THE COLLAPSE OF REASON

CathNews reported today a brief summary of the grounds for Cardinal Pell’s appeal to the High Court of Australia. Those grounds as summarised by the Cardinal’s lawyers amount to the charge that Justices Ferguson and Maxwell of the majority opinion rejected the basic rules of reason.

[Cardinal Pell’s] lawyers argue that the Victoria’s Court of Appeal mistakenly reversed the onus of proof when hearing his case, forcing him to prove it was impossible for him to sexually assault two choirboys in a cathedral.

In their application, Cardinal Pell’s barristers, Bret Walker SC and Ruth Shann, said the two judges who upheld Cardinal Pell’s convictions “erred by finding their belief in the complainant required (Pell) to establish the offending was impossible in order to raise and leave a doubt”.

Read on…

Note: abstractly speaking nothing is impossible except a contradiction (See David Hume). Truth in concrete circumstances depends on the empirical data, not on abstract propositions.