Well, the jury decided that Cardinal Pell is guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable - sexual abuse of children. But is this trial by media rather than trial by jury?
As a parent and grandparent, there is little that could arouse my anger more than the odious exploitation of innocence of a young person by an older and toxic adult. Male or female is irrelevant. Innocence needs to be protected and we shouldn't have to even discuss that basic premise. But discuss it we must.
As far as I can make out, Cardinal Pell was in a position of elevated trust. a man of the Church; a man of God; a man who commanded the respect and love of his congregation and the people in the broader Church and Public community. Did he abandon this for quick grope? I wonder. For myself, I smell a rat. A very big rat. And I believe that the rat is even bigger than all of us imagine.
Yet, for some reason, he chose to violate his vows as a well respected man of the Church and the community to have oral sex with two young lads within his own Holy building and, for a few minutes of sexual pleasure, risk destroying his career, his reputation and his life? It simply does NOT make sense.
I will leave it to others more versed in legal matters and Religious matters to investigate the intricacies of the matter from their legal point of view. I can only comment as a non Catholic Conservative observer who abhors paedophilia in all respects. What I do believe is that there is a fair chance that Cardinal Pell is the Fall Guy for the Catholic Church and he is, for whatever reason, going to the metaphorical 'gallows' in order to save his beloved Church.
A Martyr.
Revelations 2:1
'Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.'
Many decades ago, I lived in a small community of about 300 people. We were a very close knit community and the kids used to play on the road, dash in to each others houses and grab an afternoon snack from the best home baker in the area. The leading home baker was an older retired foreign woman who cooked cakes and biscuits... the smell would waft out in to the street and the local kids would gravitate to her kitchen to sample her latest cinnamon and nutmeg cookies or apple slice. Her husband was a jolly old chap who pottered in the garden, content to leave his wife in the kitchen whilst he made the garden a paradise of ferns, palms and tropical flowers.
Their new next door neighbours had two daughters. Both parents worked and they asked the elderly foreign couple if they would mind the children from after school until the end of work when they would get home. The elderly couple agreed and those two kids became the envy of the neighbourhood. Each afternoon, those lucky kids headed upstairs in to baking heaven and the old couple enjoyed the expectation of the girls arriving home from school.
One night, however, everything changed. The father of the girls was outside the old couple's house and he had set fire to it. The fire brigade had been called. The whole community gathered outside to watch; bewildered by what was going on.
The father said that he set fire to the house because the old man had been abusing his daughters We, collectively, as a community, were shocked. Sickened. The old man was charged with the worst crime imaginable - sexual abuse of children. The old man's wife left him, so distraught at his crime. He was hated by us all.
Time passed and, just before his trial, the old man hanged himself. I was with most when I rejoiced that the world had been rid of a filthy monster and life could get back to normal.
Decades later, I found out the truth.
The father was the abuser.
He was subsequently charged. Too late, of course, for the elderly baker of cinnamon cookies; too late for the old man who loved his garden; too late for girls who were too frightened to admit the truth that it was their own father who violated them.
I often think about those two little girls and the fact that they are now middle aged women. How must they feel?
Which brings me back to Cardinal Pell.
Is he the elderly gardener? Is he the guilty father?
Or does he think that he is protecting the Church by sacrificing himself?
The media are like I was, all those decades ago. Presuming guilt because someone said so.
The jury should be out on this but it is not.
I call this trial by media. In my opinion, Cardinal Pell did not stand a hope in hell of being found not guilty because the community had decided he was guilty and did not even stop to consider the facts.
All those years ago, I learned that public opinion strips away personal opinion.
And not always with the just and righteous outcome.
Is Cardinal Pell guilty? Or is the jury guilty of being led to draw a conclusion because they had been schooled to think in a certain way?
Either way, this case is more about trial by media than trial by jury.
If Pell is falling on his sword to become a martyr to save the Catholic Church I wonder if his martyrdom is worth his sacrifice? For non Catholics like me, I suspect that we would prefer him to be a warrior and not a martyr to a cause that is not worth fighting for: his sacrifice will NOT rescue the Catholic Church from the taint of pedophilia any more than the idiots who blow themselves up for Allah think that they are defending Mohammed and his pedophilia.
No, this Cardinal Pell debacle is where the flagship Christian Church is under attack from the left wing media; the Moslem Religion and the left wing extremists who are hell bent on destroying the keystone of our lives for the past 2000 years. This is the Holy War Mark 2. And even the Catholic Pope is prepared to let his 3rd in Charge go under the bus so that this new Islamic Catholic Church can prevail.
Mark my words, this is one of the biggest issues in our human history. Throw Pell under the bus so that they can bury the true story.
The Catholic Church is done.
