Others hold him in high esteem.

Neither of these groups will have their minds changed about Cardinal Pell, ­regardless of what any court might determine.

The majority of Australians fall into neither camp.

Victorian Police

In the midst of controversy and with allegations of gross criminal activity, these Australians expect the police, the prosecution authorities and the courts to do their work diligently, imposing punishment on proven criminals and protecting the rights and liberties of all other citizens.

The Pell saga has now run for more than four years, ever since the Victoria Police commenced an operation on Christmas Eve 2015 seeking evidence of any wrongdoing by Pell around his cathedral during the years 1996-2001, when he was archbishop of Melbourne.

One complainant

This extraordinary trawling exercise turned up only one complainant, whose allegations were taken all the way to trial.

The complainant gave evidence that he and his now-deceased companion were serially assaulted sexually by Pell in the priests' sacristy immediately after solemn Sunday mass in St Patrick's Cathedral in late 1996.

He also gave evidence that Pell assaulted him in the sacristy corridor after another mass a couple of months later.

That's the case the High Court has just thrown out.

Thus the anger and relief at Tuesday's decision.

Court unanimous and with one voice

The High Court has spoken definitively, unanimously and with one voice.

All seven Justices have agreed that in relation to all five charges, "there is a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted".

The court ­ordered that Pell's "convictions be quashed and judgments of acquittal be entered in their place".

Pell has rightly walked free in time for Easter.

The complainant is left to get on with his life as best he can, wondering what was the point of this protracted legal trauma.

The court accepted that the jury had assessed the complainant's evidence "as thoroughly credible and reliable".

In the Victorian Court of Appeal, that step was enough for two of the judges to uphold the convictions.

But the dissenting judge, Mark Weinberg, Australia's most experienced criminal appeal court judge, thought that was just the first step of a court's inquiry, and not the last.

All seven High Court judges agree.

Reasonable doubt

The court needed to examine the record of all the evidence in the case "to see whether, notwithstanding that assessment, the court is satisfied that the jury, acting rationally, ought nonetheless to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to proof of guilt".

The court unanimously decided that any jury acting rationally must have had a reasonable doubt.

In addition to the complainant, there were many other witnesses called by the prosecution in Pell's case.

They included 23 witnesses "who were involved in the conduct of solemn mass at the cathedral or who were members of the choir in 1996 and/or 1997".

Many of these witnesses were also thoroughly credible and reliable, though their reliability faltered at times given that they were trying to recall what they would have been doing after mass in St Patrick's Cathedral on a particular Sunday 22 years before.

The honesty of these witnesses was not questioned by the prosecution.

The High Court found that many of these witnesses had given consistent evidence that placed Pell on the steps of the cathedral for at least 10 minutes after mass on December 15 and 22, 1996, the only possible dates when the first four offences could have been committed.

The prosecution "conceded that the offences alleged in the first incident could not have been committed if, following mass, (Pell) had stood on the cathedral steps greeting congregants for 10 minutes".

The court also found that there was unquestioned evidence by honest witnesses that placed Pell in company with his Master of Ceremonies when he returned to the priests' sacristy to disrobe.

Furthermore, there was abundant evidence of "continuous traffic into and out of the priests' sacristy for 10 to 15 minutes" after the altar servers returned to the sacristy at the end of the procession at the conclusion of mass.

There was no five-to-six-minute hiatus for the offences to occur with Pell, the complainant and his companion in the sacristy alone, together and uninterrupted, straight after mass.

A tragedy

The tragedy of this case for everyone, including victims and complainants (and most especially this complainant), is that an ordinary police investigation would have highlighted these problems with the complainant's account.

When interviewed in Rome back in October 2016 by Victorian police officers who were being supervised by their Deputy Commissioner, Shane Patton, Pell told the police that the sacristy was "a hive of activity" after mass with altar servers, sacristan, assistant sacristan, money collectors and any concelebrating priests coming and going.

He said he would have been accompanied at all relevant times by his MC Charles Portelli.

The police returned to Australia and interviewed Portelli and the sacristan, Max Potter, who basically confirmed all Pell had said about the "hive of activity".

But police did not bother to interview one single altar server.

They made no inquiries about money collectors or concelebrating priests.

They just went ahead and charged Pell, and with great media fanfare.

They went ahead building a case on the idea the priests' sacristy might have been left ­vacant and open on this one particular day, contrary to all church routine and ritual.

The High Court rightly observed that "adherence to ritual and compliance with ­established liturgical practice is a defining feature of religious observance".

The farce of the case was the ­belated attempt by the Director of Public Prosecutions to create the space for the necessary hiatus.

At trial, the prosecutor suggested, contrary to the evidence, the altar servers might have adjourned to another room, for no reason, for five to six minutes before being called back to the priests' sacristy to resume their duties.

He had to withdraw that suggestion before the jury.

In the High Court, the DPP submitted once again that the servers might have adjourned to another room or to the sanctuary to assist the sacristan.

The High Court dealt with this suggestion kindly but firmly: "The submission comes close to repeating the submission which the prosecutor withdrew at the trial.

"There was no evidence that the altar servers went to their room to disrobe prior to returning to the sanctuary in order to assist in clearing away the sacred vessels and other objects."

In the end, there was just not the evidence to support the complainant's account.

There never was.

For the good of all victims and complainants, Victoria's DPP and police must review procedures for cases like this.

Those who neither canonise nor despise George Pell should be grateful the High Court has delivered justice according to law in this protracted saga.

• Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest and lawyer who attended some of the Pell court proceedings. This article was first published in The Australian newspaper.

Speaking to veteran Vatican journalist Franca Giansoldati with Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò said he has been candid about his whereabouts because "after the release of my memoir on the McCarrick case in August 2018 a contact of mine from the United States warned me that my life was in danger."

"This is why I do not reside in a fixed place. I don't want to end up like Cardinal Pell, or like my predecessor in Washington, the nuncio Pietro Sambi," he said, referring to the late Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who served as Vatican envoy to the U.S. from 2005 until his death in 2011.

Read More

That claim was made this past week in the latest attack on the 87-year-old pope, a declaration written (anonymously, of course!) by some brave soul who is reportedly one of the Church's cardinals.

No one in the elite red-hatted college is 15 years old, but only someone around that age could be so unaware and uninvolved in Catholicism's "recent history" to make such an assertion.

Channeling the late Cardinal Pell

The new manifesto bears the title "The Vatican Tomorrow".

It was posted online in five languages on February 29 by a conservative Italian Catholic news site called, in its English version, "Daily Compass".

The author has hidden behind the nom de plume "Demos II".

He says his purpose is to "build on" the "original reflections" published two years ago by the first "Demos", another courageous cardinal who tried to camouflage his real identity.

That turned out to be George Pell, it was revealed after the Australian's death. But describing what he wrote as "reflections" is like calling Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine a peace-keeping mission.

Pell's verbal attack on Pope Francis was a screed on "The Vatican Today".

Among a long list of grievances, many of them personal, he lambasted the current pontificate as "a catastrophe", saying it was fomenting "heresy" and emboldening "Protestant liberals in the Catholic Church".

The late Australian cardinal insisted that the man who succeeds Francis must "restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, (and) restore a proper respect for the law".

Indeed, it was a manifesto for the next conclave and a warning that the Church would succumb to "spiritual and doctrinal threats" if his fellow cardinals did not elect a more traditionalist pope.

This is the foundation Demos II says he and his cohorts are trying to "build on"...

"It is clear that the strength of Pope Francis' pontificate is the added emphasis he has given to compassion toward the weak, outreach to the poor and marginalized, concern for the dignity of creation and the environmental issues that flow from it, and efforts to accompany the suffering and alienated in their burdens," Demos II acknowledges at the outset of his own manifesto.

But this is the only positive assessment he can offer for a pontificate that has lasted nearly eleven years and has put the Church on the road to much-need reform.

It is a program based, not on some shortsighted and losing effort to revive a collapsing Eurocentric paradigm, but on re-reading and "re-praying" (that is, discernment) of the radical demands of the Gospel in light of what is likely to be one of the biggest changes epochs in human history.

Who's really at fault for weakening the Church's witness?

Demos II focuses the rest of his "contribution" to the discussions that are obviously now underway concerning the next conclave on Francis' "shortcomings".

He lists these shortcomings as

• "an autocratic, at times seemingly vindictive, style of governance;
• a carelessness in matters of law;
• an intolerance for even respectful disagreement; and - most seriously - a pattern of ambiguity in matters of faith and morals causing confusion among the faithful".

This anonymous cardinal says that ambiguity undermines "confidence in the Word of God", which "weakens evangelical witness". This is all the fault of the current pope.

Millions and millions of people around the world, and they are not only Catholics, would strongly disagree.

They would say it is thanks to Pope Francis that the Church's evangelical witness has actually been strengthened and that Christians are becoming more confident than ever in the Word of God, especially in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The pope's radical life and witness, despite personal failures and blind-spots, has made the Church a true "friend" and "companion" and "fellow traveller" of all humanity at a perilous time in history.

In spite of his own sinfulness, which he readily acknowledges, he has helped restore the image of a Church so devastatingly discredited by sexual abuse and its cover-up, by the obsession that many of its bishops seem to have with wielding power in the public square and over individual consciences, and by the questionable alliances certain Catholics have made with unsavoury political leaders in many parts of the world.

Obviously, there are others in the Church who agreed with Cardinal Pell's screed from two years ago (Lent 2022, it was dated) and are now applauding Demos II, too.

And there is no denying that many of them are seminarians and young priests like a group in Spain that recently wished, publicly, that there will soon be a new pope.

At the start of the latest episode of their weekly YouTube program called "The Sacristy of the Vendée. A counter-revolutionary priestly gathering", one of the young clerics (in a cassock, naturally) said: "I also pray a lot for the pope, so that he can go to heaven as soon as possible."

The other five priests, Spanish-speakers from different countries, laughed over the comments.

The most radically evangelical of popes

Pope Francis has irritated the more conservative and traditionalist members of the Church's ordained caste and those lay people who support their brand of clericalism.

They say they feel insulted, personally attacked, and unjustly targeted. But so did the religious authorities that Jesus of Nazareth consistently challenged and upbraided for being hypocrites.

Yet we call the message he preached Good News, even if it's often hard for us to conform to it.

And so, it bears repeating, Francis is probably one of the most radically evangelical popes the Church has ever had.

If there is a Catholic among us, or anyone else in this world, who has not at times felt challenged or irritated by him, or unmasked for hypocrisy, then that person has not been paying attention.

Yes, we as Church are struggling at times and often feel a bit lost and disoriented as we try to discern what God's Spirit is calling us to become in this rapidly changing world.

But the only path is to move forward.

We will continue to struggle and make mistakes.

We won't always get it right.

But let's be clear, Pope Francis is not the problem. If anything, he's a very big part of the solution.

• Robert Mickens writes for La Croix International.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

It is "an important contribution to the efforts to establish a Criminal Cases Review Commission - as in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada" former High Court of Australia judge Michael Kirby commented.

He considers Pell's initial conviction was "a miscarriage of justice".

Witch hunting

Last month at the Mass marking the first anniversary of Pell's death, Archbishop Anthony Fisher described Pell's conviction and imprisonment as a result of "the corrupt Victorian legal system" following a media, political and policy witch hunt.

Pell's convictions for historical child sexual abuse were quashed by the High Court, in a seven-nil single judgment in April 2020.

"When the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney and a former High Court judge criticise the legal process in one of the most important cases in Australian criminal law, it would be expected that this would be regarded as news" Henderson says.

He expected interest from the ABC, Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian Australia - all active participants in "the Pell media pile-on" - to be interested.

"But no. They all threw the switch to effective censorship."

Henderson says 120 journalists were "engaged in the media pile-on against Pell.

"Not one has come back to me claiming that they were misquoted and/or sought changes to the text."

Media failure

When Henderson's updated edition was released, Fr Frank Brennan SJ described the journalists' failure to defend their work as "intellectual cowardice".

Following Pell's death, the High Court's judgment saw some media drop references to Pell's alleged paedophilia.

Instead, they focused on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse findings.

Henderson says its findings regarding Pell were hostile to the Cardinal.

Cardinal Pell did not act, when in a position of authority, to protect children from paedophile Catholic priests and brothers, the Commission said.

But Henderson says no forensic or documentary evidence supported that finding. Rather, the Commission found it was "inconceivable" or "unlikely" that Pell had not acted in a certain way.

"That's not evidence, it's opinion" says Henderson.

"Moreover, the findings were inconsistent in two important instances. It was a shoddy piece of work."

State education hid paedophiles too

Despite having time, money and resources, the Commission did not undertake any case studies into paedophilia in government schools.

However, after the Commission closed in 2017, Tasmania's and Victoria's state governments have been investigating historical child sexual abuse in state schools.

Evidence shows that, like religious schools, state education departments concealed child sexual abuse and moved male teachers from school to school.

A bad name sticks

Last May, Commission chairman Peter McClellan wrote about Pell in a foreword to a book.

He said Pell told the Commission the Catholic Church did not understand the rape of a child was a crime but regarded it as a moral failure.

That claim, repeated on TV, is false says Henderson.

Pell wrote to the Commission in 2014 and, in oral testimony later, called child sex abuse "crimes".

In 1996 while Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell established the Melbourne Response to deal with child sexual abuse.

"The archdioceses and dioceses in the rest of Australia created Towards Healing the following year" Henderson says.

"The governments of Victoria and Tasmania set up their inquiries into state schools a quarter of a century later.

"The other states and the territories have not done so."

Source

• The Catholic Weekly

The father, identified only as RWQ in official legal documents, had instituted legal action against both the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and the late Cardinal Pell.

RWQ contended that he underwent severe emotional distress upon discovering allegations of sexual misconduct involving his now-deceased son during the mid-1990s.

Cardinal Pell, who staunchly maintained his innocence until his death in January, had previously faced five convictions related to the abuse of the claimant's son alongside another young boy. However, these convictions were overturned by the High Court in 2020.

Seeking to absolve itself from legal obligations, the Catholic Church invoked an ultimately rejected defence, asserting that the father lacked the right to litigate due to not being the direct victim of the purported abuse.

When, in August 2022, a Supreme Court justice ruled that claims from secondary victims were admissible, the Archdiocese swiftly launched an appeal. This appeal necessitated the Archdiocese's application for permission from the Court of Appeal, which was ultimately declined last Friday.

Three justices on the panel concurred that the Church's grounds for appeal lacked sufficient prospects of success to warrant further consideration.

This aligns with arguments advanced by Andrew Clements KC, RWQ's legal representative.

Clements said legislation overturning the now-defunct Ellis defence repeatedly used the phrase "arising from child abuse" when referring to who could claim damages. He asserted that extended beyond direct victims of abuse.

Church criticised for exploiting loophole

RWQ contended that the Catholic Church should bear assumed liability for his son's alleged abuse that transpired at St Patrick's Cathedral when the boy was just 13. He asserted that he endured financial loss due to medical expenses and diminished earning capacity resulting from the psychological toll of his ordeal.

Expressing her perspective, solicitor Gabrielle Verhagen criticised the Church for attempting to exploit a legal loophole. In light of the findings from a royal commission investigating child sexual abuse, Verhagen asserted that the Church ought to prioritise compensating victims and survivors rather than evading responsibility.

"When a child is sexually abused, their whole family suffers the consequences as they grapple with things like new family dynamics, changed behaviours, substance abuse and a life derailed as a result of this life-altering crime" Ms Verhagen said.

Sources

The New Daily

CathNews New Zealand

Hungarian writer and polemicist Rod Dreher says Pell told him he was "so in favour" of conservative Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo (pictured) as Francis's successor.

Expecting an imminent conclave, Pell was preparing to play the role of kingmaker in any papal election, Dreher claims.

"He was hoping to crown a candidate who would take things in a very different direction from that pursued by Pope Francis."

Dreher notes Pell "wielded enormous influence across the church in the English-speaking world" and had a huge network of contacts, especially among the US bishops and friends in Rome.

He secretly wrote of Francis's papacy as a "catastrophe", Dreher says.

Two very different men

Francis and Dreher appeal to different people and have very different priorities and personalities.

Erdo's candidacy is attractive to conservatives.

He holds theological and political positions at odds with Francis.

He also maintains a relatively low-key media profile, unlike the media-savvy Francis.

During the synods on the family in 2014 and 2015, he held the position of relator general, which saw him outlining the synod discussions and summarising interventions.

Where Francis is open to change, Erdo's 2015 introductory speech at the synod focused on the Canon law status of divorced and remarried Catholics.

"They may only receive communion if they renounced sexual relations with their new spouse," he told synod attendees.

Integrating divorced and remarried Catholics into the Church is "different from admitting them to the Eucharist," he proclaimed.

Dreher says the speech reportedly surprised synod participants. Francis's pontificate had led them to expect a more open discussion on the topic.

In another contrasting view from Francis, Erdo has not spoken out strongly on the refugee crisis.

Francis, on the other hand, has made saving refugees one of the central features of his pontificate.

"It is obvious that everyone has the sacred right to try to survive in situations of famine, civil war and threats to life," Erdo said during an interview.

"You cannot force the Europeans to allow entrance - even illegally and without any control - to the entire world into their countries because doing so would break down public order, which is very attractive to those living in chaos."

Erdo is "a very fine canon lawyer," Pell pointed out. On the other hand, in Francis' pontificate, Rome had become "lawless," he said.

That Pell allegedly planned for a post-Francis future goes against Pope St John Paul II's rules on the conclave.

Published in 1996, the rules forbid "anyone, even if he is a cardinal, during the Pope's lifetime and without having consulted him, to make plans concerning the election of his successor, or to promise votes, or to make decisions in this regard in private gatherings."

Disregarding these, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has sent copies of the book 'The Next Pope' to fellow US cardinals.

Francis, who is 86, has shown no signs of planning to step down.

Source

• The Tablet

The conservative-progressive divide has been a recurrent theme of the past 10 years, since Francis first appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in 2013 wearing a simple white cassock, shunning the red-and-gold coverings used for centuries.

Conservative cardinals and archbishops have accused Francis of sowing confusion by weakening rules on issues such as homosexuality and remarriage after divorce while focusing excessively on social problems such as climate change and economic inequality.

But events have left the conservative movement disoriented and, some experts say, rudderless.

Former Pope Benedict, who resigned in 2013 and became a standard bearer for conservatives who yearned for the return to a more traditional Church, died on Dec 31 at the age of 95.

"The conservative world lacks a unifying vision, which is something that Benedict provided," said Sandro Magister, a veteran conservative author, journalist and blogger who has been critical of Francis.

"He (Benedict) has no real heir, no one able to inherit his legacy in a substantial way," Magister said.

A senior Vatican official, one of three high-ranking prelates who spoke on condition of anonymity, said many conservatives looked to Benedict "as a sense of security," even though, in the official's opinion, the former pope did not seek that role.

Network

Conservatives also mourned the sudden death in January of Australian Cardinal George Pell, 81, who many had believed would succeed Benedict as chief conservative standard bearer.

Pell's apartment - in the building where Benedict lived until he became pope in 2005 - was a salon for visiting conservative Churchmen.

"In the last years of his life Pell was working to build a unifying network by meeting conservatives and also moderates. He wanted them to reflect on the central issues of the Church looking ahead to the choice of Francis' successor," Magister said.

Pell had written a memo in 2022 calling Francis' papacy a "catastrophe".

The senior Vatican official said: "He (Pell) networked and socialised with a lot of people and that made him a formidable force. Having that network collapse immediately one day probably has people disconcerted."

Two days after Pell's death, Italian bookstores began selling a memoir by Benedict's long-time personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein. It included scathing criticism of another conservative icon, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, exposing more internal fault lines on the right.

Continue reading

• Philip Pullella is Reuters Senior Correspondent in Italy and at the Vatican.

The Australian cardinal, who died of a heart attack on January 10, has been described by friends and admirers as a "great leader", a "white martyr" and "courageous".

However, when Pell levelled that attack against Pope Francis less than a year ago in a lengthy screed that he sent to all the Church's cardinals, he showed just how courageous he really was - by issuing it under a pseudonym.

It was published last March by Italian journalist Sandro Magister who, after Pell's death, revealed that this "memorandum on the next conclave" was indeed the cardinal's handiwork.

Among other things, it lambasts the Jesuit pope for causing confusion. "Previously it was: 'Roma locuta. Causa finita est.' Today it is: 'Roma loquitur. Confusio augetur'," Pell says.

And he criticises the pope for remaining silent on a number of moral issues, including the Church in Germany's push to bless same-sex unions, ordain women priests and offer communion to the divorced and remarried.

The cardinal was 81 when he died and, thus, he was already disqualified from voting in a conclave to elect Francis' successor.

But that did not stop him from trying to influence the election, as the purpose of the memorandum makes clear.

In fact, Pell was one of the main ringleaders among those in the hierarchy who quickly soured on the Argentine pope.

The big and blunt Australian led the quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to identify an electable papal successor who - as he notes in the memorandum - would "restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition".

"The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests"

The late cardinal had a loyal following that includes traditionalists and the doctrinally inflexible (certainly in the English-speaking world), especially among the younger clergy and those who are being prepared to join their ranks.

He states this quite matter-of-factly in his diatribe against the current pope.

"The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests," he claims. There is, of course, ample anecdotal evidence and even certain surveys that support this.

Pell says this "wide-spread disaffection exists in the Vatican Curia", as well.

This poses a major problem for Pope Francis and his vision for reforming the Church.

While most ordinary Catholics around the world are probably not emotionally or ideologically invested in the same issues or concerns that so troubled Pell; and while these Catholics generally have a favourable or even highly favourable view of the current pope; it will be extremely hard to implement Francis' vision and reforms if the Church's clerical workforce is not on board.

Indeed, this unmarried, all-male clergy has become - in many ways - a major obstacle to spreading the Gospel itself, especially in the dynamically evangelical and missionary style that the pope spells out in Evangelii gaudium, his 2013 apostolic exhortation that reads like a blueprint for a revitalized and reformed Catholic Church.

The open, inviting, merciful, non-judgmental, journeying Church of imperfect people that stumbles along trying to discern how to more faithfully love God and embrace and care for all God's creation (its people, other living creatures and our "common home" the earth), is seen as anathema to those who think like Pell.

The late cardinal accuses Francis of watering down the "Christo-centricity" of Church teaching.

"Christ is being moved from the centre," he says, an incredible charge against a man who is probably one of the most radically evangelical popes ever.

Pell says Francis "even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant". Pell's clerical admirers — as well as those Catholic layfolk that are just as traditionalist and sectarian — agree with that assessment.

Return to a more ancient custom

The synodal process the pope has opened up in the Church — which he clearly wants to be a permanent and constitutive part of ecclesial life, ministry and governance — cannot fully take root or succeed if a significant portion of the Church's ordained ministers do not embrace and support it.

The only real option the pope has to try at least to make sure they do is by expanding the pool of candidates for the diaconate and presbyterate (ordained priesthood).

Without introducing any sort of novelty, and returning to its more ancient custom, the Church should re-open the presbyterate to married men in addition to (and not necessarily in substitution of) those who have the charism and ability to profess life-long celibacy.

The Church should also return to the ancient custom of ordaining women to the diaconate.

As it currently stands, limiting the ordained ministry to just one tiny subset of the People of God no longer serves whatever good purpose the creation of an unmarried and all-male clerical caste system might have originally had.

It needs to be scrapped because the pool of candidates right now is far too shallow and, in manifest ways, alarmingly putrid.

But you can be sure that any such changes would be met with the stiffest resistance - by certain cardinals, many bishops and a whole lot of priests and seminarians.

Most of them would fight to preserve, intact, the special club for which God has "set them apart" from the rest of the baptized members of the Body of Christ.

"Just men, just priests... What a wonderful time!"

Cardinal Robert Sarah, the 77-year-old retired Vatican official from Guinea and another traditionalist icon, revealed just how much the current clerical model is cherished as he shared his memories about Benedict XVI with the French daily Le Figaro immediately after late pope's recent funeral.

"I remember the Year for Priests that he decreed in 2009," Sarah began.

"The pope wanted to underline the theological and mystical roots of the life of priests."

And then the cardinal vividly recalled the "magnificent vigil in St. Peter's Square" to conclude the year-long event with these words:

The setting sun flooded Bernini's colonnade with golden light. The square was full.

But unlike usual, there were no families and no nuns - just men, just priests.

When Benedict XVI arrived in the popemobile, with one heart everyone began to acclaim him, calling him by his name.

It was striking to hear all these male voices chanting "Benedetto" in unison.

The pope was very moved.

When he turned back to the crowd after stepping onto the stage, his tears were flowing. The prepared speech was brought to him, which he left aside, and he freely answered questions. What a wonderful time!

The wise father teaching his children.

It was like time was suspended. Benedict XVI confided in them. That evening he had definitive words on priestly celibacy. Then the evening ended with a long moment of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament...

A wonderful time, indeed.

Just men, just priests. And among them admirers of cardinals such as Pell, Sarah and a number of others - just men, just priests; those who form the stiffest opposition to Pope Francis and his effort to reform the Church.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor in Chief. First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

The memo, published on a Vatican blog last March under the pseudonym "Demos," was circulated to members of the College of Cardinals in anticipation of the next conclave. After the cardinal's death it was revealed as Pell's work by the Italian journalist Sandro Magister.

Pell first came on my radar screen when Francis put him in charge of Vatican finances. My friends Down Under, where he had been archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, were happy to see him go to Rome because he had been more pugnacious than pastoral. A former Australian rules football player, he was always ready for a brawl with anyone who opposed him.

Although these are not the qualities you look for in a bishop, they were exactly the qualities needed for someone reforming Vatican finances. The pope needed someone who would not be intimidated by high-ranking clerics with fancy titles, someone willing to take on an entrenched bureaucracy.

I thought the appointment was brilliant. It got him out of Sydney and put him where his talents fit the job. I did not care about his theological views as long as he rooted out corruption and inefficiency in the Vatican.

Pell was attacked by insiders for not understanding the culture of the Vatican, for not understanding how things work. But Pell did not come to Rome to make friends. He came to upset the status quo, and I cheered him on.

When he was accused of abusing an altar boy, I neither condemned him nor defended him. I was willing to let the Australian justice system do its job. Australia's highest court eventually ruled in his favour.

Pell did not hide the fact that he was a doctrinal conservative who opposed modifications that made the church more pastorally sensitive to people in complex situations, such as LGBTQ and divorced Catholics. Since Francis had urged members of the synod of bishops to speak boldly and not be afraid of disagreeing with him, I cannot criticize Pell for speaking his mind.

But in authoring an anonymous memorandum attacking Francis, Pell crossed a line.

By not taking responsibility for the memo, Pell for the first time in his life showed himself a coward. He was not willing to publicly stand behind his words. This was totally against character for a man who never avoided a fight. What a disappointment.

Second, Pell seemed to have forgotten that Francis was the one who called him to Rome to be part of his team. Francis encouraged open discussion and debate but expected his team to support his decisions.

It is one thing to argue with the pope behind closed doors; it is another thing to stab him in the back. In his memo, Pell refers to the Francis papacy as a "disaster" and a "catastrophe." You don't do that to your boss, especially when he had stood by you when you were indicted. Shame.

Third, Pell forgot that he was a bishop, not an op-ed writer. His memorandum is a diatribe of indictments, not a reasoned argument.

Compare this memo to the writings of Cardinal Walter Kasper and Archbishop John Quinn. Both of those prelates were known to have disagreements with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but they wrote in a fraternal and scholarly tone that respected the papal office. Pell, on the other hand, joined Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in mudslinging. What a disgrace.

During the papacies of John Paul and Benedict, conservatives accused anyone who disagreed with them of being heretics or of being "cafeteria Catholics," who picked and chose which teachings they would accept. Many of these conservatives were themselves cafeteria Catholics, for that matter, because they ignored John Paul's and Benedict's teaching on economic justice, peace and the environment. Their hypocrisy became even more evident with their rejection of Francis.

In a September 27, 2021, column, I offered five rules for disagreeing with the pope. They are worth repeating:

• First, be respectful.
• Second, if you disagree with a pope, be sure to emphasize the positive things that he has done.
• Third, describe the pope's position accurately and completely; do not create a straw man that can be easily knocked down.
• Fourth, never speak or write when you are emotionally upset.
• Fifth, ask yourself, would you speak this way to a parent or someone you love?

Our internal church discussions should follow the same rules as our ecumenical dialogue: Disagreements should lead to fuller knowledge and improvements and ultimately consensus.

That way, as the old song goes, "They will know that we are Christians by our love," rather than knowing we are Catholics by our fights.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

A product and priest of the rural diocese of Ballarat, he rose to be not only Archbishop of Melbourne but, extraordinarily, Archbishop of Sydney as well.

It was unthinkable then that the Archbishop of Melbourne would be moved to Sydney.

As was said at the time, "It was an insult to both".

It took George Pell to break the mould.

With the move to Sydney he was named Cardinal, which brought with it a further enhancement of his Vatican profile.

This eventually led to his appointment as Prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy of the Holy See, charged with leading the financial reforms begun by Pope Benedict and pursued by Pope Francis.

Then his legal troubles erupted in Australia in circumstances that remain unclear.

Pell became the victim of an outrageous injustice as he was convicted and jailed for 13 months before a final vindication.

The spiritual poise and strength he showed through all of this was extraordinary. It revealed a depth to George Pell that often went unrecognised.

Through his legal troubles, he was identified wholly with the Catholic Church and vice versa.

Pell was the Church, and the Church was Pell - big, powerful and heartless in the eyes of many. Partly this was because, in his public persona in Australia, Pell had presented himself self-consciously as the voice of the Catholic Church.

Those who didn't know him thought Pell heartless and humourless, and his media persona could suggest this.

Yet if George Pell had anything, they were a good heart and a sense of humour. It was a pity that more of this didn't show in his media appearances.

He didn't claim to be a saint; he knew he was flawed. But he did claim - and rightly - to be a man of faith and a man of the Church. He once told me how struck he was by the words on the Roman tomb of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Vehementer amavit Ecclesiam (Vehemently he loved the Church).

George said however that he'd prefer on his own tomb, Vehementer amavit Dominum et Ecclesiam (Vehemently he loved the Lord and the Church).

There was nothing bland or half-hearted about George Pell: he was strong, even vehement in his faith, his convictions, his likes and dislikes.

He could be a fierce opponent, unafraid to enter the battle.

At times this could make him seem an ideological warrior, which did not serve him well. It certainly wasn't George Pell at his best.

He was always a polarising figure, stirring strongly contrasting reactions. He had both passionate friends and passionate foes.

In part, this was because his deepest instincts were those of a politician who thrived on opposition and conflict. It was also tied to an apocalyptic view of the world seen as an arena where good and evil, life and death, light and darkness contended.

There wasn't much middle ground for George Pell, not too many shades of grey.

But that he had unusual gifts of leadership is certain - intelligence, courage, conviction, self-confidence, political nous and tenacity among them.

Though he chose a life in the Church, George Pell would have been a leader in any field he had chosen.

It will take time to assess his legacy in the Church in Australia, which will prove as complex, even as contradictory as the man himself.

For now we give thanks for the gifts George Pell brought to us and the challenges he posed.

And we pray that, beyond all the struggles and sorrows he knew, this extraordinary man of faith and of the Church, our brother George, will come now before the Lord of mercy who will say to him simply (as Julian of Norwich predicts for each of us), "Thanks for all you've done".

Eternal rest give to George, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

• Mark Coleridge is the Archbishop of Brisbane.

It will not.

The synod is projected to be a new-old way of being "church," a permanent recovery of how the church began and grew. Francis plans it as a change that will outlast his papacy.

Even so, too many Catholics still have no idea what "synodality" means. No matter what the naysayers say, it is not a parliamentary event to vote on doctrinal matters of faith and morals. Rooted in the teachings and process of the Second Vatican Council, synodality is understood as "walking together" — a coming to consensus — about the renewal begun following Vatican Two.

Of course, synodality means nothing if a national conference of bishops, individual bishops, or pastors ignore the whole idea. Some of them believe that if they ignore the synodal process, they will be able to recover the past. They are the clerics who prefer the fiddle-back vestments and Latin Masses of their real or imagined pasts. They want women kept out of the sanctuary. They want lay people kept in their place.

These men simply hope the synod will go away. They may have paid it lip service, with secret invitation-only synod meetings and perfunctory reports. They may have thought they only had a year or so until a new pontificate would erase all this business about consulting the laity.

They are wrong.

Of course, a new pontificate is precisely what Francis' opposition hopes for. No doubt, the electioneering has begun. Leading the charge, or at least leveling the greatest charges against synodality, are Australian Cardinal George Pell and German Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, (pictured) both retired. Each has a palatial apartment from which to conspire just outside one of the Vatican's gates.

Pell is a Rome-educated former archbishop of Sydney and for a while the Vatican's economic overseer. In a recent "National Catholic Register" essay, he dismissed current synodal processes, presenting the Church's 21 councils as "examples of the Holy Spirit at work." His point: Only clerics can discern and decide. He calls the German synod process "suicidal."

Müller, whose term as head of the Vatican's doctrinal body ended as its document on synodality was being written, has long been critical of Francis' concept of synodality. Venting his ire in EWTN's Alabama studio with news anchor Raymond Arroyo recently, Müller called the synod a "hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ," adding: "We must resist."

Müller took aim at synod secretary Cardinal Grech, whom he said had "no importance in academic theology," accusing him of "presenting a new hermeneutic of the Catholic faith." He underscored his argument, saying that only cardinals knew what they were doing in the Curia, and lay persons should not be involved in choosing bishops.

Why all the controversy?

The synod's issues are well known — women in ministry, a married priesthood, the status of divorced-remarried persons and considerations about homosexuality. These are the concerns of Catholics around the world. These are the synod opponents' concerns as well. They hope for a new pope.

However, although Francis turns 86 this coming December, members of the opposition are also aging. Pell at 81 is too old to vote in a conclave; Müller is 74. But while they keep their apartments, they are well situated to gather like-minded cardinals in the sort of conspiratorial meetings not known since the Middle Ages.

Consider this: Both Müller and Pell were among 13 reported cardinal signers of a letter opposing the work of the 2015 Synod on the Family. Six of their fellow cardinal signers are still alive.

They are not kidding. They genuinely want to cancel synodality. They seem willing to lead their followers into schism just to get away from dealing with questions of the laity.

And their followers, a tiny portion of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, happily support them through their media outlets and, more importantly, with their money. Francis, meanwhile, depends on the Holy Spirit.

• Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence and adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Her most recent book is "Women: Icons of Christ." The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

The ruling enables the father of a deceased former choirboy to sue Cardinal George Pell and the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The ruling is another chapter in a saga of allegations and prosecutions against Pell, who is a former Archbishop of Melbourne.

In 2018 he was found guilty in the County Court of abusing two choirboys in 1976. Those convictions were quashed by the High Court in 2020 and Pell was released from prison after spending more than a year in custody.

The deceased choirboy's father (known as RWQ) then sought permission to take Pell and the Archdiocese to the civil court.

RWQ is now seeking compensation for the nervous shock and psychiatric injury he's suffered since 2015 when police told him they believed Pell had abused his son and another choirboy.

His son, however, had never made allegations against Pell. He died in 2014 from a heroin overdose.

Nonetheless, his father says the Archdiocese is vicariously liable for the alleged abuse and that he has lost money to medical expenses and earning capacity due to suffering from several psychological conditions.

Lawyers for the Archdiocese had argued RWQ was not entitled to pursue civil action against it.

They said the Legal Identity of Defendants Act passed in 2018 stated that financial compensation for damage inflicted would be made only on abuse survivors as "primary victims" and not their families as "secondary victims".

Countering this argument, lawyers representing RWQ said the Act's wording allows for claims to be brought against the clergy "founded on or arising from child abuse".

On Wednesday Justice Michael McDonald ruled the law could extend to secondary child abuse victims.

"The plain meaning of the words ‘founded on or arising from child abuse' … includes a claim for nervous shock brought by a parent of a child alleged to have been sexually abused," he told the court.

He said repeated usage of "founded on or arising from child abuse" in the Act pointed strongly to a conclusion that the law was not confined to claims brought by primary abuse victims.

"To conclude otherwise renders the words ‘arising from child abuse' otiose," McDonald said in his written decision.

Source

• The New Daily
• The Age

In the 728 years that have passed since St Celestine established this legal precedent, the right of a pope to resign remains ensured in church law.

The law is not very detailed, saying only that the decision must be made freely and "duly manifested". No one needs to formally accept a pope's resignation for it to be valid.

The canonist Geraldina Boni told Catholic News Service, "It is no longer inconceivable for a pope to resign, with this door having been ‘opened,' as Francis himself has said several times".

However, she added "this situation must be regulated".

Boni also suggested the need to regulate issues such as what to do when a pope is unable to govern the universal church when he is completely, permanently and irreversibly impeded or impaired because of a debilitating illness or other conditions.

Boni and other canonists launched a project in 2021 to draft legislative proposals that could be studied and discussed on an online platform. The aim is to present the suggestions to "the supreme legislator", the pope, for his consideration.

One of the proposals is on the legal status or "canonical condition of the bishop of Rome who resigned his office."

Many of the suggestions mirror the approaches taken by retired Pope Benedict.

For example, the proposal says "the manifestation of the resignation must preferably be put into writing and ordinarily presented in a consistory of the College of Cardinals or in another way that makes it publicly knowable".

However, some of the suggestions depart from Pope Benedict's actions, the biggest of which is the retired pope's title.

Instead of "pope emeritus," the proposal says the retired pontiff "receives the title of bishop emeritus of Rome," and he "uses the ring that every bishop must wear". Photos of the retired Pope show him wearing the cardinal's ring.

"The bishop emeritus of Rome does not assume or regain the dignity of cardinal nor the functions that are attached to it," the proposal says. It added, "However, in liturgical and canonical matters, the bishop emeritus of Rome has the privileges and faculties attributed to cardinals".

Cardinal-designate Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit theologian and canon lawyer, said "Having two people with the title of ‘pope,' even if one added 'emeritus,' it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion".

The idea of more than one pope at one time "dangerously mixes up the precise meaning of the Petrine ministry. Which is that of being a sign of unity of the church, therefore, one sign of unity of the church," he said in his talk.

Boni told CNS, "We will see if the work done by us university professors has been considered — even in criticising it or departing from it — by the eventual drafters of any papal legislation".

"Certainly, the wide debate that has built up on the issue has helped dismantle a taboo that had no reason to exist," she said of laws on the status of a retired pope.

Sources

• CruxNow

The Ellis defence emerged from a 2007 NSW Court of Appeal judgement that prevented an abuse survivor from suing the Church because it was not a legal entity.

Survivors have long complained about the Church using the Ellis defence. In 2018 the Victorian Parliament passed legislation requiring unincorporated associations such as the Church to nominate an entity capable of being sued.

The current case involves the father of one of two choirboys allegedly abused by Pell in 1996.

His father is suing the Cardinal and the Archdiocese of Melbourne for "damages for nervous shock".

However, lawyers for the Archdiocese argued that legislation did not apply in this case because the father of the choirboy was not the primary victim of the alleged abuse.

The father's barrister, Julian Burnside QC, disagreed arguing the 2018 legislation applied to both primary victims and their families.

"What our learned friend's submission amounts to is this: If the victim of child abuse dies, then the family has no remedy, they have no one they can sue," Mr Burnside said.

"Now that's plainly wrong in our submission."

Justice Michael McDonald has reserved his decision on whether to excuse the Archdiocese.

If the Archdiocese is excused, Cardinal Pell will remain a defendant.

Pell was found guilty in 2018 by a County Court jury of abusing two teenage choirboys in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral after a Sunday Mass in December 1996. Those convictions were quashed by the High Court in 2020 and was released after more than a year in custody.

One of the choirboys died in his 30s in 2014 from an accidental heroin overdose, having never made a complaint against Pell.

The deceased man's father, referred to in court under the pseudonym RWQ, lodged a civil case in the Supreme Court last month.

Sources

• ABC
• The Age
• CathNews NZ

Melbourne-based firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, recently named Australian Law Firm of the Year in the 2022 Chambers Asia Pacific & Greater China Region Awards, says they are refocusing their direction and resources.

Corrs confirmed it would no longer represent the Church, saying it was "transitioning away from undertaking personal injury work" to focus on its core areas of commercial legal practice.

"We will be working with the clients affected by this decision to ensure the orderly transition of such matters to new legal advisers. In particular, the firm is committed to ensuring that we protect the interests of our clients and the interests of all parties involved in these matters through this transition," the firm said in a statement.

"Corrs is working with all clients affected by its decision to transition away from personal injury work. This is an ongoing process which will take some time."

The firm declined to comment further. However, the Australian Financial Review reported that the firm's lawyers were increasingly uncomfortable with its work defending the Church against historic child abuse compensation claims.

Sources said Richard Leder, a veteran Corrs partner, was also leaving the firm. Leder and Cardinal George Pell established the Archdiocese of Melbourne's response to complaints of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by priests 20 years ago.

The "Melbourne Response" was heavily criticised for its paltry payments which did not reflect the severity of the life-long damage inflicted on victims. In addition, it did not consider the Church's ability to be financially accountable to victims, given that the value of its assets in Australia alone is estimated at around $30 billion.

In 2020, the Supreme Court of Victoria overturned a deed of release signed by a victim of child sexual abuse. The child was paid $32,500 by the Catholic Church in 1996 in exchange for his silence and no further legal action.

The landmark decision paved the way for victims to set aside previous agreements made with the church and sue for damages.

There are estimated to be about 500 victims who signed similar deeds of release, often for small financial payouts under the Catholic Church's controversial "Melbourne Response".

Corrs is one of Australia's top-10 law firms by size, with 145 partners and 749 non-partner fee earners in its ranks according to The Australia Financial Review's latest law partnership survey.

Sources

Sydney Criminal Lawyers

Law.com International

Australian Financial Review

That was the response of someone close to me upon reading the news that Cardinal George Pell is now the subject of civil proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court, over the same allegations for which he was ultimately acquitted, after serving more than 400 days in prison.

Of the two former choirboys who were the alleged victims in the criminal proceedings, one tragically died in 2014 having never made a complaint against the Cardinal.

His father is suing the Cardinal and the Archdiocese of Melbourne for "damages for nervous shock".

The nervous shock, it is alleged, was the mental injury suffered by the man after learning of the alleged abuse of his son, and that the Cardinal and the Archdiocese had a duty to prevent this.

Many people have queried how a civil case about the same factual circumstances as the criminal case can be brought against the Cardinal after he was exonerated by the High Court.

A person claiming civil compensation only has to prove that something was more likely than not to have occurred, rather than the higher bar of "beyond reasonable doubt" set in criminal trials.

In other words, a case for civil compensation requires a lower standard of proof than a criminal case.

Even so, I am not sure that the High Court's decision leaves much room for even the lower civil standard.

Recall that the High Court acquitted the Cardinal in a unanimous, 7-0 judgment. The acquittal was not based on a legal technicality, but rather the united view of all seven judges that there was a "significant possibility that an innocent person [had] been convicted".

This is a very strong statement because it indicates not just that the Court did not believe the criminal standard of proof had been met, but that they saw at least a significant possibility of innocence.

The High Court decision also notes that prior to his death, the son of the current complainant was asked by his mother whether he had ever been "interfered with or touched up" while a member of the Cathedral choir, and told her that he had not. This will be another significant hurdle for this case.

However, it may be that the current court proceedings are not limited to the matters already dealt with by the High Court.

According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the statement of claim also alleges that the Cardinal "became aware of allegations and instances of sexual abuse and other sexually inappropriate conduct by members of clergy [and] failed to properly consider and take appropriate action in relation to sexual abuse by members of the clergy."

It also alleges he "took steps to avoid sexual abuse and sexual misconduct by the clergy becoming known [and] failed to report or prevent sexual abuse by members of the clergy."

The report goes on to say: "The plaintiff's lawyers cite examples that Pell was aware of multiple cases including that of Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson and Father Nazareno Fasciale, which they suggest he should have acted upon."

These matters are also worth reflecting on. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse did not find that Cardinal Pell was in a position to have acted upon abuse perpetrated by Father Fasciale.

Much of Fasciale's alleged offending occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, long before Cardinal Pell was made auxiliary bishop of Melbourne.

The extent of the Cardinal's involvement in that matter as investigated by the Royal Commission, was the Cardinal's presence at a meeting where it was decided that it would be announced that Fasciale was retiring due to health reasons, rather than allegations of abuse.

In terms of Father Searson, it is true that the Royal Commission said that it was incumbent upon then-Bishop Pell, as an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, "to take such action as he could to advocate that Father Searson be removed or suspended or, at least, that a thorough investigation be undertaken of the allegations."

However, the Royal Commission went on to say that this was "the same responsibility that attached to other Auxiliary Bishops and the Vicar General when they received complaints."

Importantly, Cardinal Pell did not become an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne until May 1987 (he was a priest of the Diocese of Ballarat prior to this) and the Royal Commission found that Searson's problematic behaviour was already well known by this time.

The Commission opined that "the matters known to Archbishop [Frank] Little by the end of 1986 were undoubtedly sufficient to demonstrate that Father Searson ought to be removed from a parish appointment and posed a grave risk to the safety of children."

Given that the Royal Commission considered that Archbishop Little had sufficient information before Cardinal Pell even arrived in Melbourne to stand Searson down but refused to do so, it is not clear what then-Bishop Pell's advocacy would have done to change these circumstances (or why he is now being sued for failing to act).

Once Cardinal Pell became Archbishop of Melbourne in August 1996, Searson was dealt with quickly. By October of that year, the Melbourne Response was in place, the allegations against Searson were promptly investigated and, on 14 March 1997, Searson was suspended from ministry, never to return.

While many at Searson's parish and school had valiantly fought to have him stood down, it was Cardinal Pell who made it happen.

The case obviously still needs to play out, and everyone is entitled to their day in court. However, I hope this assists in providing a little more context to the current claims against the Cardinal.

• Monica Doumit is the Director, Public Affairs and Engagement for the Archdiocese of Sydney and a columnist with The Catholic Weekly.
• First published in The Catholic Weekly. Republished with permission.

In 2018, Pell was found guilty by a County Court jury of abusing two teenage choirboys in December 1996 when he was the Archbishop of Melbourne. He had pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence.

Those criminal convictions were then unanimously quashed by the High Court in 2020.

All seven of Australia's most senior judges hearing his case found there was a "significant possibility" an innocent person was found guilty at trial.

Pell, who had spent over a year in jail, was released from prison in 2021.

The criminal trial

At the criminal trial, one of the former choirboys gave evidence alleging he and his friend were abused by Pell after a Sunday Mass.

The second choirboy - who never made any allegations against Pell - died from an accidental drug overdose in 2014.

In 2020 the ABC reported the "former choirboy never mentioned the incident and denied being sexually abused when he was asked point blank by his mother several years after the abuse occurred".

"It's devastating to watch your child spiral out like that. It was very hard to watch," the mother told the Australian current affairs TV programme, Four Corners.

Their son, a heroin addict, died of a drug overdose in 2014 but it wasn't until a year after his death, when the other victim made a formal complaint about the abuse, that the family realised what had happened to their son. It fell to his friend to explain what allegedly happened to both of them in the room at the rear of the cathedral in December 1996.

Civil claim lodged

The anonymous deceased man's father has now lodged a civil case against the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and Pell.

The father says his son became withdrawn as a teenager, had problems at school and began using drugs. As an adult, he had stints in jail.

"Really, I do blame George Pell. I feel that he has taken my son away from me," the father said after Pell was initially found guilty in 2018.

"And it's not only me but it's his sister and his mother. We've all missed out on him. Why? Why?"

Shine Lawyers on behalf of the claimant are suing Pell and the Archdiocese of Melbourne for "damages for nervous shock" relating to finding out about allegations of sexual abuse.

They claim Pell and the Archdiocese were negligent, resulting in injuries, loss and damage.

The claim alleges Pell is liable for the claimant's mental injury because it is reasonably foreseeable that he would suffer nervous shock from learning of the alleged abuse.

The claimant and his solicitors say the Archdiocese breached a duty of care to the claimant, and this caused his injury.

He claims to have suffered nervous shock arising from learning of allegations his son had been sexually abused.

He has suffered from chronic adjustment disorder and persistent complex bereavement disorder, with mixed anxiety and a depressed mood, court documents claim.

He is claiming general damages, special damages and seeking compensation for "past loss of earning capacity and past and future medical and like expenses".

The sum he is seeking will be revealed if the matter goes to trial before a judge.

Shine Lawyers Chief Legal Officer, Lisa Flynn, said the criminal case and the High Court decision would not affect the civil proceedings.

"The High Court made some decisions in relation to the criminal prosecution against [George] Pell, our case is a civil case against George Pell and the Catholic Archdiocese. There are different paths to justice," she said.

No evidence to support the original account

In summing up the criminal case, Professor of Law Frank Brennan pointed out that, in relation to the criminal case against Pell, all seven Justices, individually and collectively unanimously agreed that there was the significant possibility that an innocent person (Pell) had been convicted.

"The court ­ordered that Pell's "convictions be quashed and judgments of acquittal be entered in their place".

"The complainant is left to get on with his life as best he can, wondering what was the point of this protracted legal trauma," wrote Brennan in The Australian.

"The tragedy of this case for everyone, including victims and complainants (and most especially this complainant), is that an ordinary police investigation would have highlighted these problems with the complainant's account."

The High Court concluded that there was no evidence that the altar servers went to their room to disrobe prior to returning to the sanctuary in order to assist in clearing away the sacred vessels and other objects.

"In the end, there was just not the evidence to support the complainant's account.

"There never was," concludes Brennan.

Suicide help

If you or anyone you know needs support, call:

• Lifeline - 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
• Healthline - 0800 611 116
• Samaritans - 0800 726 666

Sex abuse help

Contact one of these specialised organisations for support:

• ACC sensitive claims funded counselling options.
• NZ Police to report an incident of abuse.

Sources

• The Age
• ABC
• ABC
• CathNews
• ABC
• The Guardian

Australian Cardinal George Pell has accused Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu of providing "incomplete" information during his testimony and thwarting transparency efforts.

In a May 6 statement, Pell accused Becciu of using his previous role as a top papal aide to block audits of the Vatican Secretariat of State's finances and to intimidate, bully and fire the auditors themselves.

Becciu, along with nine others, is currently on trial for alleged financial crimes centred on a real estate deal in London that lost the Vatican around $200 million.

Becciu served as the sostituto of the Vatican Secretariat of State from 2011-2018. This placed him as a top papal aide, akin to a chief of staff. He oversaw the London deal at its inception and is accused of embezzlement and abuse of office.

Becciu denied the charges against him, insisting: "All of the accusations are totally unfounded."

Cardinal Pell, 80, served until 2017 as head of the Vatican Secretariat of the Economy, created in 2014 at the beginning of Pope Francis's financial reform. At that point, he took leave of his role to respond to allegations of historical sexual abuse of a minor in Australia.

After a hung jury in 2018, Pell was found guilty in a retrial four months later. But, in 2020, he was acquitted on appeal by Australia's High Court, having served a year in jail.

Pell, in his letter, said Becciu, in his testimony, "gave a spirited defence of his blameless subordinate role in the Vatican finances," but that the information provided was "incomplete."

Becciu "did not explain the Secretariat of State's rejection of the papally approved supervisory role of the new Council and Secretariat for the Economy" during his tenure as sostituto, Pell said.

Pell also pointed to the firing of auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and the ousting of the Vatican's General Auditor, Libero Milone, as two unexplained actions for which Becciu was responsible.

The rivalry between Pell and Becciu dates back to nearly the beginning of Pope Francis's papacy, when Pell was personally tapped by the pope to lead the Vatican's financial reform.

Pell has often voiced public suspicion that Becciu had a hand in the sexual allegations against him. He has suggested that money transfers from the Vatican to Australia made on Becciu's watch were used as a payout to worsen his own legal trouble.

Becciu has denied using the money to influence Pell's legal proceedings. Instead, he argued the payments were made to the Australian branch of Neustar, a technology company providing internet information and analytics.

However, Pell wrote that while some of the payments are explained by contractual obligations and routine management, questions remain.

He specifically highlighted four payments made between 2017 and 2018, amounting to the $1.6 million authorised by Becciu, asking "What was the purpose? Where did the money go after Neustar?"

In several interviews, Cardinal Pell had publicly asked Becciu to end the media speculation about the payments. Becciu has refused to do so, calling Pell's questions "offensive to [his] personal dignity" and insisting that the subject was "high, demanding, and certainly confidential."

"Doubts, of course, are removed by facts, by evidence, not assertions," Cardinal Pell said. "Let us see. Truth is the daughter of time," he concluded.

Sources

Crux Now

The Australian

CathNews New Zealand

Pell was speaking at "Real Estate and the New Evangelisation," an event held in Rome on April 28. The cardinal addressed several questions raised by recent financial scandals in the Catholic Church.

Francis' reforms of the Vatican's Curia, outlined in his long-awaited apostolic constitution, "Praedicate Evangelium" published in March, need a bit more "polishing."

But "even the most critical observers say disaster has been avoided," Pell said.

Financial scandals have plagued the Catholic institution, at least since the 1980s. Currently, 10 individuals are on trial at the Vatican, facing charges ranging from corruption to embezzlement and money laundering.

"Even if moral culpability cannot be proved among any of the Vatican personnel involved, responsibility for the incompetence must be acknowledged," Pell said.

"It seems that a history of an economic failure in a diocese or a religious order was almost a prerequisite for appointment to the Curia," the cardinal said.

According to Pell, Francis' efforts have significantly improved the economic situation at the Vatican. However, the cardinal said, "we cannot afford to lose another 500 million through incompetence or corruption in the next 40 years."

The Vatican has faced a growing deficit every year, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to its 2022 financial projections, the Catholic institution faces a $37 million deficit. This is due primarily to diminishing donations as the faithful soured over recent financial scandals.

The cardinal offered tips to address the financial situation at the Vatican: "Avoid cooperating with banks and financial agents who have a well-established reputation for shadiness," he said. "It is a prudential option that has been avoided by the Vatican for 40 years at least."

Bishops and priests involved in managing funds must understand basic economic principles as well, he said.

The pope's reforms and those put in place by his predecessors "have stopped the money laundering" he commented.

"I couldn't say that we completely spring-cleaned," Pell said. But "the people running the show are people of integrity," he added.

Sources

Religion News

The cardinal, who graduated with a DPhil from Oxford in 1971, has been a patron of the Newman Society since 2009, when he inaugurated the current iteration of the Thomas More lecture at the Divinity School of the Bodleian Library.

His return to Oxford has sparked criticism from some local Catholics, however, with one graduate of the university appealing to other Catholics to protest.

Dr Katharine Perry, who received a DPhil in theology this year, was a resident of the Catholic chaplaincy between 2017 and 2019.

Speaking to The Tablet, she described the Newman Society's decision as "shockingly insensitive".

Perry said she was "stunned" by the society's choice of lecturer.

In a statement, the Newman Society said that it shares "the pain of those protesting", as well as the goal of ending the "scourge of sexual abuse" within the Church.

This goal, however, derives from a principle, justice, that impels the fair treatment of the innocent,just as it does the punishment of the guilty, the society added! Continue reading