'Catholics are nothing more than slightly more civilised middle east Muslims.'

who are slightly more civilised than secularist.

We live in a violent culture where revenge is considered a virtue.

It is not!

Convincingly enough, the choir boy was not consciously lying, but long-term memories are subject to distortions and misinterpretations, even more so in the presence of alcohol, guilt and lying. According to the testimony, the boys sipped sacrificial wine and one of them told Pell: “Can you let us go? We didn’t do anything” - obviously a lie.

Pell was very clearly upset and angry when he discovered the desecration of the holy sacramental wine. It's likely that he wanted to inflict as much pain as possible on the boys, but very unlikely for him to be sexually aroused at such a time. In his rage he possibly (though unjustifiably) considered a sexual punishment adequate. Quite possibly, he even preferred and pretended to be seen as a paedophile rather than reveal his greater shame at failing to protect the holy blood-of-Christ that was desecrated in his presence. He could even deny that desecration in court and take that shame to his grave, even if this adds years to his imprisonment as a presumed paedophile.

Nevertheless, let us assume that the choir-boy's testimony was completely true.

The second spiritual injunction in Hinduism is truth-telling, Satyam, but Satyam is still subordinate to the first injunction: non-violence, Ahimsa, so should the two conflict, non-violence takes precedence over truth-telling.

Throwing in jail an elderly man who is obviously non-dangerous at present, for the thrill of revenge over something he did more than 20 years ago, is violence. It will not help the victim in any way, it will only be to his spiritual detriment, it will only exacerbate his problems and make him feel more guilty for his childhood mischief. A better attitude would be: "OK, I was naughty so I got punished. It might not have been proportional to my crime, but I better call it a day, turn a page and stop the cycle of violence right here". Spoiling one's whole life over a 6-minute traumatic incident, agonising as it might have been, is simply unwise.

The writer fails to mention that the cardinal’s first trial ended in a hung jury, with 10 of 12 jurors in favour of acquittal.

In the retrial, the defence again demonstrated that it was physically impossible for the alleged abuse of two choirboys to have occurred, given the layout and security of the cathedral.

Whether the anti-conservative writer likes it or not, the question remains: how did a jury’s overwhelming vote for acquittal of the cardinal get flipped to a unanimous guilty finding on retrial?

Bring on the appeal.

What I don’t understand is how Pell can be convicted of abusing a second boy who denied that it happened, all based on the 20 year old memory of another boy, with no substantiating evidence.
I haven’t heard of any evidence that supports the fact that the boys were even in the area, let alone proof that anything happened. I simply cannot understand how this has happened.
This is not about Pell, or the Catholic Church, it’s about the desecration of our legal system.

Yuyutsu,

"Pell was very clearly upset and angry when he discovered the desecration of the holy sacramental wine"

Bollocks, Pell would have had years of knowledge that altar boys had a glug of the very ordinary wine that is kept for Communion, bet he had a swig when he was an altar boy.
There is no desecration of anything holy and sacramental about having a bit of the unconsecrated wine, it's just plonk.

See:http://www.sevenhill.com.au/wine-portfolio/sweet-red
Altar wines are not anything special!!

Although Brother John's drop at $110 a bottle would be very special for me ($660 for the minimum order).
http://www.sevenhill.com.au/wine-sales

'This is not about Pell, or the Catholic Church, it’s about the desecration of our legal system.'

so true Nana but not for the lying leftist media and its followers. Thank God we don't just have the fake news of Fairfax and the abc.