Religious wars

Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty. Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest, has raised the question of whether the jury reached the correct verdict. He states in The Australian and repeats in Eureka Street, the Jesuit blog:;

The jurors must have judged the complainant to be honest and reliable even though many of the details he gave were improbable if not impossible.

He also repeats his defence of Pell in the Catholic Weekly

George Pell is currently on leave from his position of Financial Advisor at the Vatican. He is to appeal the guilty verdict on the sex offence charges. Pell is also a political conservative. Anti- homosexuals, an anti-gay marriage advocate, and a climate change denier. He has previously given the annual lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK climate science denial group, founded by climate change denialist Nigel Lawson. It states that it has the purpose of combating "extremely damaging and harmful policies" designed to mitigate climate change.

Pell asks "Have scientists been co-opted onto a bigger, better advertised

and more expensive bandwagon than the millennium bug fiasco?"

An outside observer might wonder how Cardinal Pell, a conservative, would have advised Popes Leo X (on Martin Luther) or Paul V (on Galileo). Heretics, both of then, I am sure he would have said.

Pell does refer to Galileo:"We might ask whether my scepticism is yet another example of religious ignorance and intransigence opposing the forward progress of science as is alleged in the confrontations between Galileo and the Papacy in the early seventeenth century." He further emphasizes his scepticism : "consensual view among qualified scientists…(on climate change) is a category error, scientifically and philosophically".

Pell is a hard man. Numerous articles in recent days testify to the strength of his convictions. His refusal to treat gays with any degree of sympathy is well documented. Such a denial could be argued as contrary to the basic teachings of the Catholic Church. Certainly to the lessons Christ gave to us in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the Sermon on the Mount. And to deny climate change is to put this nation and the world at risk from global warming. Not a well thought out belief for a man of his high intelligence.

Barney Zwartz, a former religion editor of The Age, and a senior fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity writes "he was a robust and forceful spokesman for authoritarian Catholicism and conservative social issues"

Although Pell's actions and beliefs are outside those of everyday Australians, they do not make him a child abuser. Frank Brennan raisesseveral reasons why the complainant should not be believed: He calls our judicial system into question. 'I still hope for truth, justice'

Anyone familiar with the conduct of a solemn Cathedral Mass with full choir would find it most unlikely that a bishop would, without grave reason, leave a recessional procession and retreat to the sacristy unaccompanied.

As a former altar boy, I can give you one reason, the heat at the altar with the multitude of candles in a high mass, is at times overwhelming. I once, in a near dead faint, had to be carted off to the sacristy.

Brennan adds that Robert Richter QC, Pell's barrister criticised inherent contradictions and improbabilities of many of the details of this narrative:

I heard some of the publicly available evidence and have read most of the transcript. I found many of Richter's criticisms of the narrative very compelling.

no member of the public has a complete picture of the evidence and no member of the public is able to make an assessment of the complainant's demeanour.

……the jury must have disregarded many of the criticisms so tellingly made by Richter of the complainant's evidence.

A completely opposite view to Brennan on the complainant, is that of Louise Milligan, a National Broadcasting Commission reporter, and author of The Rise and Fall of George Pell. She stated on the 7.30 Report on 26 February 2019 that she had interviewed the complainant, and that she defies anyone "not to meet this man without believing that he is telling the truth"

Brennan also argued that "it is impossible to produce an erect penis through a seamless alb". I have no idea whether it is or is not, but I do wonder, and have long wondered, whether an erect penis is a necessary aspect of straying clerical hands. As a student of a Christian brother's school in Sydney, I and others did experience the exploratory hands of two of the brothers. In adult life, many years later, three unanswered questions remain. The biggest and still unanswered, was why adult men, committed to a life of good works, should want to interfere sexually with young boys. The second, also unanswered, was whether they got an erection. The third was why I did not tell my parents. My mother would have defrocked the entire teaching order. The fourth, on whether the two brothers confessed their abuse, I have answered myself. I am sure that they did not. Two in a teaching school of 12 or 13 brothers is about the worldwide average for the Christian brothers

Brennan ends his defence of Pell by saying

Should the appeal fail, I hope and pray that Cardinal Pell, heading for prison, is not the unwitting victim of a wounded nation in search of a scapegoat.

His lawyer Robert Richter, had told the jury that only a "mad man" would take the risk of abusing boys in such a public place.

Brennan is not the only defender of Pell. A Catholic blog Defenders of the Catholic Faith put out an article Why Many Consider Cardinal Pell's Conviction a Sham .It makes even stronger claims than does Frank Brennan.

"They have convicted an innocent man," one source directly familiar with the evidence told CNA. "What's worse is that they know they have."

An individual who attended the entire trial in person but is unconnected with Pell's legal team, told CNA that Pell's lawyers had made an "unanswerable defense."

"It was absolutely clear to everyone in that court that the accusations were baseless. It wasn't that Pell didn't do what he's accused of – he clearly couldn't have done it."

Andrew Bolt, a conservative columnist for the Herald Sun, a News Corporation paper is even stronger:

Why Pell has been falsely convicted. George Pell is a scapegoat, not a child abuser, in my opinion. the evidence is overwhelming

Bolt is a conservative, as is George Pell. Bolt was against same sex marriage, voted as acceptable to the majority of Australians. He is also a climate change denier, as is Pell. An outsider would hope that these same conservative beliefs would not encourage Andrew Bolt to defend George Pell unnecessarily.

Pell has also been supported by Tony Abbott and John Howard

So where does this leave us? Totally bewildered. Is it conservatives supporting each other? Or is it Catholics defending themselves against the anti-Catholics? But we cannot describe Frank Brennan as a conservative. So he must be fighting a religious war. We have long believed in the efficacy of our legal system, yet Frank Brennan and others call it into question. He is also saying that the altar boys who accused Pell were not telling the truth, an accusation at odds with their testimony. And Louise Milligan's testimony. I trust our legal system. This trust, plus my background and my experience, says that the jury got it right.