THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Secrecy and suppression reign Down Under
There are many reasons for wanting a verdict in the Cardinal Pell case.
Difficult to fathom why this or any other procedural matter must remain secret.
by Christopher Altieri

December 16, 2018

- Imagine receiving your news dispatch one day, and finding in it the report of a person committed to trial for serious crimes.
- Imagine the report did not specify the number or the specific kind of charges, beyond saying that they were related to actions alleged to have taken place many decades ago, and that they were of a sexual nature.
- Imagine the report did not even specify the identity of the accused.
- Imagine now, that the paucity of detail in the report owed itself to a court order barring news outlets from reporting any other details of the trial, including anything regarding its progress, or even acknowledging the trial or the gag order.

One would be forgiven for thinking oneself trapped in a Kafka novel, but closer inspection would show such a surmise to be contrary to fact, and comparison to the Bohemian’s dystopia is real circumstance.
- For one thing, it is not the accused, who is kept in the dark regarding his proceedings, but the public, in whose name the courts are seeking justice in his regard.
- For another, the accused is not a workaday fellow or an everyman, but a powerful figure of towering reputation, with worldwide prominence.
- For yet another, it is owing to the prominence of the accused, hence to the media attention his legal troubles garnered, that the court in the jurisdiction where said prominent individual is being tried has imposed the suppression of reportage.

Suppressed for the sake of integrity?

The accused, in this case, is Cardinal George Pell, who has been on leave from his office and other responsibilities at the Vatican since June of 2017, when it became clear he would have to stand trial on separate criminal molestation counts stemming from alleged incidents decades ago. Pell vigorously maintains his innocence of all charges.

There have been reports of significant legal setbacks for him in recent days, though a court-imposed gag order in Australia means official confirmation of reports a guilty verdict has been reached is not likely to be forthcoming any time soon.

Asked for comment on the situation during a briefing on Wednesday, Holy See Press Office Director Greg Burke said, “The Holy See has the utmost respect for the Australian judicial authorities. We are aware there is a suppression order in place and we respect that order.”

Reports are that Cardinal Pell has been found guilty on multiple criminal sexual molestation counts allegedly committed in the late 1990s, while he was Archbishop of Melbourne. The first jury to hear the case — dubbed the “Cathedral trial” because it involves allegations Pell abused altar servers there — reportedly could not reach a verdict. Some reports — again, unconfirmed by official sources — say the first jury was 10-2 in favor of acquittal. So, the judge declared a mistrial and empaneled a new jury, which returned the guilty verdict on Tuesday.

Pell will be tried again early next year on other charges — the “swimmers trial” — stemming from his time as a priest in Ballarat. There, he appears to be accused of exposing himself in public showers at a swimming facility he used to frequent in the 1970s. In the post-Jerry Sandusky era, it is difficult to gauge how sensible the public might be of how thin that is. If there’s more to it, there’s no saying for the moment.

The court in Australia says it has ordered the suppression of news in order to guarantee the integrity of the process, i.e. to ensure that Cardinal Pell gets a fair trial, especially in the second one. But before he was formally indicted, Pell was subject to a vicious — and quite possibly prejudicial — campaign in the press, which intensified in the months leading to his indictment.

Concern over whether he could get a fair trial in such a climate is legitimate. The question is whether, in this or any case, such a cure as the court in Australia has prescribed is not worse than the disease. The principle of open justice can be traced at least as far back in British legal history as Magna Charta. At bottom, it is the idea that justice must be seen to be done.

That is, among others, one reason why the Vatican is certainly not in a position to complain of the treatment Pell is receiving, were it so inclined. Vatican trials of clerics similarly accused are secret as a matter of course. That is a problem.

One thinks of the case of the disgraced former archbishop of Agna (Guam), Anthony Apuron, who was tried in secret on unspecified charges — some of which were connected to abuse allegations — by an ad hoc commission of judges headed by Cardinal Raymond Burke.

After the trial was concluded and the verdict reached, it was several months before any announcement from the Holy See. When word finally came, we were told only that Archbishop Apuron had been found guilty of some charges.

“The Apostolic Tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, composed of five judges, has issued its sentence of first instance,” the statement from the Press Office of the Holy See read, “finding the accused guilty of certain of the accusations and imposing upon the accused the penalties of privation of office and prohibition of residence in the Archdiocese of Guam.”

Apuron has appealed the verdict. Pope Francis has reserved to himself the adjudication of the appeal. “I decided — because it’s a very difficult case — to take the privilege that I have of taking on the appeal myself and not sending it to the council of appeal that does its work with all the priests,” Pope Francis told journalists travelling with him to Rome from Ireland on August 26, in an exchange that was part of the usual in-flight press conference.

“I took it upon myself, and made a commission of canonists, who are helping me and they told me that when I get back, after a maximum of a month, a recommendation will be made so I can make a judgment.” It has been significantly more than a month, and yet we have no news.

“It is a complicated case, on one hand,” Pope Francis continued, “but not difficult because the evidence is clear. I cannot pre-judge. I await the report and then I will judge. I say that the evidence is clear because there is this evidence, which led the first tribunal to the condemnation.”
- What evidence, precisely, is that?
- To which charges does the clear evidence speak?
- What about the other evidence?
- What about exculpatory evidence?
- More to the point: even if an appeal is to be granted automatically, what is the legal basis of it?
- Does Apuron dispute the conviction? The process? Both?
- While we’re at it: where is Archbishop Apuron?

The Pacific Daily News quoted Apuron’s coadjutor, Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes, as telling the US bishops gathered in Baltimore this past November, “There’s been no meaningful constraints upon the archbishop to whom I’m still a coadjutor, pending appeal.” Byrnes is further quoted as saying, “I keep getting asked, where is Archbishop [Apuron]? I have to say I have no idea. There is no contact. He’s not been assigned to a certain place. In fact, he’s been, pending appeal, restricted from returning to Guam.”

One place Apuron was sighted shortly after the announcement of his conviction was on a dais, with dozens of other prelates — and Pope Francis — at a major international gathering of the Neocatechumenal Way, of which Apuron has been a staunch supporter.

At least some of Apuron’s legal woes — both civil and ecclesiastical — stem from his handling of the Redemptoris Mater seminary on Guam, the running of which he entrusted to the Neocatechumenate.

- In both cases — Cardinal Pell’s and Archbishop Apuron’s — the rationale for secrecy is the same: protection of the reputation of the accused and the integrity of the judicial process.
- In both cases, the cat was out of the bag long before either man was indicted, let alone brought to the bar.
- In both cases, secrecy has actually raised questions about the integrity of the proceedings, even as it has done little to protect the reputations of the men accused.

In Pell’s case, the concern is that Australia wants to railroad him. In Apuron’s case, the concerns are manifold, but include the possibility that he is either being set up for a fall, or let off easy, or both. In both cases, secrecy is serving to undermine confidence in the systems in which the men are being tried.

Nor is history bereft of examples of what happens when even ostensibly well-intentioned measures are taken to render judicial proceedings opaque.

In the late 15th century, England established a special tribunal for the trial — in secret — of individuals believed to be so powerful or so prominent that justice could not be guaranteed them in the ordinary public courts. The tribunal eventually became a by-word for the arbitrary and oppressive use of the judicial power, especially against political rivals. While it sat, however, the tribunal habitually held its sessions in a room in Westminster palace, from which it took its name: The Court of the Star Chamber.


The Cardinal Pell case:
New details emerge
by Ed Condon


WASHINGTON, December 18, 2018 (CNA) — 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 of the Melbourne cathedral choir.

A sweeping court injunction prevents the nature of the accusations, the progress of the case, or the even the result of the trial from being discussed by the media in Australia.

Despite the gag order, CNA has spoken to several individuals who attended Pell’s trial in person, as well as others present for pre-trial hearings in early 2018.

During the March preliminary hearings, the defense petitioned for the allegations against Pell to be heard in two separate trials, the first concerning the accusations of the Melbourne choristers, and the second related to allegations from Pell’s time as a priest in Ballarat. Other charges Pell faced were dropped during the pre-trial committal hearings.

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.

Only one of the alleged victims was present in court to give evidence against Pell. The other alleged victim, according a 2017 report from The Australian newspaper The Age, died of a drug overdose in 2014.

Before his death, the deceased man reportedly told his mother at least twice that he had not been a victim of sexual abuse. The other former choir member reportedly told the deceased man’s mother only after the man died that both had been abused by Cardinal Pell, The Age reported, citing a 2017 book on Pell by journalist Louise Milligan.

According to the prosecution, Cardinal Pell and the choir members “went missing” from a recessional procession at the end of a Mass celebrated by the archbishop. Cardinal Pell is alleged to have abused the choristers somewhere within the cathedral sacristy immediately following that Mass.

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.

In June 2017, a priest who says he was with the archbishop every time Cardinal Pell celebrated Mass at Melbourne’s cathedral was questioned by police about a timeframe that seems to match the one identified by prosecutors.

The priest told police that there was no occasion when Cardinal Pell would have been alone with choir members. “At no time before, during or after Mass was the archbishop in direct contact with anyone except that I was present,’’ the priest said, according to The Australian newspaper. “I was always standing next to him and usually at an arm’s length away.’’

Cardinal Pell was known to habitually celebrate the 10:30am Sunday Mass, at which the choir regularly sang, while he served as archbishop of Melbourne.

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.

In fact, during the pre-trial committal hearing in March 2018, records were produced showing that during the period between August and December 1996, Pell only celebrated the cathedral’s 10:30 Sunday Mass twice.

According to a source present for the pre-trial hearing, on both of the occasions on which Cardinal Pell celebrated the cathedral’s 10:30 Mass during the designated period, the choir held practices for the taping of a Christmas performance immediately following the 10:30 Mass, when the absence of two choristers would have been immediately noticed.

Cathedral and choir leaders and former members testified at the pre-trial hearing that choir leaders kept a close eye on the children and would have noticed if any slipped away. Former choir director Peter Finigan testified at the committal hearing that while it would have been possible for two choir members to break from their group, he did not remember that it had ever happened.

“Two altos going missing would have stood out right away, as would their late arrival for the practice straight after Mass,” a source present at the committal hearing told CNA. “That much was crystal clear.”

During the same committal hearing in March, a pastoral associate at the cathedral, Rodney Dearing, told the court that Cardinal Pell required help to remove his vestments after every Mass, and it would have been nearly impossible for the archbishop to expose his genitals while fully vested, or to commit other sexual acts in the vestments.

Dearing also told Victoria police that the layout of the cathedral did not align with the accusations.

“I can’t understand, knowing the layout [of the cathedral] and how things worked, how it could have occurred,” Dearing told police, according to Australian media reports filed before a gag order on the trial was instituted.

CNA has previously reported that concerns were raised about the layout of the cathedral sacristy, where the abuse is alleged to have taken place, which is open-planned and usually full of people following Mass.

Further evidence was reportedly heard during the November trial confirming that Cardinal Pell only celebrated 10:30am Mass in the cathedral twice during the alleged timeframe of the events, and the court heard witness testimony that Cardinal Pell had been with guests immediately following Mass on one of the two Sundays.

Sources close to the trial underscored to CNA that cases of sexual abuse often rely on the persuasive testimony of the victims, and that due to the nature of sexual abuse crimes, corroborating evidence is difficult to present. In such cases, the relative reliability of the victims can be a crucial factor.

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.

When asked how the jury could have delivered a unanimous conviction despite the seeming weight of evidence in his favor, several trial attendees noted that Pell refused to give evidence in his own defense.

“Pell didn’t take the stand, and that definitely made a negative impression; it doesn’t look good if you won’t deny it with your own lips,” one source told CNA.

Others close to the cardinal defended the decision not to have Cardinal Pell take the stand.

“If you hire Robert Richter [Cardinal Pell’s lead lawyer], you bloody well take his advice,” one source close to Cardinal Pell noted. Some sources believe that the cardinal’s attorneys were concerned that the cardinal would try to give expansive answers from the witness box, rather than confine himself to narrow responses on points of fact.

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.

The Melbourne trial began in June, ending first in a hung jury and a mistrial, with jurors reportedly siding 10-2 in favor of Cardinal Pell’s innocence. A second hearing with a new jury began in November, delivering a unanimous conviction Dec. 11. The gag order remains in place pending Cardinal Pell’s sentencing and expected appeal, and ahead of the trial on the Ballarat allegations expected to begin early next year.

Before the institution of the gag order, questions were raised by Australian media and legal figures about the possibility that jury pools could be tainted by years of negative coverage of Cardinal Pell.

In other Australian states, high-profile cases like Cardinal Pell’s have the option of being tried by a judge only, without a jury, called a bench trial. Victoria, where Cardinal Pell is on trial, is one of the only jurisdictions in Australia not to have this option.

On Dec. 13, two days after the Cardinal Pell conviction, Victoria state Attorney-General Jill Hennessy told The Age that she had asked her department to examine the option of judge-only trials in high profile cases, where an impartial jury might be difficult to find. This followed the exoneration of former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson, whose conviction for failing to report child sexual abuse was overturned by a judge on appeal.

In the archbishop’s case, appellate Judge Roy Ellis noted that media portrayals of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis might have been a factor in the guilty verdict.

Such portrayals “may amount to perceived pressure for a court to reach a conclusion which seems to be consistent with the direction of public opinion, rather than being consistent with the rule of law that requires a court to hand down individual justice in its decision-making processes,” he said.

The state of Victoria has faced sustained criticism for the use of suppression orders by the state’s courts. Despite an Open Courts Act passed in 2013 aimed at improving judicial transparency, Victorian courts issued more than 1,500 suppression orders between 2014-2016.

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.

Neither Catholic News Agency nor the Register has published, broadcast or distributed this news story in Australia.


Cardinal Pell convicted of abuse claims -
but are they even credible?
There are sound reasons to question the verdict

December 14, 2018

Cardinal George Pell, formerly the Pope's right-hand man for Vatican finances and the face of the Catholic Church in Australia, has been convicted of abusing two choir boys when he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

Pell has categorically denied the allegations.

Although this is the biggest news story in Australia, it is not on the front page of a single newspaper here. The state of Victoria, where Pell was tried, has imposed a suppression order that bans all reporting and comment. So Australians are resorting to overseas websites and Twitter for news.

The full-page headline in The Daily Telegraph, of Sydney, one of Australia's biggest newspapers, was "It's the Nation's Biggest Story" — "yet we can't publish it." So there are no facts to discuss — other than the brutal fact that a cardinal has been convicted in a court of law for abusing boys. Who, when, where, how, why are all matters of surmise.

This is a terrible blow to the prestige of the Catholic Church around the world. It strikes at the authority of Pope Francis, for whom Pell was a close adviser and prefect of the Holy See's Secretariat for the Economy. It is bound to erode the confidence of ordinary Catholics in the holiness of their faith and the integrity of their pastors.

But, speaking personally and with only the sketchiest knowledge of the facts because of the media gag, I think that there are sound reasons to doubt the verdict. True, the forms of due process were observed. But this time they did not deliver justice.

Here are two questions to be asked when the curtain of suppression is lifted.

First, are the allegations credible?
It is alleged that the archbishop of Melbourne molested two boys inside the cathedral precincts. Pell has been accused of many things, but never stupidity.
- He was actively involved in creating a response to the sexual abuse crisis in 1996 despite criticism from some Australian bishops that he should wait — precisely because he thought the issue was so important.
- He was also being targeted by gay protesters around this time. - It defies belief that a man as self-controlled as Pell would be so impetuous as to do his dirty work where he could be so easily discovered.

Nor is abuse this vile consistent with what I know of Pell's character. It is easier to believe that this tall, burly, blunt man clobbered a recalcitrant priest than that he was so sly and sacrilegious as to molest boys inside a church.

Bear in mind that this was the second time that Pell has been tried for the same crime. The first trial ended with a hung jury, which was reportedly split 10 to 2 in favor of acquitting him. Anything is possible, including Pell's alleged crime, but the previous jury wasn't persuaded of his guilt.

Second, was Pell's trial fair?
Pell's profile in Australia is probably unmatched by any cleric, of any faith, other than the Pope himself. Apart from serving in the Vatican and as archbishop of Melbourne and archbishop of Sydney, the two largest cities in Australia, he was a prolific newspaper columnist, a frequent guest on radio and TV, a delegate to the Australian Constitutional Convention, at which he was an ardent republican (i.e., not a monarchist); a climate change sceptic, and a staunch defender of traditional Christian values.

Within the Church he unswervingly backed the Pope and orthodoxy. This made him many enemies amongst progressive Catholics. At the same time, he was an impressively effective and far-sighted manager who stepped on many toes.

In short, he is one of the most controversial Australians of his generation. Everyone, but everyone, has an opinion on George Pell. Putting him on trial in Melbourne, Pell-phobia Central, is like putting Hillary Clinton on trial in Texas, where three-quarters of the population would be baying to lock her up.

For reasons which cannot be fathomed, the Victorian Police have pursued Pell with extraordinary — and disgraceful — vigor.
- In 2013 they set up a task force to search for complaints against Pell — before they had received any. No one came forward for a whole year.
- In 2016 a sexual abuse taskforce interviewed Pell in Rome. The police force leaked like a sieve.

The Victorian Police have been plagued with corruption scandals. In the latest, it was revealed that they had persuaded a criminal barrister to inform on her clients and as a result, the convictions of hundreds of criminals could be overturned.

The High Court of Australia said this month that "Victoria Police were guilty of reprehensible conduct ... in sanctioning atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer to discharge all duties imposed on them faithfully and according to law without favor or affection, malice or ill-will."

This is not to say that all of them are corrupt. But more faith is required to believe in the incorruptibility of Victorian police than in the miracle of Fatima.

On top of all this, early last year an implacable enemy of Pell, journalist Louise Milligan, published Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell. Widely read and publicized, it was the source of some of the lurid allegations in his trial.

So for two years, at least, the air of Melbourne has been full of mischievous sniggering and venomous commentary about Pell and the Catholic Church. Empanelling an impartial jury must have been like finding 12 good men and true who had not breathed for the past two years.

The legal system must be respected. If His Eminence George Cardinal Pell has committed crimes, especially sexual abuse, he deserves no less than any other criminal. But there is more than enough reason to believe that he has not received a fair trial and that he has a blameless conscience before his God.
- The Vatican should not get spooked by the verdict. [It already is - and has done as much as it can to distance the pope from Pell for more than a year now, ending with his recent dismissal from the C9.]
- There will be calls for him to be stripped of his honors, even to be laicized.
- It should bat them aside, ignore the jeers and mockery, and wait for the outcome of appeals made by Pell's legal team.
Until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, Cdl. Pell must be considered an innocent man.