About 18 months ago a New South Wales judge made a remarkable admission.
He acknowledged that he was under pressure to jail Archbishop Philip Wilson ‘simply on the basis that he is a Catholic priest’.
Thankfully, Judge Roy Ellis did what was right, rather than bow to the might of the mob. He freed Archbishop Wilson, overturning a guilty verdict that was a travesty of justice and that had shamed the New South Wales court system.
Judge Ellis’ statement should have sent alarm bells ringing.
It was an admission that the justice system was being pressured to lock up innocent men by the media. Indeed, he specifically stated that the media had become the ‘elephant in the room’ in some cases.
Yet, just six days later, Cardinal Pell was imprisoned.
Thankfully, today the High Court tore the case against Pell apart in 129 unanimous paragraphs.
The allegations against Pell were always fanciful. But the High Court’s summary of the case against Pell in today’s judgement devastatingly outlined just how absurd they were.
Cardinal Pell is now freed after 405 days spent behind bars, much of it in solitary confinement.
This brings to an end one of the most shameful legal episodes in Australia’s history. But it does not bring an end to this matter.
Those who allowed hateful prejudice or sheer negligence to get in the way of duty and helped to jail an innocent man must now face a reckoning.
And all those who cheered and jeered as Pell was jailed have been utterly discredited. Some of them now hold positions that are untenable.
Yet even now they refuse to accept responsibility for their failures.
The Victorian Police opened an investigation into Cardinal Pell before a single complaint against him had been made. It then advertised for complainants to come forward.
This is an outrageous abuse of law enforcement powers. It shows that senior Victorian police officers were out to get a man, rather than out to solve a crime.
Yet even today, after every single allegation the Victorian Police dug up has been found to be without merit, this discredited, biased and vengeful outfit cannot accept reality.
Instead of apologising to Cardinal Pell, this morning the Victorian Police issued a press release stating that they continue to provide support to complainants while praising their ‘tireless work’ on this case.
This tireless work jailed an innocent man.
All those involved in the Victorian Police’s witch hunt of Pell should be looking for new jobs.
The Chief Justice of Victoria, Anne Ferguson, simply cannot remain in her position after today’s High Court decision. Ditto for President of the Victorian Court of Appeal, Christopher Maxwell.
These two had to resort to extreme lengths of fantasy to keep Pell in jail, while trashing the legal safeguards of the justice system. Today their reputations have been shattered by the High Court.
As stated in the High Court’s ruling, their ‘analysis failed to engage with whether…it was reasonably possible that [the complainant’s] account was not correct, such that there was a reasonable doubt as to [Pell’s] guilt.’
The High Court went on to rule that there were ‘compounding improbabilities caused by the unchallenged evidence’ of those who were with Pell that ‘plainly’ raised doubt about Pell’s guilt.
As such, the High Court emphatically and unanimously judged that ‘there is a significant possibility…that an innocent person has been convicted’.
The Australian’s legal affairs editor, Chris Merrett, best summed up the situation now confronting Maxwell and Ferguson in an article last year, writing:
The stakes are staggeringly high. This affair now concerns not just the freedom of a cardinal but the continued public standing of Victoria’s top judges and the man who might well be the nation’s greatest lawyer.
If the assessment of Walker and Shann is accepted by the High Court, it will amount to a crippling blow for Ferguson and Maxwell.
The public standing of Victoria’s top judges has been destroyed. These two should now resign.
Finally, many in the media class have been irrevocably damaged.
Louise Milligan, in particular, and the rabidly anti-Catholic ABC which wantonly used taxpayer funds to promote her defamatory book on Cardinal Pell, are now left with shattered reputations too.
Milligan was the very tip of the spear in the media campaign against Cardinal Pell, but it was a spear that the majority of her colleagues were happy to throw.
Last year Milligan was awarded the ‘Press Freedom Medal’ by the Australian Press Council for her ‘reporting’ on Cardinal Pell. The blue tick brigade of journalists on Twitter then lined up to sing their praises of her ‘courage’.
In a cab on Harbour Bridge in rainy Sydney, & bowled over to have just been presented 2019 Press Freedom Medal. I dedicate it to J, a courageous man who stared down apex of power to achieve justice, to R, who didn’t make it, & to all the men who told me their truth. #journalism pic.twitter.com/RyCovo6WIa
— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) August 30, 2019
Ironically, this medal is presented to those who have ‘demonstrated extraordinary commitment or service to the cause of press freedom’.
Let us remember the words of Judge Roy Ellis, who six days before Pell was jailed, warned that he was under pressure from the media to jail an innocent man because he was a priest.
Louise Milligan’s ‘work’ was a large part of the reason why an innocent priest was jailed.
Today the High Court has done its part to rectify this assault on freedom. Now it’s up to the Australian Press Council to do its job and revoke this award for freedom from Milligan, who did so much to unjustly take away the liberty of Cardinal Pell.
August 23, 2020
Might I suggest that ‘Justices’ Ferguson and Maxwell, having felt in their waters that Pell could have been guilty, should go to a urologist before passing any more judgements.
April 13, 2020
Can we have everyone in the line to convict Pell, from the complainant to the Police, convicted for attempting to pervert the course of justice?
April 11, 2020
The bad news is, judging by her Twitter feed, Louise is still at it. You know something? I asked how what she planned to do with the royalties from her book Cardinal and also suggested she donate all of them to victims of pedophile priests. Her only response was to block me! What do you think about that?
April 10, 2020
I’m not Catholic, coming from a Methodist family as I am, But I had a strong feeling that the Cardinal was being railroaded by the media from the beginning.
The complainants story just didn’t even begin to add up,because as I mentioned,I’m not Catholic but i know enough about Church Ritual practices to know that the incident could never have happened. .This’s yet one more example where a life has been destroyed as a sacrifice on the alter of cultural Marxism for the benefit of those who choose to live a deviant life style. The more famous examples are Justice kavanaugh in the US and even President Trump ,were slandered by people claiming to be from something called the me Too Movement It’s now time for the tide to turn back to the concept of the thread of gold,as laid out by Viscount Sankey,that regardless of how heinous a crime is alleged to have been committed,the accused is innocent until proven guilty. A great pity that the legal profession in Australia is woefully ignorant of that thread of Gold.
April 11, 2020
What astounds me about this case was that the initial complaint by “J” against Perll was that the incident occurred after midweek “Choir” practice, where the cathedral would have few people and no congregation.
When it became blatantly obvious that Cardinal Pell would never be present for such practice, the police adroitly changed the timing to the weekend when Pell had attended mass, without taking note of the many people present and the impossibility for the Cardinal to have divested himself, even if he could have impossibly been in two places at once.
The Marxist agenda is simple people cannot be allowed to have allegiance to more than one authority, definitely not God and the State. Nor can children be allowed to have allegiance to their parents and the State, so discredit the family unit.
April 9, 2020
Jim – Unfortunately we live in an era when lies are so easily given precedence over truth. Often these falsehoods are based on money that one can gain from their untruths. Greed, lies, deception, false accusations, media sensationalism, over zealous police, and a public perception of everyone that is accused is guilty ( even though the person is innocent ) are just part of how degraded our society has become.
April 14, 2020
Could not agree more.
I dont know how many times I pulled someone up and said, “that could have been you!” As for retribution, most of these people are from the “elite” and nothing will happen. They will continue on in life sucking from the public purse.
April 9, 2020
satanic attacks on good priests will never stop until the end of time
April 9, 2020
In the end truth and justice has prevailed. Remember every dog has his day. All who was and is involved in the victimisation of Cardinal Pell and Catholics remember our church was built on a strong foundation and no one can destroy it. Christ has promised us in the scriptures that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the church. Remember prayers are our weapon. We will pray unceasingly
God bless you Bernard keep it up
April 8, 2020
Excellent article. Thank you.
April 8, 2020
It is time to call a spade a spade.
So let’s not tippy-toe around the very first spade – the young man who accused Cardinal Pell of vile homosexual crimes.
The complainant – never named for legal reasons – is a liar.
Everything he said was a lie.
As the unanimous High Court decision yesterday confirms.
The complainant is a liar whose malice towards Cardinal Pell has caused so much damage and destruction. The word “grub” was invented for people such as this complainant.
But Pell will have the last laugh, because the High Court decision now shows all the howling anti-Catholic bigots, sneerers and jeerers to be the shrill, partisan scumbags they truly are – and always have been.
And now they howl in outrage and mill about in confusion, confounded by this ultimate defeat they have suffered.
Not that they will simply surrender.
Oh, no.
Now they are rushing to employ Plans B and C.
Plan B is to loudly proclaim that the High Court decision means that Cardinal Pell got off on a technicality and that everybody can still proclaim him to be a pedophile (as ratbag leftard feminist Clementine Ford has already done).
Pity for them the High Court wrote this at para 127 of its judgment:
“It was evidence which ought to have caused the jury, acting rationally, to entertain a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt of the offence … there is a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted”.
That blows their “technicality” argument out of the water.
Plan C is to pin their hopes on the possibility that a conga line of other malcontents will now sue Cardinal Pell for damages in the civil courts.
Quote from the ABC in one of its written reports made immediately after the High Court decision came down:
“Regardless of the decision, a number of civil cases are due to be launched against Cardinal Pell, either by people who alleged they were abused by him or who allege he did nothing to prevent their abuse at the hands of other priests.
The father of one of the boys who George Pell was originally convicted of abusing has previously vowed to pursue the Catholic Church and Cardinal Pell for damages”.
Well, I have some news for the ABC as it floats shell-shocked in the water after its ship of hate was torpedoed from under it by the High Court, desperately clinging to whatever straws of hope it can find:
Good luck with any of those civil cases! Because the High Court decision will have substantial blow-back on them as well.
Talk is cheap, ABC.
When all those potential litigants are actually confronted with the cost of their actions and the likelihood of further judicial failure – they will evaporate and disappear just as quickly as mist in the morning sun.
Yesterday was a great day for Australian law and true justice.
God bless Cardinal Pell.
Now let us take the fight to all his legions of raging enemies.
They can be defeated, you know.
It’s as easy as ABC.
April 8, 2020
Well said
April 9, 2020
Excellent commentary…Cowardly scum back to the pond!
April 8, 2020
Thank you Bernard. Keep up your good work.
April 8, 2020
Thank you Bernard- well written
April 8, 2020
Thank you. So so sad for Cardinal Pell even the win from the High Court does not stop those evil persecution. The Lord loves him so much to allow him to share in His Cross by going through such persecution. Love with my lowly prayer, Cardinal Pell!
April 7, 2020
Well written and as always extremely accurate. Please do us all a favour and keep up the pressure on Ferguson until she resigns. God Bless.
April 24, 2020
That Prosecutor Gail Furness ( the Athiest Christian hater ) hathno shame; strangely, she and her consorts have gone to ground; good always triumphs over evil
April 7, 2020
Your blogs during the Pell trial were most approeciated.
April 9, 2020
Bernard
You always see clearly when others suffer from myopia or, as in the case of the Victorian police and judges, complete blindness.
April 7, 2020
Wow. My prayers have always been for truth to be revealed whether innocent or guilty. There must be repercussions for false persecutions. Particularly when it is about deliberately destroying peoples reputations & vindictive. Thanks for your article
April 7, 2020
This is a nicely written response. It is published so quickly after the decision was announced ad 10 am today. Thank you Bernard Gaynor. You have been vindicated, thank God.
There is hope yet that this decision of the High Court of Australia will be accepted and respected by our LGBT overlords and their allies. But I doubt it. I have seen some of their Tweets cursing the High Court as a corrupt bunch of pedophile-enablers.
The hatred of the Catholic Church by the rainbow coalition, inside and outside the media, needs some explaining.
I feel, intuitively, but without hard and fast evidence, that this hatred is a result of the Church’s doctrine on homosexuality. The hatred of this doctrine is projected on to the Church.
Their tactic is to hide the true cause of abuse of boys by Catholic priests. The elephant in the room: homosexuality.
They categorize the cause of abuse as pedophilia, when the evidence suggests it is homosexuality i.e., man-boy sexual attraction that is on par with incest as a sexual perversion.
https://fifthestatepress.com/stories/cardinal-george-pell-takes-the-wrap-for-the-cathol-20191212
April 8, 2020
“Their tactic is to hide the true cause of abuse of boys by Catholic priests. The elephant in the room: homosexuality.”
Some LGBT apologists are running the ludicrous line that it’s not homosexual priests preying on (almost entirely) boys, but heterosexual priests!
It’s about the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.
Sorry, but if any man has sex with other males, that is the very definition of homosexuality, no ifs, buts, or maybes!
No wonder the Catholic Church is trying to screen out gays getting into the priesthood before they can do damage.
April 10, 2020
Indeed. Pedophilia refers to sexual attraction towards children i.e. pre-pubescent, and as often as not involve men in their 30s and 40s targeting such girls and the activities will involve molestation etc. However in almost all cases involving abuse by (male) priests the victims are post-pubescent boys who are still minors, i.e. still at school, and the activities involve adult homosexual behaviours. The term in not pedophilia but pederasty. This is first and foremost an issue of homosexuality (overlaid with an age effect) which is why the Left refuse to use the correct term as homosexuality is a promoted form of sexual behaviour so is protected from analysis.
April 7, 2020
Thank you Bernard for your summary of this gross injustice against the Cardinal and the Catholic Church.
April 7, 2020
Excellent outcome
April 7, 2020
Excellent article and very well written!