DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times
April 10, 2020
By Breda O’Bren
Quashing of Cardinal Pell conviction underlines need for safeguards
Cardinal George Pell’s trial for the sexual abuse of two choirboys divided Australia into two camps – those who were convinced that Pell was the victim of a witch hunt and those who were convinced that he was not only guilty of these crimes but of others too.
By and large, the fact that the full bench of the high court (Australia’s equivalent of our Supreme Court) found unanimously that his conviction should be quashed has not changed the minds of either camp.
Pell was immediately freed from the notorious Barwon maximum-security prison where he had been incarcerated along with serial killers, drug barons and terrorists. Two days before he was freed, three other inmates were hospitalised after abloody brawl, the latest in a string of attacks by inmates on each other. Pell spent 405 days in prison, not all in Barwon but mostly in solitary confinement.
Nor are his troubles over. There are civil cases pending, which have a much lower burden of proof, and questions still to be answered about the way in which he dealt with historical cases of sexual abuse of children by other clergy.
Nonetheless, no matter whether you like or loathe Pell, beyond reasonable doubt is a vital standard to protect all of us.
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