AUSTRALIA
The Australian
May 20, 2017
GERARD HENDERSON
Columnist
If Cardinal George Pell was anything other than Australia’s best known Christian who happens to be a social conservative and holds the third most senior position in the Vatican, the civil libertarians in our midst would be calling for him to receive due process.
Instead, with the notable exception of lawyer Terry O’Gorman in Brisbane, there has been silence as a baying pack of journalists and some politicians effectively have branded Pell guilty of historical child sexual abuse. Before charges have been laid or a trial conducted.
This is what we know of the allegations against Pell. In February last year, the Herald Sun revealed that he was to be subjected to a police investigation concerning crimes that allegedly took place at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne between 1996 and 2001. To accept this allegation you have to believe that Pell was an active pederast at the very time he set up the Melbourne Response to deal with child sexual abuse in co-operation with Victoria Police and after consulting the Victorian governor, premier and solicitor-general, along with male and female lawyers. Pell must have been completely reckless or is innocent of the allegations made against him.
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