Monthly Archives: February 2019

Australia, Catholic Church, Politics, The Left

Ongoing summary of Cardinal Pell’s unjust conviction

Jailed Cdl. Pell is victim of anti-Catholic witch hunt, critics maintain

MELBOURNE, Australia, February 28, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A number of commentators have denounced Cardinal George Pell’s prosecution and conviction of sexual assault as an anti-Catholic witch hunt instigated by media and police.

Pell was taken to a maximum security prison Wednesday and will be held there under protective custody until his March 13 sentencing on five convictions of sexually abusing minors, reported the Guardian.

The 77-year-old prelate was found guilty by a jury in December of sexual abusing two 13-year-old choir boys some 22 years ago, and could face up to 50 years in jail. His lawyers have filed an appeal they will pursue once Pell is sentenced.

Read on…

Australia, Catholic Church, Politics, The Left

‘The case does not stand up’

George Weigel is the distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the latest to highlight the incoherences in the Pell conviction.

On appeal, a panel of judges can decide that the verdict could not rationally have been reached on the basis of the evidence.

With the lifting of the trial judge’s order banning coverage of the conviction of Cardinal George Pell this past December on charges of “historical sexual abuse,” the facts can finally be laid out for those willing to consider them. (Disclosure: Cardinal Pell and I are longtime friends.)

Victoria police commenced an investigation one year before any complaints had been filed. During that investigation, the police took out newspaper ads seeking information about any untoward behavior with minors at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne —without any hint of such misbehavior having been received by the authorities.

Read on…


Catholic Church, Politics, The Left

Andrew Bolt shows courage

I congratulate Andrew Bolt for speaking out about the incoherences in the case against Cardinal Pell. I have nothing to lose in attacking the juror’s decision, But Andrew Bolt does. He is a high profile journalist and television compere whose reputation and livelihood are at stake when he takes on the dominant political class. He is particularly vulnerable when he defies the left’s virulent anti-Catholic bigotry. But when he defends the left’s Catholic voodoo doll it is as good as baring his chest to the frenzied daggers of the Left.

On his Sky New program he outlined ten reasons for having ‘misgivings’ about the conviction of Cardinal Pell for sexually assaulting two choir boys in the sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral.

ANDREW BOLT:

First, one of the boys now dead denied he had been abused when his mother asked.

Second, the other boy didn’t speak about it for many years.

Continue reading Andrew Bolt shows courage →
Australian history, Catholic Church, My books, Politics, Religion, The Left

Pell-haters triumph – Australian justice system collapses

Cardinal Pell’s enemies inside and outside the Church have triumphed. It took years of mockery, vilification, fabrication, defamation, and calumny to achieve it. But there it is. The years of poison they have pumped into the Australian population, particularly in Victoria, meant Cardinal Pell was never going to get a fair trial. Indeed, it is likely there were some among the jurors who were determined to destroy the Cardinal before a word had been said in court.

Media sewer rats Louise Milligan and David Marr can be pleased with the brilliant results of their biased character-destroying books.

I don’t believe for one instant -never have and never will – that Cardinal Pell is guilty of the charges for which he has been convicted. What was charged never happened. What the motives were of the person who out of the blue made the charges, I cannot say. The public is not allowed to know anything about him. The public is not allowed to know details that may mitigate in Cardinal Pell’s favour, that may cast doubt on the accuser’s credibility.

Did the accuser have a vested interest in Cardinal Pell’s destruction?

To have doubt cast on the accuser’s veracity would be repugnant to the Pell-hating media who want the story kept as tight as possible and who prowled around outside the court building like hungry wolves. I watched the Channel 7 bulletin directly after the suppression order had been lifted. Their unabashed reporters showed they had long thought Pell guilty and were eagerly waiting for permission to pour out their disgust. Which they did in buckets. Not one mention of the questions that could be raised.

Ironically, the ABC whose commentators have played a determining role in the destruction of Cardinal Pell allowed comments of doubt from two high profile Catholics. Paul Collins, former priest, and Fr Frank Brennan, both critics of Cardinal Pell and on the Catholic left, said they were ‘gobsmacked’ by the verdict. They obviously did not think the Cardinal would have been found guilty. The shock generally among Catholics is reported to be tremendous. With good reason.

Apart from the effects of years of vilification, I have several reasons for rejecting the verdict.

First, such behaviour was totally out of character. I have followed Cardinal’s career closely for years. He was an articulate defender of the Faith orthodox Catholics wanted. To defend the Church against its critics inside and outside the Church, one has to be tough. But his behaviour was otherwise unimpeachable. He preached and acted out the Faith fearlessly. It is just too much to believe that such a well-organised man was so stupid as to jeopardize his newly assumed position as Archbishop of Melbourne with such risky action. It does not wash.

Second, in 2015 the scandal of clerical sexual abuse had been in the headlines for years. In 1996 Cardinal Pell had set up a body to deal with cases in Victoria. Compensation would be made. It was only a question of how much. Then all of a sudden around 2015, a basket of accusations of sexual abuse was laid at Cardinal Pell’s feet. Victoria Police were falling over themselves to arrest and charge him. Which they did. It was as if a faction had colluded.

Why did the successful accuser wait so long before he went to the police when he must have known he would have been treated with kid gloves if he had done so years before? The reasons he gives for waiting are not convincing. Why would an innocent 13-year-old who must have gagged and choked at the action he was forced to carry out not have stumbled shocked and half-conscious from the sacristy and then have escaped the notice of the people milling around in the church? And why, if he did indeed escaped attention, did he not saying anything about such violent action? The story is just not credible.

Third, the time and location of the alleged actions make them improbable, if not impossible to have happened. If people examine the location of the sacristy where the action was alleged to have taken place, then they must conclude not only would anyone in Archbishop robes find it extremely difficult to do what was charged, but they could not have done so without being seen. There would have been people everywhere at that time. See Fr Brennan’s article for far more detail supporting my analysis.

The far left – the Marxists – have always used demoralisation to undermine their ideological enemies. Most Catholics in Australia must be feeling utterly demoralised at the moment. Some who know their history must be thinking that not much has changed since the penal laws and anti-Catholic bigotry came ashore in Sydney Cove on the 26th of January 1788.

One must fear for the life of Cardinal Pell in prison. That would be the icing on the cake.

Culture, My books

Who would watch the oscars?

The Oscars are on. But who would want to watch preening parading women bursting out of their scant frocks and waving #metoo flags? Who would want to witness the vulgarity, the squealing, and the political rants from actors whose thinking processes have not advanced beyond kindergarten? The number of talented actors who have made jerks of themselves in recent years through their puerile political opinions is disillusioning to put it mildly. Think of Robert de Niro.

In the beginning the Oscars was an elegant affair with actors maintaining dignity, letting their performances speak for them. The women were stunning, but modest, and the men handsome and reserved. They preserved the mystery of the film star. But all that has been shattered.

Australia, Culture, Politics

Hyping Women’s cricket

The Australian ran another laudatory piece this morning about women’s cricket, namely about the final ODI between Australia and New Zealand. Australia won and thereby won the series. I saw the highlights on different news broadcasts. Keep in mind that the broadcaster always shows the best and most exciting action.

A highlight in yesterday’s final was Ellyse Perry’s maiden century in the one-day game which reporter Andrew Capel called ‘superb’. At least, he did not make the absurd comparison between Perry and one of the greats of the men’s game Keith Miller – as has been done. I made the following comment:

Let’s pretend that the standard of the final was above schoolboy 16-year-olds and add a whole lot of hyperbole about the performances.

It took 5 hours but The Australian did evenutally print my comment among unstinting praise for the girls and the game, one (a female) saying ‘Wish we had a bloke as good as her in the Aussie men’s team.’

Indeed, I’m all for giving Perry a run in the men’s test team to see how she would go against a Mitchell Starc 150 kph screamer swinging in the air and jagging off the pitch instead of the tame lot she batted to a shortened boundary. That would be a dose of reality. But with truly talented batsman Phil Hughes in mind, would they really risk it? Or would the postmodernist fantasy world we live in defeat the risk?

Feminists are unstoppable. They’ve captured the world of sport reducing former (male) champions to cringing superlatives about female performance. I’m interested to hear how much those lucky female cricketers who make it to ‘professional’ status are paid. That will give us a good idea of the dream time we’re in.

Catholic Church, Politics, Religion, The Left

Vatican Sex Summit Day Three – Michael voris reports

Voris does not hang back in his criticism of the prelates conducting the summit, nor in his focusing on the (alleged) cause of clerical sexual abuse. I must say that it is curious that the Australian mainstream media is tepid about its reporting of the summit. Perhaps the accusation that their favourite, the progressive Pope Francis, covered up the proven record of defrocked Mr McCarrick is not conducive to their narrative.