Search Results for cardinal pell acquittal

Melbourne, Australia, Sep 17, 2019 / 04:32 am (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell Tuesday submitted an application for leave to appeal his conviction to the Australian High Court, following the Aug. 21 decision by the Court of Appeal in Victoria to uphold his conviction for child sexual abuse.

The leave to appeal was filed in Melbourne by Pell’s legal team Sept. 17, one day before the deadline of 28 days from the date of the Appeal Court decision.

Sources close to the cardinal told CNA Aug. 26 that Pell would be exercising his final appeal and that, while the majority of “special leave to appeal” cases were not granted by the High Court, his case would likely be accepted given the controversy triggered by the split decision of the Appeal Court judgement.

In seeking to take his case to the High Court in Canberra, Australia’s supreme court, Pell is exercising his last legal avenue to overturn a conviction which has divided opinion in the country and internationally.

Several Australian media outlets have reported that Pell will retain the same legal team which presented his case in Victoria, led by Brett Walker SC.

The cardinal was convicted Dec. 11, 2018, on five charges that he sexually abused two choristers after Sunday Mass while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 and 1997.

He was sentenced to six years in prison, of which he must serve at least three years and eight months before being eligible to apply for parole.

The cardinal, 78, who remains an archbishop and a member of the College of Cardinals, was returned to prison immediately after court adjourned, where he has remained. Pell has not been permitted to celebrate Mass in prison.

Pell’s appeal was presented on three grounds, two of which were procedural and dismissed by all three appeal judges.

The judges were divided on Pell’s primary ground of appeal, that the decision of the jury was “unreasonable.”

At particular issue was the question of whether the jury which convicted Pell had properly weighed all of the evidence presented in his defense, or reached the determination of guilt despite the demonstration of clear “reasonable doubt” that he committed the crimes with which he was charged.

Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Court President Chris Maxwell formed the majority in favor of rejecting Pell’s appeal that the jury verdict was unreasonable on the evidence presented, finding that it was open to the jury to find beyond “reasonable doubt about the truth of the complainant’s account.”

In an extensive dissent from the majority finding, Justice Mark Weinberg noted that the entirety of the evidence against Pell consisted of the testimony of a single accuser, whereas more than 20 witnesses were produced to testify against his narrative.

“Even the ‘reasonable possibility’ that what the witnesses who testified to these matters may have been true must inevitably have led to an acquittal,” Weinberg wrote, concluding that Pell had, in effect, been asked to establish the “impossibility” of his guilt and not merely reasonable doubt.

All three judges granted further leave to appeal on the ground of the unreasonableness of the jury’s conviction.

The decision by Pell to pursue the final legal avenue open to him means that a canonical process in Rome will be further delayed until the civil process concludes in Australia.

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Melbourne, Australia, Jun 3, 2019 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against his criminal conviction for child sexual abuse will be heard in Australia on Wednesday. The cardinal was convicted in December, 2018, of five charges of se… […]

CNA Staff, Sep 18, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- A fire that burned some of the sacristy and part of the roof of St. Carthage’s Cathedral in Lismore, Australia is being investigated as a possible crime, authorities have said.

According to The Catholic Weekly, an Australian publication, the local fire department was alerted of a fire at the cathedral around 6:30 am on Sept. 18.

The fire, which seems to have started in the sacristy, had spread to the roof, from which “large volumes of smoke” were issuing before the fire was extinguished. A diocesan spokesperson told The Catholic Weekly that no one was inside the cathedral during the fire, and that the main part of the church, including the tabernacle, were unharmed by the blaze.

Lismore is a city in the far northeastern corner of New South Wales.

Authorities are investigating the “suspicious fire” as a crime scene.

“We’re obviously in the early stages of the investigation and we don’t know exactly how it was started, but the base of the outside door of the sacristy was on fire and even though the sacristy was well-secured the fire got into the building that way,” Acting Inspector Anthony Smith at Lismore Police Station told The Catholic Weekly. 

“There is a little bit of damage, but they have done really well to keep it out of the main part of the cathedral and all the relics have been kept safe,” Smith said. Construction of the cathedral, which is dedicated to St. Carthage of Lismore in Ireland, began in 1904 and was completed in 1919. Some renovations were done to the church in the 1970s and 2003. In 2007, the cathedral suffered major damage to the roof and stained glass windows, leading to subsequent repairs and renovations.
Bishop Greg Homeming, OCD, of Lismore said in a video to local Catholics that he was grateful for the work of the firefighters and he was glad no one was injured. “All we have is a damaged building. A damaged building is only a building, the Church remains undamaged because the Church is the people of God,” he said.

“The Church is you, and as long as you continue in your faith and in your love and care for others, the Church will go on strongly, perhaps even with greater strength. So I’m not disturbed by what has happened, it’s a building and I thank God that no one was injured.” Homeming added that he had “no idea” how the fire started and that he was awaiting the results of the investigation.
The fire comes five months after St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne was vandalized following Cardinal George Pell’s acquittal by Australia’s High Court of a sexual abuse conviction, and his release from prison.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, of Sydney told The Catholic Weekly that he called Bishop Homeming to offer his sympathies. Fisher said he has twice experienced fires at the cathedrals at which he served – once in Parramatta and once in Sydney. The cathedrals were “lost to fire and people were devastated for decades thereafter,” Fisher said. “Happily the fire at the beautiful Lismore cathedral was extinguished before it got out of control,” Fisher added.

“But whatever the damage, we will rebuild, as the Church must be rebuilt in every generation by every generation for every generation.”

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