Mar 05, 2019 · Cardinal George Pell arrives with his defending lawyer Robert Richter QC at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on May 1, 2018 in Melbourne, Australia.
WASHINGTON — Following the conviction of Cardinal George Pell in the Australian state of Victoria last week, new details have emerged about the nature of the crimes for which he has been found guilty. Cardinal Pell was found guilty Dec. 11 on five charges of sexual abuse of minors, following accusations that he sexually assaulted two former members ...
During Cardinal Pell’s trial, the judge reportedly excluded both the prosecution and the defense from disclosing to the jury or discussing in court anything which could bear upon the credibility of the accuser.
Milligan has reported that the abuse might have taken place in the early months of 1997, but sources told CNA that the prosecution identified a period between August and December 1996 , shortly after Cardinal Pell was installed as Melbourne’s archbishop.
Sources say that five counts of sexual abuse were allegedly committed by Pell against the two choristers immediately following a 10:30am Sunday Mass in Melbourne’s cathedral. Pell is accused of abusing both choir members in the same incident.
However, Melbourne’s cathedral was undergoing restoration work at the time of his installation in August 1996 , which prevented Cardinal Pell from being installed in the cathedral building itself or from regularly celebrating Mass there for several weeks.
Instead of Cardinal Pell’s testimony, recordings were played for the jury of the cardinal’s interviews with police and state authorities, in which he had previously answered questions about the charges and denied ever sexually abusing a minor.
It has been reported that local media petitioned Victoria County Court to lift the suppression order on the Pell case, but that no decision had been issued on that request.
Countries around the world have been holding inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse. In 2012, Australia’s then prime minister, Julia Gillard, ordered a formal inquiry into historical child sexual abuse within Australian institutions, with the Catholic church and its associated organisations coming under particular scrutiny.
The leave of absence is still in place.”
There had been no suggestion in these commission hearings that Pell was a perpetrator. The commission asked questions about whether he knew of any abuse and what he did to address it. This is because in 1996, while Pell was archbishop of Melbourne, he was approached by senior politicians, judges and officials who raised concerns about historical child sexual abuse by clergy and church personnel. More complainants were coming forward with their stories and historical charges were being laid. As a result, Pell established a scheme within the archdiocese of Melbourne to investigate such claims. This initiative was known as the Melbourne Response, and those in charge of it, including Pell, have been criticised by complainants for an inconsistent and inadequate response to claims.
Other charges were withdrawn by the prosecution during the committal hearing. Pell has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges for which he will stand trial. That plea has now been formally recorded by the court.
In March 2016, when asked by the royal commission why he had agreed to walk Ridsdale into the courthouse in Melbourne during his 1993 criminal trial, Pell responded, "I had some status as an auxiliary bishop and I was asked to appear with the ambition that this would lessen the term of punishment, lessen his time in jail." Peter Saunders, the victims' advocate and a former Catholic priest, said that this Pell response "demonstrates once again the callousness, the coldheartedness and the contempt that George Pell appears to display for this whole issue and particularly for the victims of these dreadful crimes."
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. George Pell AC (born 8 June 1941) is an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy between 2014 and 2019, and was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers between 2013 and 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made ...
Pell has written of a need to "deepen friendship and understanding" with Muslims in the post– September 11 environment and has said that though there is a continuing struggle throughout the Muslim world between moderates and men of violence, he believes that, in Australia, "the moderates are in control". In 2004, speaking to the Acton Institute on the problems of "secular democracy", Pell drew a parallel between Islam and communism: "Islam may provide in the 21st century, the attraction that communism provided in the 20th, both for those that are alienated and embittered on the one hand and for those who seek order or justice on the other."
As a child, Pell underwent 24 operations to remove an abscess in his throat. Pell attended Loreto Convent and St Patrick's College (from which he matriculated) in Ballarat. At St Patrick's, Pell played Australian rules football as a ruckman on the first XVIII from 1956 to 1959.
In 2012 and 2013, Pell hosted Iftar dinners to mark the end of the Islamic celebration of Ramadan. The Grand Mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, expressed his gratitude and appreciation to Pell on behalf of Muslims for hosting the dinner.
In 2009, Pell supported the comments made by Pope Benedict XVI in Africa in relation to controlling the spread of AIDS, in which the Pope reiterated the Catholic teaching that the solution to the AIDS epidemic lay not in the distribution of condoms, but in the practice of sexual abstinence and monogamy within marriage. The Pope said that AIDS could not be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which "can even increase the problem". In response to global coverage of these remarks, Pell said that AIDS was a "great spiritual and health crisis" and a huge challenge, but that "Condoms are encouraging promiscuity. They are encouraging irresponsibility."
The legal scholar and theologian Cathleen Kaveny wrote that "In every possible respect, Pell's statement backfired" as, following backlash from elected officials and the general public, the bill passed the lower house with what she describes as "an overwhelming 65–26 vote" and passed the upper house with a 27–13 vote.