Will Pell be defrocked?

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Here are the pertinent statements from #140

“Believe based on what? Are you charging the Jury members with destroying an innocent man’s life? Australia is 23 percent Catholic as of the 2016 census. America is 24 percent Catholic… Personally I’d say with some recent events that America is far more antiCatholic especially when you factor in the Bible Belt south. And though historically many Catholics are Irish, I’d say Ireland and England are two of the most anti Catholic countries in the west. Yet we know that the trials of accused in America and Ireland are pretty dependable. We also have the mistakes made by the Church leadership in Chile and the Pope himself. I’m inclined to extend the virtue of Charity to the country of Australia and certainly to innocent jurors over a Church that is caught up in cover up and bias.You can assert positively his innocence if you wish. But it sounds odd right? I believe convicted pedophile Pell is innocent even though I have less info than the Jury…”

Jury’s aren’t ‘innocent’ by nature. They consist of flawed human beings and get it wrong especially when they don’t like the affect of a defendant such as was the case with Lindy Chamberlain.
 
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Where did he make the assertion juries ‘can’t get it wrong’? He didn’t. You claimed he did.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
I would never want to see an innocent cleric who has served the church be falsely accused. But I feel like we should first get behind the alleged victims, right?

Victims being cast aside and ignored is a huge problem, not only in the church, but in the culture at large.
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Why do so many people think this a reasonable stance? I don’t get it. When you don 't know what happened, then you don’t know. Why is that no longer the fair, reasonable, and loving position to take? It’s the truth, after all?

Suddenly, after metoo, people now feel they have a duty to assert things they don’t know.

Yet we have a commandment that forbids us from bearing false witness. I’d say it is a sin to say or imply that someone did something awful without information justifying that claim. Surely, the duty to truth behooves us to never forget that we don’t know what we don’t know, even in the name of “believe victims” or “believe women” or whoever.

I feel like all of a sudden people think human beings have lost their ability to be less than truthful, so we need no longer be cautious. Just believe any and all accusations. That really concerns me.
 
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Hoosier-Daddy said:
Believe based on what? Are you charging the Jury members with destroying an innocent man’s life?
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What a weird thing to say. Juries are not witnesses; they merely judge the testimony and evidence of others. I don’t recall Our Lord anointing juries with a charism of infallibility that protects them from error in their decisions. :roll_eyes:

And if he did, he must’ve skipped over all those juries who convicted so many black men and sent them to prison for decades, only for them to be exonerated by DNA evidence years later. :roll_eyes:
 
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StudentMI said:
Where did he make the assertion juries ‘can’t get it wrong’? He didn’t. You claimed he did.
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Enlighten me then. What does ‘innocent jury’ mean? Is it all juries that are innocent or just the Pell jury? If it is only the Pell jury that is innocent, how is that determined?
 
I don’t know enough about the Australian legal system to tell you. From what I’ve read it doesn’t sound like the complainant gets compensation as an automatic outcome of the criminal case. As for civil justice, if he wants to sue the cardinal himself or the archdiocese for damages, that doesn’t require there to have been a criminal trial. From what we’ve been reading it doesn’t sound like compensation is an issue here.
 
There’s not really anything to ‘enlighten’ you on. I’m assuming you can’t back up your claim that he asserted juries are infallible since you changed the topic to argue his choice of grammar.
 
His arguments are all based on the premise that the conviction means he did it. That is only true if we can know juries don’t make mistakes, aka, are infallible. He even boldly calls him “convicted pedophile Pell”, based on said conviction.
 
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Rubee said:
His arguments are all based on the premise that the conviction means he did it. That is only true if we can know juries don’t make mistakes, aka, are infallible. He even boldly calls him “convicted pedophile Pell”, based on said conviction.
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That’s entirely correct as things stand.
 
How would “pedophile” be correct? How do you know he is a pedophile?
 
Just shaking my head. We are free to believe what we wish of convicted pedophile Pell. I wont be calling him to babysit my kids though. Would any of you?
 
A lot of people could get out of jury duty by showing them this thread.
 
What we do know is Pell has been found guilty in a court of law, by a unanimous verdict. His defence was the best money could buy. I’m guessing that most here (like me) did not attend court daily and hear all the testimony. The Jury did.
 
Atreju said:
I dont think you know what a strawman is. That would require me to misrepresent your argument, but I didn’t even represent your argument aside from quoting your post, I just added that “his attorneys are appealing” is not a particularly important point since virtually all attorneys appeal in such cases.
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I know what I strawman is. I understood your post as your were misrepresenting my argument. I thought you were implying that the attorney comments were the basis of my argument.
 
Hoosier-Daddy said:
Just shaking my head. We are free to believe what we wish of convicted pedophile Pell. I wont be calling him to babysit my kids though. Would any of you?
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I wouldn’t let any man unknown to us babysit my children. That over top evocative language means nothing in the context of the issue. There are enough people who have followed the very public ministry of Card. Pell here in Australia who believe he is innocent. At the trial the Chief Justice actually started proceedings by warning the jury not to fall into ‘scapegoating’ Pell. These legal eagles were well aware that because he had already been convicted in the court of public opinion, there was the real danger of an already prejudiced jury. The judges attending the trial believe that’s exactly what happened in the end. They were reportedly astonished by the verdict.

Edward Pentin reporting from the Vatican for the Catholic Register says “Most people here don’t believe the verdict,” “Most here believe Pell is innocent, certainly those who worked with him.” He says there’s suspicion about the timing of the charges while Pell was investigating Vatican corruption of finances.

There is more than enough astonishment and doubt though among secular experts who don’t have a vested interest in defending the Church but more in defending due process and justice, for there to be a valid opinion amongst us ordinary Catholics that the process and conviction are flawed.
 
LateranBasilica said:
A statement all but admitting guilt from his lawyer, Richter.

Why George Pell's lawyer Robert Richter described his offending as 'plain vanilla' - ABC News

I, for one, am stunned with this statement.

“George Pell’s lawyer, Robert Richter, described his crimes as “no more than a plain vanilla sexual penetration case”

Is this really the standard the legal system considers acceptable.
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Perhaps you didn’t read the whole article?

"They were made to the judge in open court as part of a pre-sentencing hearing, part of the normal plea discussions in such cases, according to Professor Jeremy Gans from the Melbourne Law School.

“I think it has to be understood that Mr Richter is not talking to a jury, he is not talking to the media, he is talking to a judge,” he said.

The comment was in respect to the defense attorneys normal duty to minimise a sentence. It has nothing to do with whether Pell is guilty or innocent.
 
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