Asia – Pacific

Melbourne, Australia, Mar 5, 2019 / 03:17 pm (CNA).- Robert Richter, Cardinal George Pell’s defense lawyer, said Tuesday that he has not quit the prelate’s legal team. A Melbourne daily had earlier reported Richter will not be part of the appeals process.

Richter told the AAP March 5, “I have not quit. I do not quit.”

Pell, prefect emeritus of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, was convicted in December on five counts of sexual abuse stemming from charges that he sexually assaulted two choirboys while serving as Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. He has maintained his innocence, is appealing his conviction.

It was the cardinal’s second trial, as a jury in an earlier trial had failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The first jury were deadlocked 10-2 in Pell’s favor.

At a pre-trial hearing, Richter had noted that Victoria Police had launched an investigation of Pell in 2013, searching for complainants, calling it “an operation looking for a crime because no crime had been reported.”

Though he will remain on Pell’s legal team, Richter will not be leading it through the appeal.

Paul Galbally, Pell’s solicitor, said that “In these particular circumstances, Richter questions whether he has sufficient objectivity at this stage to take the appeal forward himself.”

He added that “As Cardinal Pell is well aware, Richter is still very much part of the legal team and will be involved right through to the end.”

Pell’s appeal will by led by barrister Bret Walker SC, who will be assisted by Richter, Galbally, and Ruth Shann, Richter’s junior barrister.

The Age had reported earlier March 5 that Richter “felt he did not have ‘sufficient objectivity at this stage’ to participate in the challenge set to be heard in Victoria’s Court of Appeal.”

He told the Melbourne outlet, “I am very angry about the verdict, because it was perverse”, and that Pell would be “better served by someone more detached”.

“I think the man is an innocent man and he’s been convicted. It’s not a common experience,” Richter said.

According to The Age, Pell’s appeal will be made on three points: the jury’s reliance on the evidence of a single victim, an irregularity that kept Pel from entering his not guilty plea in front of the jury, and the defense not being allowed to show a visual representation supporting his claim of innocence.

The appeal document, The Age reported, says that “the verdicts are unreasonable and cannot be supported, having regard to the evidence, because on the whole of the evidence, including unchallenged exculpatory evidence from more than 20 Crown witnesses, it was not open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on the word of the complainant alone.”

The news of Pell’s conviction has met with varied reactions.  While many figures in Australian media have applauded Pell’s conviction, some Australians have called it into question, prompting considerable debate across the country.

Greg Craven, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, suggested that the justice process was tainted by media and police forces that had worked “to blacken the name” of Pell “before he went to trial.”

“This is not a story about whether a jury got it right or wrong, or about whether justice is seen to prevail,” Craven said in a Feb. 27 opinion piece in The Australian. “It’s a story about whether a jury was ever given a fair chance to make a decision, and whether our justice system can be heard above a media mob.”

Speaking on an Australian television program March 4, Australian Labor senator Kristina Keneally said those criticizing the verdict were “doing a disservice to our democratic jury system,” adding, “I think it’s disrespectful of the jury verdict … I would also reflect it’s quite disrespectful of victims.”

A university employees’ union representative at the ACU wrote to the school’s chancellor saying staff “have expressed dismay or repugnance” at Craven’s actions.

Dr. Leah Kaufmann, a senior lecturer in psychology, wrote that Craven’s questioning of the verdict “shows a disregard” for concerns regarding child safeguarding and “supporting survivors of sexual abuse.”

On this basis Kaufmann asked that Craven be sanctioned, charging him with “lack of consideration of victims.”

She also asked that the Pell Centre at the school’s Ballarat campus be renamed, and that his portrait be removed from a location at the North Sydney campus.

The Australian reported that an ACU spokeswoman responded that the school respects employees’ rights to comment as a matter of intellectual freedom, saying Craven “made comment on the trial as a constitutional lawyer and former Victorian Crown Counsel.”

Pell is incarcerated at the Melbourne Assessment Prison while he awaits the results of a sentencing hearing, which will be announced March 13.

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Vatican City, Mar 5, 2019 / 05:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican has announced that a canonical process against Cardinal George Pell will soon begin in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Pell was convicted last year by an Australian jury on five c… […]

Melbourne, Australia, Mar 5, 2019 / 03:26 am (CNA).- Following news of Cardinal George Pell’s conviction of sexual abuse of minors, several bishops in Australia have have said they are committed to truth and justice, while declining to comment on… […]

Melbourne, Australia, Mar 4, 2019 / 10:28 pm (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell is incarcerated at the Melbourne Assessment Prison while he awaits the results of a sentencing hearing held last week. Pell was convicted last year of child sexual abuse.

The ca… […]

Melbourne, Australia, Mar 4, 2019 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- A man who says he was sexually assaulted in the 1970s by Australia’s Cardinal George Pell says he will file a lawsuit against the cardinal, after prosecutors scuttled a plan to try Pell for the alleged abuse.

The man, whose name has not been disclosed, claims that Pell touched him inappropriately while playing with him in the swimming pool of a Church-run boys’ home where he resided. The man, referred to by his attorney as “David,” is now 50. He lived at the boys’ home from 1974 to 1978, leaving the home before he was ten years old.  Pell was at that time a priest serving in Ballarat, Australia.

Pell was convicted last year of five counts of sexual abuse, stemming from charges that he sexually assaulted two choir boys in a cathedral in the 1990s, while Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne. He was expected to face a second trial concerning allegations that in the 1970s he sexually assaulted two other boys in the Ballarat swimming pool. Prosecutors dropped that case before trial, citing insufficient evidence.

Charges related to “David’s” claim were dropped weeks before prosecutors decided to scuttle the entire trial.

The cardinal is now incarcerated, awaiting sentencing after a court hearing last week related to his previous trial.

“David” alleges that he was also abused by a nun who staffed the boys’ home. In addition to Pell, he plans to include the nun’s religious order, the Sisters of Nazareth, along with the Australian state of Victoria and the Archdiocese of Melbourne in his lawsuit.

“David’s” attorney told the Guardian that the man “was devastated when the prosecution decided not to proceed with the case.”

Pell is appealing his criminal conviction. Melbourne law professor Jeremy Gans told the Guardian last week that there is a good chance Pell’s appeal will succeed, in large part because there was only one key witness in the prosecution’s case.

While many figures in Australian media have applauded Pell’s conviction, some Australians have called it into question, prompting considerable debate across the country.

Paul Kelly, editor-at large at The Australian, said last week that “the implausibility of the evidence” against Pell “raises serious doubts” that the cardinal had a fair trial.

Other observers have expressed similar sentiments. Well-known Australian crime reporter John Silvester argued in The Age that “if Pell did molest those two teenagers in the busy cathedral, it certainly does not fit the usual pattern of paedophile priests.”

“Pell has become a lightning rod in the worldwide storm of anger at a systemic cover-up of priestly abuses. But that doesn’t make him a child molester,” Silvester said.

When Sky News Australia commentator Andrew Bolt announced that he would defend Pell on his television program Feb. 26, the network pulled all advertising from the broadcast, to ensure that advertisers would not be connected to the discussion.

“Sky News is committed to providing a platform for robust debate and discussion and is not afraid to tackle confronting and controversial issues,” a spokeswoman for the network told the Weekly Beast.

“Sky News recognised that the controversial topic of George Pell’s conviction to be covered by one of its highest-rating commentators may have presented an environment that left advertisers open to campaigns by activists.

“A proactive decision was made to replace advertisements during Tuesday night’s program.”

“David” has not yet filed a lawsuit. Attorneys say that he will seek damages for psychological harm, lost wages, and medical expenses. Attorney also say they will call as witnesses other men who allege Pell sexually assaulted them in a similar fashion.

Pell has denied the accusations.

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Karachi, Pakistan, Mar 1, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Before Sister Ruth Pfau arrived in Pakistan in the 1960s, life for leprosy victims in the country was filled with suffering and ostracization. In addition to the discomfort of the disfiguring disease itself, victims would often be isolated from society by others who feared catching the illness.

But the work of Sister Pfau – a German-born Catholic missionary who devoted her life to eradicating leprosy in Pakistan – transformed the lives of thousands of victims, making such an impact in the country that she became known as the “Mother Teresa of Pakistan.”

“It was due to her endless struggle that Pakistan defeated leprosy,” the German Consulate in Karachi said on Facebook after Sr. Pfau’s death in 2017.

Sr. Pfau was born in Leipzig in 1929, but her childhood home was destroyed by bombing during World War II. After the war, her family escaped the communist regime in East Germany and moved to West Germany, where Sr. Pfau studied medicine.

After joining the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, Sr. Pfau was sent to India to join a mission in 1960. On her way there, she was held up due to visa issues for some time in Karachi, where she first encountered leprosy, an infectious disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around the body.

In 1961, Sr. Pfau travelled to India where she was trained in the treatment and management of leprosy. Afterwards, she returned to Karachi to organize and expand the Leprosy Control Program. She founded the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre in Karachi, Pakistan’s first hospital dedicated to treating the disease, which today has 157 branches across the country and has treated more than 50,000 leprosy victims.

“Well if it doesn’t hit you the first time, I don’t think it will ever hit you,” she told the BBC in 2010 about her first encounter with leprosy.

“Actually the first patient who really made me decide was a young Pathan. He crawled on hands and feet into this dispensary, acting as if this was quite normal, as if someone has to crawl there through that slime and dirt on hands and feet, like a dog.”

“The most important thing is that we give them their dignity back,” she told the BBC at the time.

She was also known for rescuing children with leprosy, who had been banished to caves and cattle pens for years by their parents, who were afraid of contracting the disease themselves.

Sr. Pfau trained numerous doctors in the treatment of leprosy, and in 1996 the World Health Organization declared that leprosy had been controlled in the country. By 2016, the number of patients under treatment for leprosy in Pakistan had fallen to 531, down from 19,398 in the 1980s, according to the Karachi daily Dawn.

The nun won many honors and awards for her work, both from Pakistan and Germany. In 1979, the Pakistani government appointed her Federal Advisor on Leprosy to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

The Pakistani government also honored her with the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, one of the highest awards available to citizens, in 1979, and the Hilal-e-Pakistan in 1989. She was granted Pakistani citizenship in 1988. In 2002 she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, regarded as Asia’s Nobel prize.

She also authored several books about her experiences, including “To Light A Candle,” which has been translated into English and “The Last Word is Love: Adventure, Medicine, War and God.”

Sr. Pfau died Aug. 10, 2017 after being hospitalized in Karachi a few days earlier due to complications related to age. She was 87 years old.

Pakistani leaders mourned her death, praising her contribution to the well-being of their nation.

Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussein called Sr. Pfau’s work unforgettable, saying, “She left her homeland and made Pakistan her home to serve humanity.” He pledged that “her great tradition to serve humanity will be continued.”

Harald Meyer-Porzky from the Ruth Pfau Foundation in Würzburg said Sr. Pfau had “given hundreds of thousands of people a life of dignity.”

Sr. Pfau’s funeral was held Aug. 19, 2017, and she was buried at the Christian cemetery in Karachi.

An earlier version of this article was published on CNA Aug. 11, 2017.

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Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb 28, 2019 / 10:25 am (CNA).- The summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Vietnam came to an early close Thursday as negotiations over sanctions and denuclearization fell apart, leaving the two … […]

Gwangju, South Korea, Feb 27, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- As U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un meet in Vietnam this week, a South Korean archbishop sees the host country as a model for the development of economic and religious freedoms in the isolated country.

Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-jung of Gwangju expressed hope for the Feb. 27-28 meeting between Kim and Trump, which kicked off Wednesday night with a dinner in Hanoi and will continue Thursday to negotatiate the potential denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

“The Vietnam-style reform and open model of ‘doi moi’ in North Korea, which itself has declared economic development to be a top priority, is the optimal way to pursue economic growth,” Archbishop Kim has said.

“Doi moi” refers to Vietnam’s process of economic liberalization that began in 1986.

When Trump first greeted Kim Feb. 27, he said: “I think your country has tremendous economic potential.”

Vietnam and North Korea share a common history in that both fought bloody wars with the United States to defend their communist rule.

Vietnam, however, went on to normalize relations with United States in 1995 after suffering under economic sanctions and a U.S. trade embargo, and in turn experienced tremendous economic growth.

“Kim Jong-un will be able to refer to the Vietnamese model not only as a model of reform and opening up, but also in terms of diplomatic relations with the papacy,” Archbishop Kim said.

The Holy See appointed a diplomatic envoy to Vietnam in 2011 in the form of a “non-resident representative” after a series of bilateral talks during Benedict XVI’s papacy.

Archbishop Kim has been an advocate for increasing the Holy See’s diplomatic involvement in the Korean peninsula, remarking that he thinks a papal trip to Pyongyang would be a tremendous encouragement to North Korea’s persecuted Christians.

North Korea has consistently been ranked the worst country for persecution of Christians by Open Doors. Christians within the atheist state have faced arrest, re-education in labor camps, or, in some cases, execution for their faith.

“I do not know how many of them are, but there are a lot of believers in North Korea,” Archbishop Kim said.

“I think the pope could go to North Korea in order to encourage even a few believers and save the fires of faith, just as Jesus has left 99 lambs to find a lost sheep,” he added.

Pope Francis has said that he will travel to Japan in November.

“This year is likely to be an important year in Catholicism in East Asia,” Archbishop Kim said.

Archbishop Kim, president of the Korean bishops’ conference, traveled to North Korea earlier this month. The delegation visited Mount Kumgang to discuss increasing inter-Korean cultural exchanges within the tourism, education, sports, art, and media sectors.

“The reconciliation and peace of the Korean peninsula are the irreversible flow of history,” Archbishop Kim said in a Korean interview with Yonhap News Agency in Rome during the Vatican’s sex abuse summit.

“It is important to build mutual trusting relationships to prepare for peace through exchanges and cooperation,” he added.

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Bhopal, India, Feb 27, 2019 / 02:17 pm (CNA).- Violent attacks including public lynchings against Christians in India are reportedly becoming increasingly common, with international NGOs and the country’s Catholic bishops raising their voices in … […]

Melbourne, Australia, Feb 27, 2019 / 03:46 am (CNA).- After the revocation of his bail Wednesday, Cardinal George Pell was taken into police custody for the first time while awaiting sentencing on his conviction of five charges of sexual abuse of minors.

The cardinal will be sentenced March 13, and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail for each charge. Pell is appealing the Australian civil court’s Dec. 11 conviction.

A gag order preventing media from reporting on the trial and conviction was lifted Feb. 26. The the court-imposed gag order was lifted following the decision by local prosecutors to drop further charges related to Pell’s time as a priest in the 1970s.

Pell was alleged to have committed sexual abuse in 1996, when he was Archbishop of Melbourne, and when he was a priest in Ballarat during the 1970s.

His first trial, in which he was convicted, focused on the Melbourne allegations. The second trial, which has now been scuttled, was to focus on the Ballarat charges.

During preliminary hearings in March 2017, Pell’s legal team successfully petitioned for the allegations to be heard in two separate trials. Other charges initially brought against Pell were dropped during pre-trial committal hearings.

Pell was found guilty Dec. 11 on five charges of sexual abuse of minors, stemming from charges that he sexually assaulted two former members of the Melbourne cathedral choir.

The verdict came after a five-week retrial, after a jury in an earlier trial failed to reach a unanimous verdict. In October 2018, multiple sources close to the case told CNA that the first trial had ended with the jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of Pell.

The second jury took three days to find Pell guilty of sexually abusing two choristers in the Melbourne cathedral sacristy on an unspecified date in the second half of 1996.

Alessandro Gisotti, interim Holy See press office director, confirmed Feb. 26 via Twitter that Cardinal George Pell is no longer prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Pell’s term as prefect was to have expired Feb. 24. His resignation has not been noted in the Vatican’s bollettino, so it is believed his term lapsed and was not renewed, and he was not removed from office.

Gisotti’s tweet suggests that Pell’s loss of office by the expiration of his term has been communicated to him in writing, as required by canon law.

Pell had been on leave from his position as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy since 2017. Pell asked Pope Francis to allow him to step back from his duties to travel home to Australia to defend himself against the charges, which he has consistently denied.

A Vatican statement Feb. 26 said that, “as already expressed on other occasions, we have the utmost respect for the Australian judicial authorities.”

“Out of this respect, we await the outcome of the appeals process, recalling that Cardinal Pell maintains his innocence and has the right to defend himself until the last stage of appeal.”

The statement confirms that Pell has been barred from public ministry and from contact with minors during the legal process and will remain so during his appeal.

Prior to his appointment to the Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, Pell served as the Archbishop of Sydney.

In October, Pope Francis removed Pell, along with Cardinal Javier Errazuriz and Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo, from the C9 Council of Cardinals charged with helping the pope draft a new constitution for the Holy See’s governing structure.

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