Cardinal Pell Acquitted on Appeal (UPDATED)

I am very glad to see that the conviction of Cardinal Pell has been overturned by the High Court of Australia.  More than that, the Court has acquitted him.

I’ve long thought his conviction did not pass the smell test.

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More on the overturn of the unjust Pell conviction.

Cardinal Pell Conviction Appeal Proceeds (UPDATED)

After only one of three trials against Cardinal Pell resulted in a conviction, I opined that the one conviction did not pass the smell test.  I am far from alone in that opinion.

So far the appeal of that conviction seems to be going well:

On the first of the two days, Cardinal Pell’s lawyer, Bret Walker, defended the cardinal principally on the grounds that Cardinal Pell’s conviction last year on charges of sexual abuse was unreasonably based on the testimony of one surviving victim and that the trial judge unfairly disallowed defense evidence.

Walker argued that the guilty verdict was returned despite the lack of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The following day, June 6, prosecutor Christopher Boyce reportedly struggled to answer questions from the three appeals court judges, and accidentally named the alleged victim, which is suppressed in these cases.

Boyce appeared to have difficulty articulating his own arguments, or was lost for words under judicial questioning. One of his arguments was that the alleged victim’s story was too outlandish to be invented.

Prior to the appeal hearing, the three judges visited Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s cathedral, the place where the abuse is alleged to have taken place. The visit, which was apparently unprecedented for the Australian legal system, was to help them understand the evidence that was considered by the jury.

So clearly the three appeals judges are giving this appeal more than the usual consideration.  Their decision is expected this month.  Let us pray it will be just.

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UPDATE: Julia Yost has a good summary of the case so far at First Things.  Again, this has several marks of a wrongful conviction.

On the Edge of a Moral Panic

It goes without saying that the primary victim of child or youth sexual abuse is the child or youth.  But society is a victim as well.  Trust is eroded.  False accusations are given that much more credence.  And children and youth as a whole are indirectly harmed when good people, particularly good men, are reluctant to work with the young in the midst of a deficit of trust and an abundance of false accusations.

With the current scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and, to a lesser extent, in the Southern Baptist Convention, there is already, at the very least, further erosion of trust.  But I fear the societal harm will get much worse than that. I expect we are about to experience the devastating breakdown of trust and the epidemic of false accusations known as a moral panic.

Moral panics can do greater harm to a society than the sometimes real events that trigger them, although it is hard to imagine that in the current case.  And what is often forgotten about moral panics is that they indeed can be triggered by real incidents.  That most famous of moral panics, the Salem Witch Hunt, occurred in part because there may have indeed been witchcraft on a small scale going on around Salem.  In that case, the subsequent moral panic was much worse, tearing society apart and destroying the lives of many.

Often in moral panics, false accusations are used as a weapon, as in the Salem Witch Hunt.  Of course, one doesn’t get to the point of a moral panic for false accusations to abound and to succeed.

To get more specific and blunt about that, I do not believe the accusations against Cardinal Pell and think his conviction does not pass the smell test.  It is telling that of the three trials against him, only one resulted in a conviction.  I think his real crimes are opposing secularist culture and opposing corrupt LibChurchers in the Vatican.  So very old and questionable accusations were used to stop him.  Of course, I do not know and may be mistaken.  But I sure do know what I suspect.  

Sadly, Pell will not be the last to have his reputation destroyed and freedom stolen via questionable or false accusations.  If we do indeed enter a moral panic, there will be many, and it will compound the harm already done by predators in sheep’s clothing.

Cardinal Pell Nails “Secularist Intolerance for Christianity.”

Some time back, I mentioned I was considering a trip to Oxford in part to hear Cardinal Pell give the first Thomas More Lecture on Religion in the Public Square. I decided against it, but it is clear I missed an excellent address this past Friday, a summary of which, with a link to the complete address, may be found here.

It is refreshing to see a prelate speak with such clarity against attacks on basic freedoms of religion and conscience under the cloak of “diversity and tolerance.” And, yes, he calls out specific villains, including the anti-Prop 8 thugs and the Human Rights Commissions of Canada.

I urge your attention to Cardinal Pell’s lecture.