Australian Catholic Cardinal guilty of child assault

[Aussie Willy]

Following on from a thread quite a while ago regarding a Royal commission into systematic child sexual abuse in Australia, George Pell who is the most senior member of the Catholic Church in Australia and was in charge of finances at the Vatican was found guilty by a jury of sexual assaulting two boys. He is appealing the conviction. He was found guilty last December but a suppression order had been in place and it was only revealed this week of the verdict. It has been major news here but I think has also been covered overseas.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...reasurer-found-guilty-of-child-sexual-assault

I think what has caused even more of an uproar is that two ex-Prime Ministers provided references in court for him after the guilty verdict.

https://www.news.com.au/national/co...l/news-story/25c3900f9effe1aa4e045bf76d2a7d42

And conservative media commentators (including Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine) have expressed horror that the man could have been found guilty. To them he couldn't have been guilty and the jury got it wrong

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...eclare-cardinal-pell-innocent-and-a-scapegoat

And an article about the victim's evidence.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...y-the-harrowing-story-of-george-pells-victims

There were also further charges that have been dropped. Apparently the victim in that one has been dropped is devastated that has happened.

Obviously this case has raised a number of issues because during the commission he was also accused of covering up and moving on priests who had been found to committed assault. And he was also instrumental in trying to hide abuse and when people approached him about being abused he was not very helpful. In fact reports were he was rude, arrogant and dismissive towards victims. These factors have also contributed to a lot of anger regarding the case.

 

[misskarne]

May the bastard rot in hell. They should put him in the general population in jail and let the criminal honour code do its work.

His (very very expensive $50,000 a day QC paid for by the Catholic church out of their millions of non-taxed dollars) lawyer has apologised for his absolutely disgusting remarks during the sentencing hearing, but it's weak and no-one actually believes that he misspoke.