Are these Catholic priests victims of frenzy to convict? (Australia)

new.com.au ^ | 18th March 2019 | Andrew Bolt

[naturalman1975]

John Francis Tyrrell walked free from jail last week, an innocent man ruined.

Yet another Catholic priest falsely convicted.

Just last December, another Catholic, former Adelaide archbishop Philip Wilson, was also freed. Also wrongly convicted, said a judge.

Two such cases in just three months should make many media commentators pause.

Could Cardinal George Pell be the third victim of what seems a frenzy to convict accused Catholic priests for the sins of their church?

.....

But let me tell you about Tyrrell. He, too, was unanimously convicted by a jury of sexual abuse on the word of a single accuser, using his memory of what allegedly happened in a Geelong school some 50 years earlier.

The Court of Appeal last week ruled that verdict unsound.

The judges said there were “serious discrepancies” between what the accuser had claimed and “the facts that were objectively established by the evidence”.

For a start, the accuser claimed he’d confronted Tyrell at the school in early 1969, yet Tyrell had left in 1966.

.....

One of Fletcher’s victims claimed he’d told Wilson in 1976 he’d been abused, but Wilson said he had no memory of it.

He was convicted anyway and resigned as archbishop.

But last December Judge Roy Ellis overruled the conviction, saying it did not meet the test of “beyond reasonable doubt”.

[naturalman1975]

Unfortunately the article is behind a paywall. I have done my best to extract the important details into less than 300 words.

But that has meant leaving out the point that when we have two recent cases in Australia where Catholic clergy were convicted at trial of crimes involving children, that have been thrown out on appeal, it just adds to the concerns that it is now extremely difficult for a member of the Catholic clergy accused of such crimes to receive a fair trial in Australia due to the media frenzy surrounding such cases.

Which is exactly what a lot of us are concerned with when it comes to the recent conviction and imprisonment of Cardinal George Pell.

Fortunately it seems that - at the moment at least - the appeals process is still working. I hope it works for Cardinal Pell.

I believe Pell is very likely innocent - I've said so from the start - but this goes beyond whether he is guilty or innocent to the question or not, he received a fair trial. In sentencing him, the Judge specifically stated that he was required by law to act based on the jury's verdict (it is technically possible for a Judge in Australia to direct a jury verdict but the threshold to do so is extraordinarily high - they are expected in the vast majority of cases, even if they have doubts, to leave it to the appeals process) and that he agreed there had been a 'witch hunt' and 'lynch mob' mentality surrounding Pell.

I hope and pray the Court of Appeal is able to look beyond that in making their decision.

If Pell is guilty he should rot in prison and then burn in hell. But if he is innocent, a grave injustice is being done.

[Ransomed]

Thanks for the info.

Freegards

[Responsibility2nd]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting. This gives me room to think that perhaps some priests have in fact been caught up in the overall evil that has infested the catholic priest hood. Perhaps there are innocent priests that have been convicted.

[allendale]

No doubt some are paying for the unpunished sins of many.

[joma89]

With all the fake news, hoaxes, made up crimes and general lying by people in our society, it is difficult for me to believe any accusation. This is why we must have innocent before guilty assumed and a very high level of evidence to convict.

JoMa

[irishjuggler]

The accusations against Pell are absurd. In full vestments after Mass in a busy, crowded sacristy, he was whipping out his genitalia according to the word of a single, uncorroborated accuser? Only a juror whose mind was already made up before the trial even started could have voted to convict on this basis. Pell had uncovered hundreds of millions of Euros in secret accounts in his bid to clean up the Vatican’s finances. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if his accuser was paid by corrupt officials at the Holy See to concoct this story to get Pell out of the way.

[Gay State Conservative]

Throughout the Western world Catholic priests are the most hated creatures among "progressives".Also,there are surely lawyers in various Western countries that see the Catholic Church as a huge cash machine...find a guy who was an alter boy 30 years ago,promise him thousands (or millions) and,voila! "I was molested by Father Smith".

There can be little doubt that there are priests who violate young boys (and girls)...just as surely as the same is true of Protestant ministers,rabbis and other clergymen.

The difference is Marxist thought and nearly unlimited money.

[Yardstick]

I haven’t researched it deeply but it sure looks like the Pell guilty verdict is in error. What’s most troubling to me is how it calls into question the whole idea of juries. I guess I fall back on the notion that nothing is perfect and relying on juries is probably the least bad of the alternatives. And hopefully the appeals process will scotch the problems with the first jury decision and render true justice.

[naturalman1975]

In most parts of Australia, there is an option for Judge only trials in cases like this. Unfortunately Victoria is one of the few exceptions - that may be changing as a result of this.

I generally do believe in the jury system - but Pell has been the subject of intense media vilification in Australia for over two decades now. It would be hard to find anybody in Australia who has sparked the same degree of hatred from certain sections of the community. And that is top of the genuine (and justified) concern that in the past, clergy who should have gone to prison got away with it. It would be almost impossible to get a jury who could go into a case like this with a genuinely open mind.

[Mrs. Don-o]

A little backstory:

At the time the police started their "get Pell" project,not only were there no witnesses and no evidence, there was in fact no alleged crime, no accusation or allegation, no victim, and no accuser.

The police were literally advertising for anyone who knew or thought they knew, anyways, at any time, anything they could charge Pell with; and despite every kind of incentive (including suborning perjury from known criminals) they didn't get a nibble for the first two years of dragnet-type, we'll-take-anything fishing expeditions.

Then they held a "closed trial" in which the credibility of the accuser --- reportedly a man with a criminal record ---was forbidden to be addressed or discussed!

For an act which it would not be physically possible for Pell (or anyone else) to have done.

BTW Pell, 77, just had knee replacement surgery and is now, because of Admin Seg, unable even to see a physical therapist. In a way I must say that being in Min Security might have been worse: by now, if he'd been in "population," I suppose he'd be dead.

By the way, at the Vatican he was givn the task of reforming Vatican finances. He reportedly closed 5,000+ highly questionable "slush accounts" in the IOP (Vatican Bank) and then brought in world-class outside auditors --- the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers --- to go over the Vatican offices' banking and budgets with a fine-tooth comb. Before they could even make a preliminary report, Pell was extradited back to Australia on these preposterous charges--- and the PricewaterhouseCoopers audit was stopped.

Oh. And the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin ---- who OK'd Pell's extradition, which he didn't have to do because Pell had diplomatic immunity and was an officer of a sovereign state (State of Vatican City) --- this Parolin is the same guy who made PwC audit "go away."

Connect the dots.

[Slyfox]

I have a friend whose brother was wrongly convicted of beating his wife. Even the kids said it never happened. He is from Iran. A victim of "frenzy to convict." He was convicted right after 911 and he is still in prison. They threw the book at him because the jury thought he was a muslin.

But, he is a Christian.

[amihow]

Think laws in some states in the U.S. have been changed to allow conviction on word of victim only in abuse cases . Which can virtually never be beyond a
reasonable doubt

[HiTech RedNeck]

In Old Testament days, capital crimes needed two or three witnesses to convict, and these had to be actual witnesses who could stone (or whatever) the convicted criminal. And if their testimony was found wrong, the witnesses would be executed. This resulted in a very high degree of certitude required.

Government is not God. At best it is a servant of God.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It is a rage fueled by hell against anyone who dares exalt Jesus as the Christ. Happily, the bible promises victory to those who endure through such trials.

[Rembrandt]

This story was first told in the Salem witch trials. People convicted to death based on the accusation and comments of one single person during a time of frenzy.

[thoughtomator]

> With all the fake news, hoaxes, made up crimes and general lying by people in our society, it is difficult for me to believe any accusation.

This is where the Church’s well-earned reputation for protection of child rapists comes into play. The normal assumption of innocence doesn’t apply when dealing with a criminal organization with a reputation and legacy of exactly that sort of crime.