The madwoman is talking to herself now.

I wonder who the idiot was who gave Andrews the opportunity to snarl that Pell would not be getting a state funeral!

As if. Andrews, in particular, persecuted Pell. Put him in jail for 404 days, and some nutter brings up the stupid idea of a state funeral!

The ALP all persecuted Pell. They and their wacko supporters are still doing it: trying to further blacken his name even though he is is dead.

This thread was started purely to add to the venom and hatred. Sick, sickening.

Two Australian state governments will not offer
taxpayer-funded public funerals for Cardinal George
Pell with the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews saying
his decision was made out of respect for the victims
of child sexual abuse and their families.

The NSW State Premier Dominic Perrottet has also ruled
out offering a state funeral for the Cardinal in Sydney.

This is understandable as the allegations against Cardinal Pell
and the crimes that he was convicted for, are many and
widespread.

They go back to 1961 - when in 2002 a Melbourne man accused
the Cardinal of sexually abusing him in a Catholic Youth
Camp when he was 12 years old. The complaint was never
brought to trial.

In 2013 Victorian Police launched an operation to
investigate sexual assault crimes committed by Cardinal Pell
"between 5 and 10 boys" during his time in Ballarat and as
Archbishop of Melbourne from 1978 - 2001.

In 2013 a Royal Commission was launched into the response of
the Catholic Church to allegations of child sexual abuse in Ballarat.

In 2017 formal charges were laid against Cardinal Pell.
In 2018 one of Cardinal Pell's accusers died following an
illness and his charges were withdrawn.

A suppression order was placed on the media.

The trial was eventually split into 2. One pertaining to
sexual offences at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne
in 1990 and the other pertaining to offences at a swimming
pool in Ballarat in the 1970s.

The latter was dropped while the former resulted in the
Cardinal being convicted of the abuse of 2 Melbourne choir
boys, one of whom died of a heroin overdose in 2014 and
could not give evidence.

Cardinal Pell was sentenced to six years in jail in 2019
5 charges of sexual penetration and molestation of children
aged 13 which Judge Kidd described as "brazen and forcible."

After spending 13 months in prison the Cardinal was
released on a legal technicality.

There's more at:

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

Foxy,

I suggest you read the comments (recently) put by Banjo Patterson. Whilst I don't agree with all of them, Banjo does focus on the high court decision and on the reform element I was referring to. Reform is the only constructive way forward here as High Court decisions are final. End of story.

Banjo Patterson,

I agree with a lot of your comments, but not the following:

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

That should include all crimes. I would also argue how the police and connected entities work and operate.

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

<<Trial by jury>>

Juries can be too influenced by outside sources of information and data online particularly like Facebook, the internet, youtube, websites and other social media etc. Not the same as many years ago when such things were not in existence.

<<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.>>

That goes against basic human rights. No-one should be forced into doing something they do not want to.

Foxy,

Again, the legal technicality was that the prosecution was unable to prove his guilt.

The "victim" was not proven innocent of lying and defamation.

Likewise, Bill Shorten was not proven innocent of rape.

Given that in criminal law, the defendant is presumed to be innocent. until proven guilty, Pell was not proven guilty, so he is by law presumed innocent. Everything else is irrelevant, public opinion, the incompetence of the Victorian judges, the gullibility of the jury or the well-rehearsed sob story of the victim.

There are plenty of cases of men being convicted of rape by a jury based on a convincing victim testimony only to be proven innocent later by new evidence. The duty of a judge is to determine whether the evidence meets the standard of proof. In this case, the judges failed miserably in their duty.

As a Cardinal and Archbishop, micromanager Pell put the "good" reputation and financial interests of the Church ahead of the psychological and financial welfare of children sexually molested by the priests Pell commanded.

Dear Foxy,

«Two Australian state governments will not offer
taxpayer-funded public funerals for Cardinal George
Pell»

Who ever asked for such a taxpayer-funded public funeral in the first place, robbing the taxpayer even from the grave?!

Let me tell you one thing: if you attempted to give me a tapayer-funded public funeral once I am well dead and unable to scream, then rest assured that my ghost would keep haunting you and your family...

Cardinal Pell was an honourable person - he would never have asked for that stupid kind of a [dis]service!