Cardinal George Pell to be freed as High Court overturns sex abuse conviction

[Eugene]

Source: CNN

Brisbane, Australia (CNN) — Cardinal George Pell will be immediately freed from prison after Australia's High Court unanimously overturned his conviction on five counts of historical child sex abuse.

The momentous decision, handed down Tuesday by Chief Justice Susan Kiefel, ends a five-year legal battle that started when a man in his 30s approached police alleging Pell had abused him as a child in the mid-1990s.

At the time, Pell was Vatican Treasurer and the highest ranking Catholic official to ever be publicly accused of child sex offenses. Pell strenuously denied the charges, which he dismissed in a 2016 police interview as a "product of fantasy."

In its two-page summary of the ruling, the High Court said that the jury "ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt with respect to each of the offenses for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place."

-snip-

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN
Updated 0200 GMT (1000 HKT) April 7, 2020


Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/06/australia/australia-cardinal-pell-high-court-hnk-intl/index.html

[denem]

1. Message to victims: They won't believe you.

[Warpy]

2. This actually allows the civil suits to go forward

and I understand there are many of those in his near future.

Personally, I think deals have been made and he'll get a promotion to the Vatican, maybe taking over Bernard Law's old digs, slightly improved 3 hots and a cot as he spends the last of his days in prayer to try to make himself feel better.

(Yes, my view of the Vatican is unsympathetic, why did you ask?)

[ucrdem]

3. A couple of years back a DUer I haven't seen in a while

posted a sensational letter from a recent victim of flagrant abuse at a California orphanage run by the Catholic church. A quick Google search showed that the Catholic church doesn't run orphanages in California. So . . . it happens.

[WestLosAngelesGal]

4. If you Google "catholic orphanages in California"...

Google shows them to you on the map.

[ucrdem]

5. Google shows lots of things.

But no orphanages run by Catholic dioceses. Schools yes, hospitals, nursing homes, immigration services, historical orphanages, but no diocesan orphanages.

[WestLosAngelesGal]

9. I was reading one of the Google reviews of St. Vincent's School for Boys

"ERIC Bell
Local Guide?·?29 reviews?·?87 photos
2 years ago
"I grew up in two of the actual Boys homes there on campus in the 80's. I was in foster care and coming from the "Urban Jungles" of the inner city St Vincent's was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. The hills, grass, trees, animals, creeks, bugs, etc. It was a whole new world for me. Exploring the old buildings that were "off limits" to us kids. Also becoming a junior wrangler and helping take the public on horseback trail rides on the weekends was fantastic. Being one of the few kids able to attend off campus public school, enabled me to experience a glimpse of what it might have been like to have grow up in a traditional family setting. I remember the long walk everyday down St. Vincent's Drive back to the group home houses. I would look up at the giant Eucalyptus trees and inhale their wonderful aroma. Seeing the Church there in all its majestic beauty at the end off the road always renewed my faith in God and gave me hope fr a better future. Btw..Thank you Father Dave for allowing me to be an Alter Boy.
I haven't been back since I left in 1987, but I'm sure its still just as beautiful now, as it has remains in my mind and fondest memories."

It's still there.

https://www.catholiccharitiessf.org/what-we-do/children-youth/st-vincents-school-for-boys.html

edit: I felt like it was important to address the possibility that the "sensational letter" might have been authentic. So often, victims are not believed.

[ucrdem]

10. Close, but not diocesan and no longer an orphanage.

It appears to have been established on the grounds of a former orphanage, but repurposed as a boys school described as a "52-bed licensed Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Program (STRTP) annually serving up to 60 boys ages 7-18, who are referred from in-patient psychiatric facilities and county agencies throughout Northern California." In other words a private boarding school.

That's in the ballpark, sure, but in the instance I mentioned the letter claimed to be written by a female locked up in a parish orphanage in Sacramento, and there is very clearly no such animal. But it got hundreds of recs and supportive comments. I looked for it last night but no luck so far. If I find it I'll post a link. This was in 2013, shortly after I joined.

Incidentally the Daughters of Charity who run the school you linked to inspired Tere Ríos, who wrote the short novel that became a TV show featuring Sister Bertrille, the flying nun from America assigned to windy Convent San Tanco:

[WestLosAngelesGal]

11. thanks for the explanation

I didn't know the details.

[3Hotdogs]

6. Alls I remember is from when I was 12 years old. Confirmation class.

It was a week before confirmation and we were lined up in the hallway. A nun came up to each of us to ask a question from the book and we were to parrot the answer.

One kid pronounced a word wrong. She grabbed him by the cheek and twisted his face while she pronounced the word. "Now you say it." He did and she went on to a couple of more kids.

Then she came to a kid --- I don't know what the kid said wrong but she slammed his head against the tile wall. There was blood on the wall and the kid was out, on the floor. We were sent back to our individual classrooms to complete the lessons. When we came out, the kid was not there but the blood was still on the wall.

This was 1952. St. James parish, Springfield, N.J.



There is attention to buggery and such, but why is there no attention or no law suits against the physical abuse that took place in these hell holes?

[Delphinus]

8. Oh my ...

I certainly was on the receiving end of knuckles cracked and a slap on the backside one time (which she had to apologize for), but did not see this. My "education" was late 60s/early 70s.

[lark]

7. Fuck Australia.

They too are victim to creeping fascism from a terrible rw government.

[rockfordfile]

12. That's messed up