Cardinal Pell's funeral is to be held on Saturday
14th January in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Pope Francis will preside over the final portion of
the late Cardinal's funeral. He will deliver a final
commendation and salute as is the custom for cardinal
funerals.

Giovanni Batista Re. Dean of the College of Cardinals will
celebrate the Requiem Mass at 11.30am on Saturday 14th January.
The Mass will take place at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter
in the Vatican Basilica. A host of other cardinals and bishops
are expected to celebrate the Mass.

Cardinal Pell's body will be flown back to Australia
following his Vatican funeral ahead of a Memorial Service
at St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. He will be buried
in St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney where he served for
13 years before moving to the Vatican.

Steelreflux,

More bluster and bullsh1t from you again. Perhaps you could point to a single piece of verifiable evidence against Pell? There was not a single witness to the claims by the "victim" nor was there a single piece of forensic or physical evidence.

This was a politically motivated show trial facilitated by activist judges. A competent judge would have dismissed the trial before closing. The judge and prosecutor should be disbarred for this disgraceful abuse of the legal system.

This is similar to the show trial against Bruce Lehrmann where the police recommendation was that there was no case.

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The High Court of Australia’s verdict on 7 April 2020, in the case Pell v The Queen was that :

« the appellant's convictions be quashed, and judgments of acquittal be entered in their place »

The High Court noted that “notwithstanding that the jury found A [the complainant] to be a credible and reliable witness, the evidence as a whole was not capable of excluding a reasonable doubt as to [Cardinal Pell’s] guilt ”.

Acquittal does not mean innocence. The High Court did not find Pell innocent. It acquitted him based on what it considered to be the failure of the prosecution to establish Pell’s guilt “beyond reasonable doubt”.

It did not preclude Pell’s guilt or innocence. It simply considered that the prosecution did not prove its case to the minimum legal requirement for conviction.
.

We inherited our criminal law from English common law, which continues to evolve in Australian courts. The laws of our states and territories are not chiseled in stone – even though in some states they have been codified. They are all closely intertwined with the development of society and subject to organic evolution by judicial interpretation and parliamentary legislation.

In all modern democracies such as we have in Australia, it is we, the people (demos) who have the power (kratos) to make the laws to which we accept to submit ourselves.

Our justice system is not effective in handling sex crimes. It needs to be put back on the drawing board and redesigned.

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(Continued…)

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(Contrinued …)

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I advocate that our criminal law and court procedures incorporate the following essential features :

• trial by jury

• no presumption of guilt or innocence of either defendant or complainant – each case to be tried on its individual merits

• no right to silence by either defendant or complainant during the trial. Both to present his/her version of events and be submitted to cross-examination if so required

• complainant and defendant to be treated on an equal footing – neither to be advantaged. The onus of proof to rest equally on both

• onus of proof defined as “beyond a reasonable doubt (at least 95% certainty)

It would probably be prudent to implement these measures progressively. In the first instance, I suggest they apply to sex offences involving only the more vulnerable victims (minors and physically and mentally handicapped people).

It could be extended to all victims later when the general public has concrete evidence that it is a more equitable system and working satisfactorily.

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shadowminister,

The late Cardinal's record is an interesting one and
speaks for itself.

Here's what he did:

http://thelatch.com.au/what-did-george-pell-do/

Pell began his career as a priest in the in the 1960s
in the diocese of Ballarat. The town now has the
unfortunate distinction of being a hot spot of historic
sexual abuse by Catholic clergy which a royal commission hearing
in 2015 found that up to 14 priests in Ballarat had sexually
abused children.

There had been at least 130 claims and substantial complainants
since 1980. Survivor groups estimate more than 50 suicides in
the town are linked to historic abuse by priests.

The royal commission found that Pell knew about the child abuse
quite early and protected the abusers. Pell remained in that
position until 2001 when he was elevated to the position of
archbishop of Sydney before becoming a cardinal.