I'm not a Catholic. I couldn't imagine being one. However, of all the Christian denominations, they have done the most for poor and downtrodden people. I understand the feelings of loathing for paedophiles and people who abuse children in any way. But these awful people are not confined to the Catholic church. They are everywhere; in fact most children are abused by relatives. They should be dealt with.

But, the ABC and the usual Marxist gangs were not really interested in damaging Pell; it was the Catholic church they were after. Unlike the non-conformist churches who have lurched to the left in an attempt to be relevant, the Catholic church has held onto Christian doctrine and resisted all the Leftist fads - same sex marriage, gender bending, socialism, climate change, big government, politicisation of education, identity politics, abortion on demand, etc, etc.

Cardinal Pell said in his statement today that his persecution was not a "referendum on the Catholic church". Oh yes it was! Pell was just a pawn, as were the victims and alleged victims of abuse that the increasingly strident and hate-filled Left pretended to care about.

The Catholic church, despite the faults of relatively few of its priests (about 3%) is probably the last bastion against the Left barbarians who want to change our society into something pretty horrible.

Dear Big Nana,

You claim “SR, in all your comments you fail to mention that the first trial of Pell resulted in a hung jury, in fact they were 10-2 in favour of acquittal.”

That is because the numbers were never released since the judge in that case gave strict instructions to that effect. The 10-2 number was touted by a nasty rightwing commentator who has been proven in court to be a unabashed liar.

If you have any proof to the veracity of the numbers involved then go ahead and post them otherwise you really need to resist propagating unverified rubbish.

Dear Loudmouth2,

Pell not only lived with for two years one of the worst paedophiles in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia but he also was on the committee responsible for moving between 5 parishes in four years, one of which he had to leave in the dead of the night to escape questioning by the local police officer. Pell said he knew nothing.

This is Ridsdale's sad tale of offending which led to so many destroyed lives. http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/55

Dear runner,

Calling women witches, how very bloody Christian of you little creep. Well one of your witches was Julia Gillard. She was the one who set up the Royal Commission which brought your faith's abusers out into the open and you have hated her ever since.

The NSW detective who inspired her to call it said “"I'm not politically aligned to anyone, and I haven't always been a big fan of Julia Gillard personally, but my God she's had some guts this afternoon, a lot more guts than Barry O'Farrell,". The ABC, particularly Four Corners was also instrumental in the Royal Commission being set up and your loathing for them has known few bounds.

The justice that commission brought to broken lives was immense, but you have been an apologist for the offenders and seeking to tear down any victim of abuse. Your grubby fixations, your pathetic pandering and your misogynistic views are an embarrassment. Enough.

The effects of the high court decision is that Pell has never been convicted.

That Bill Shorten never went to trial for the rape of a Labor intern is because the uncorroborated testimony of a single witness, no matter how convincing, is never considered sufficient for a conviction.

Pell is no more guilty than Shorten. That victims of rape and sexual abuse are disappointed at not claiming the scalp of a senior Catholic cleric is completely irrelevant especially since the high court essentially ruled him innocent.

This comment by Paul Kelly concisely sums up the high court decision and the folly of the Victorian Justice system:

"This is the ultimate expression of justice in Australia. The High Court has acted with a single purpose — to bring clarity, certainty and finality to this case.

Cardinal George Pell is innocent of the sexual abuse convictions against him. He was wrongly convicted, jailed and vilified.

This concludes one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Australian history, testimony to a nation divided, agonised and weeping tears of grief and rage. The 7-0 verdict reveals a High Court that has restored legal reasoning and exposed a disreputable saga of institutional and cultural failure in this country.

Pell was not given a fair trial or appeal by the Victorian criminal justice system. But this system did not merely fail Pell, it failed his complainant, who was put through a personal trauma for years only to find the case against Pell collapsed in a decision in the final court that matters.

The problem is that Pell’s guilt or innocence became hopelessly entangled with the crimes and sins of the Catholic Church that he led and symbolised.

Pell became a hate figure in a culture justifiably angry at the church’s systemic child abuse but this situation was compounded when other institutions succumbed under pressure."

That Pell is now in the position to sue the state of Victoria for $ms should put an interesting spin on things.

SR, all the news sources relating to the first trial make a similar comment to this one, from Catholic News Agency USA.

“ The verdict came after a five-week retrial, after a jury in an earlier trial failed to reach an unanimous verdict. In October 2018, multiple sources close to the case told CNA that the first trial had ended with the jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of Cardinal Pell.”

So, I don’t know what you are referring to, but the facts seem to be fairly widely known,

From the actual high court judgement pointing out the inconsistencies between witnesses and stated that there was "a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted."

"The High Court considered that, while the Court of Appeal majority assessed the evidence of the opportunity witnesses as leaving open the possibility that the complainant's account was correct, their Honours' analysis failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place, such that there ought to have been a reasonable doubt as to the applicant's guilt. The unchallenged evidence of the opportunity witnesses was inconsistent with the complainant's account, and described: (i) the applicant's practice of greeting congregants on or near the Cathedral steps after Sunday solemn Mass; (ii) the established and historical Catholic church practice that required that the applicant, as an archbishop, always be accompanied when robed in the Cathedral; and (iii) the continuous traffic in and out of the priests' sacristy for ten to 15 minutes after the conclusion of the procession that ended Sunday solemn Mass. The Court held that, on the assumption that the jury had assessed the complainant's evidence as thoroughly credible and reliable, the evidence of the opportunity witnesses nonetheless required the jury, acting rationally, to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to the applicant's guilt in relation to the offences involved in both alleged incidents. With respect to each of the applicant's convictions, there was, consistently with the words the Court used in Chidiac v The Queen (1991) 171 CLR 432 at 444 and M v The Queen
(1994) 181 CLR 487 at 494, "a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof".

This is a serious slap in the face for the Victorian appellate judges who will have this as a serious black mark for the rest of their careers.