minimum term of three years and eight months out of six years maximum is "excessive". But they are going to argue the verdict was unjust.