CARDINAL PELL: THE RISE AND FALL AND RESURRECTION

"Oh frabjous day! Callooh, callay!"Thanks be to God! Cardinal George Pell's convictions for child abuse are quashed; he is acquitted.
Thanks be to God.

These sombre days of a Holy Week in which we are all locked down, and Our Eucharistic Lord locked up, are brightened by the unlocking of a prison door in Geelong, Australia, releasing a Prince of the Church wrongfully jailed for over a year. 

In at least two Catholic homes the Lenten fast was suspended this evening, and a glass of white wine poured to toast a "white martyr".

Cardinal Pell says he bears no resentment towards his accuser.

“I have consistently maintained my innocence while suffering from a serious injustice“, he said today. "This has been remedied today with the High Court’s unanimous decision."

“I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough.”

“The only basis for long term healing is truth and the only basis for justice is truth, because justice means truth for all,” the cardinal added.

“My trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of pedophilia in the Church.”

“The point was whether I had committed these awful crimes and I did not.”

Cardinal Pell expressed “thanks for all the prayers and thousands of letters of support.”

He did time for something he didn't do. He spent that time, much of it held in solitary confinement for fear of attack from other prisoners (drug lords and terrorists), living it as purgatory for the sins of the Church, and embracing it.

We would hope that his personal motto, "Nolite  timere" - be not afraid - served him well in poky, because it must have been partly that which put him there. 

It was Cardinal Pell's fearlessness in the face of the Vatican's financial finagling and Australia's obsession with clerical sexual abuse that earned him the hatred of anti-Catholic feminists, and the LGBTQ+ crowd- not to mention Australia's woke clergy, who found his conservatism and intransigence in the face of political correctness a decided embarrassment.

But above and beyond all it was the Victorian police who went to "Get Pell" two years before they could find anyone willing to bear false witness against him. 

Oh dear, there must be a lot of red faces around Aussie tonight. For instance, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's. Just two weeks before Cardinal Pell's trial commenced he told Parliament:

"Not just as a father, but as a prime minister, I am angry at the calculating destruction of lives and the abuse of trust, including those who have abused the shield of faith and religion to hide their crimes, a shield that is supposed to protect the innocent, not the guilty. They stand condemned ... on behalf of the Australian people, this Parliament and our government ... I simply say I believe you, we believe you, your country believes you."

How gullible can you get? You believe someone automatically just because they claim to have been abused? According to their PM, that's how it is, in Aussie.

There should be a lot of red-faced priests around too. Priests who were po-faced and silent in response to ad hoc POF for Cardinal Pell at weekday Masses. Priests who never asked their people to pray for him. 

Woke priests, priests who probably read the appalling "Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell".

This hatchet job was published, incredibly, by Melbourne University Press. They say it "delivers uncomfortable truths about a culture of sexual entitlement and abuse of trust within the Catholic Church. It is a chilling case study in how ambition can silence evil."

A reviewer describes the book, somewhat more aptly, as "the case for the prosecution – primarily researched by ABC journalist Louise Milligan while working for the taxpayer funded public broadcaster. 

"Milligan apparently believes in the primacy of conscience.  Pell, on the other hand, accepts the teaching authority of the Catholic Church – as embodied in Saint Peter and his successors." 

A chap who was taught footy and swimming and life skills by Father Pell at primary school in Ballarat, who's known him ever since, comments that, "The only thing I like from this book is the front cover. As a kid, if that was Fr Pell standing there in front of you - you were safe ad protected."

My guess is, a lot of priests in NZ's Church of Nice would tossed their breviaries aside and gone for this book, and being of the liberal cast they'd have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. 

But -  again, incredibly - even conservative, traditional Catholics went for it too. One says, "note that Milligan has not been charged with slander or libel".

I refer that Pell accuser to the statement he made today, on his release: “I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel." Is it likely that Cardinal Pell would want Milligan charged with slander or libel? It's a fair bet that she is feeling hurt and bitter right now, and in need of our prayers. An even safer bet, that Cardinal Pell will be supplying for her need. 

We may do well to reflect on the fact that +Pell refused to give evidence in his own defence.

Remind you of anyone? 

And the chief priests accused Him in many things. And Pilate again asked Him, saying: Answerest Thou nothing? Behold in how many things they accuse Thee.

But Jesus still answered nothing, so that Pilate wondered (Mk 15:5,6). 

Cardinal Pell must have thanked God that Australia doesn't do crucifixions. Well, not literally.