I see that SR is doing what many of the left have done, substituted Pell for the catholic church. This is a typical left attitude, brought on perhaps by their hate of everything & everyone not left.

It is utterly disgraceful that they allowed their hate to totally blind them to the wrong they were doing, but even worse that they are still defending this action.

I have no high opinion of the catholic church, & would not be at all surprised that Pell was guilty of helping to cover up the pedophilia of some priests. If you believe that, by all means press charges for aiding & abetting pedophilia, not some trumped up charge that the evidence proves he could not have committed.

Trying to use the law falsely to harm someone or an institution you don't like is approaching dictatorial states where those not liked just disappear. The USSR with themselves does appear to be the socialists preference, with themselves as rulers of course. Not quite as bad as the greens, who want us back in a feudal society, provided of course, they are the lords, not the surfs.

Dear loudmouth2,

You said;

“Children were dreadfully wronged by members of the Catholic clergy, and have been for probably two thousand years. That's one issue. Pell, by being jailed for an offence that he did not commit, was also wronged.”

How do you think that set of scales would look.

As to being in jail for an offence he did not commit, he wasn't. He was in jail for an offence which had a credible victim but like many such child abuse cases did not have sufficient evidence to over ride opportunity witnesses creating some degree of doubt as to the safeness of the conviction.

I personally believe the victim and consider Pell a pederist and am quite comfortable that he spent time in jail as a result.

I think the response of the victim has been gracious and worthy of respect. I think Andrews' response was mindful of those victims who are still struggling with the impact of the abuse yet if you scan the posts on this thread he was viciously attacked for doing so.

The thing about Pell is it is the right who are normally so dismissive about courts applying the burden of proof rules and not convicting those the right feel should be behind bars, Dr Haneef is a case in point, yet on this particular case have been goaded into rallying around rightwing pundits in defense of a man who the weight of all the evidence would say is likely an abuser or at the very least and enabler of abuse.

As I put to Shadow Minister it is really disturbing how easily manipulated you lot are. Born again Trumpeteers supporting a pussy grabbing President is another example. Why do you personally think you have suddenly found yourselves on the other side of the fence?

There's a host of journalists who have reported on
Pell that are under attack by News Corp commentator
Andrew Bolt, and other Pell supporters.

Their claim
is that the ABC colluded with the Victorian Police to
have Pell charged.

The ABC is standing by all of its programs and
articles about Pell.

The ABC investigative journalist Louise Milligan who broke
stories about abuse in the Catholic Church for the ABC TV
programs 7.30 and Four Corners, says her award-winning
book - "Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell," will
not be withdrawn from sale.

She says -

"I stand by it 100% and so does my publisher. I am
proud of the journalism in it, which exposed a dark history
in the Catholic Church how a generation of children were
let down and continued to be let down when they came forward
to tell their stories as adults."

"I am in awe of their bravery. I am thinking of every single
one of them and hoping they are OK."

" They deserved better. They still deserve better."

The response of those who cheered Pell's original sentence and their dismay that justice for the man has been achieved is really rather revealing and educational.

Effectively their view is that Pell is/was the symbol of a hated group and as such he deserved to be punished irrespective of whether the particular charge was valid.

We have Foxy adopting a no-harm-no-foul view that all's well because he was finally released from false imprisonment. I wonder if Lindy Chamberlain thought all was fine as she was finally released?

And the reprehensible SR who wants the man further punished for the crime of being in a hated group.

Its all very educational. These responses aren't particularly unusual. Throughout history the hatred of the other has been used to justify the unjustifiable. Thucydides talks about it in regards to Corcyra. Robespierre understood it. And Goebbels, obviously.

But part of the genius of the English legal structures is that it protects the individual in a hated group. The individual is tried and his group affiliations is immaterial to the result. That's the ideal.

But here, not only did it not apply, but those who hate the group have applauded the rejection of that most noble of aims. They want the group to be punished via the scapegoat of Pell. And they think that's justice.

What history also teaches us is that, once the principle of punish the group via the individual is established, other groups will also be targeted. The old "First they came for the Jews..." poem... http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/first-they-came-for-the-jews/

We claim to aspire to being a just society. But the primitive instincts lurk just below the surface.

just like lying feminist did great harm to true victims of sexual assault in the Kavannaugh case so have abc and other journalist done to true victims of child abuse. If they really cared about truth rather than displaying their shear hatred they would be demanding aboriginal communities shut down long ago. No its all about hatred.

I do not think it is of any use pursuing George Pell. The horse has bolted.

Everybody knows what happened but nobody can do anything about it. I drew the parallel between what happened with appeal and the trial of Joh Bjelke-Petersen to show how things might be seen to be stacked in favour of those accused of being in the wrong.

The big questions now are those surrounding the ethical and moral conduct of the courts.