Thanks Poche!
Please pray for Cdl Pell to be exonerated and freed. We anxiously await the findings.

Yes, Kath. If and when Cdl Pell is freed the Vatican will move in and take over. 

Well Fr. Pell (ordained in 1966) may not be guilty of being a flaming pervert, but he’s certainly guilty of being a flaming heretic. Read about his belief that man descended from a lower species:

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/03/01/debate-richard-dawkins-cardinal-george-pell-transcript/

Well Cdl Pell has been convicted of being a "flaming pervert" and not a "flaming heretic". So
I suggest you dig out the relevent thread where this is discussed, or start your own thread.

My point is that many traditionalists think that the worst crime that one can commit is this sick perversion, when, in fact, heresy is a worse crime. 

Early this century, Cdl Pell had an regular column in Sydney's Catholic Weekly, in which he once pushed the idea of organ donation, without qualifying in what cases organ donation is immoral, in fact murder. SHortly after that he came to visit my diocese and I attended the lunch in the grounds of the Catholic Cathedral High School. SO I prepared a letter accompanied by information for him to inform him. I put the letter into his own hand and he thanked me. I received a rather non-committal acknowledgement from his secretary. I don't know if he "took it in" or even read it. I guess that he might have been poorly advised and hope that he changed his tack. Nobody is perfect, and he isn't. THat is no reason to put the knives in.

EVery man is entitled to a fair trial, regardless of whatever other wrongs he has done.

.
HOWEVER, that is no reason to wish ill on him being unjustly accused of the present crime.    The whole process has been a witchhunt from start to finish.   No matter if he is found innocent the ABC will make sure that no-one will consider him innocent.  People close to me will never believe him innocent.

I agree, if he is innocent of this, which is possible, it is a grave act of injustice.

From: http://m.ncregister.com/daily-news/calling-cardinal-pells-prosecution-what-it-is-religious-persecution

"The Supposed Facts of the Case
It is important for Catholics to know the specifics of the case, not just summary statements that it was “weak.” It was impossible.
The prosecution charged that Cardinal Pell, instead of greeting people after Mass, as was his custom, immediately left everyone in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and went unaccompanied to the sacristy. Arriving alone in the sacristy, he found two choirboys who had somehow left the procession of the other five dozen choirboys and were swigging altar wine.
Having caught them in the act, he then quickly decided to sɛҳuąƖly assault them — “oral penetration,” to be unpleasantly precise.
This he accomplished immediately after Mass, with the sacristy door open, despite having all his vestments on and with the reasonable expectation that the sacristan, the master of ceremonies, the servers or concelebrants might come in and out or even pass by the open door, as would be customary after Mass.
Meanwhile, there were dozens and dozens of people in the cathedral, praying or milling about.
The whole affair took place within six minutes, after which the boys went off to choir practice and never spoke about it to anyone for 20 years, not even to each other. Indeed, one of the boys, who died of a heroin overdose in 2014, explicitly told his mother before he died that he had never been sɛҳuąƖly abused.
The supposed facts are virtually impossible to complete. Ask any priest of a normal-sized parish — let alone a cathedral — if it would be possible to rape choirboys in the sacristy immediately after Mass. Sixty seconds — let alone six minutes — would not pass without someone, or several people, coming in and out, or at least passing by the open door. Ask any priest if he is customarily alone in the sacristy immediately after Mass, while there are still people in the church and the sanctuary has not yet been cleared.
Furthermore — again, with apologies for being graphic — it is not possible to perform the alleged penetration when fully vested for Mass. Again, ask any priest — let alone an archbishop, who is more heavily vested — about the awkwardness of having to visit the bathroom, if necessary, after vesting. It requires divesting, at least in part, or engaging in an awkward handling of the various vestments, which makes using the washroom difficult, to say nothing of a sɛҳuąƖ assault.
The complainant said that Cardinal Pell had just moved his vestments aside, an impossibility, given that the alb has no such openings.
What Cardinal Pell was accused of doing is simply impossible, even if he had somehow been mad enough to attempt it. Moreover, any man who attempts raping boys in a public place with people about is the kind of reckless offender about whom there would be a long history of such behavior. There is, of course, no such history.

The Corruption of the Police
It is not astonishing that a jury of 12 ordinary citizens might be convinced, contrary to evidence and common sense, that Cardinal Pell was guilty. After all, dozens and dozens of highly trained and experienced police officers and prosecutors decided that the former archbishop of Sydney was guilty even before any charges were brought whatsoever. Such is the Australian hatred for the Catholic Church in general and George Pell in particular.
In 2013, the Victoria police launched “Operation Tethering” to investigate Cardinal Pell, even though there had been no complaints against him. There followed a four-year campaign to find people willing to allege sɛҳuąƖ abuse, a campaign that included the Victoria police taking out newspaper ads asking for complaints about sɛҳuąƖ abuse at the Melbourne cathedral — before there had been any.
The police had their man and just needed a victim.
With Australia going through the agony of a royal commission investigation into sɛҳuąƖ abuse — with the Catholic Church garnering the lion’s share of the attention — it was only a matter of time before someone could be found to say something, or remember something, or, if necessary, fabricate it altogether. That, after all those efforts, the Victoria police could only pull together such a flimsy case is itself a powerful indication that Cardinal Pell is not a sɛҳuąƖ abuser.

Testimony — or Not — of the Complainants
In Victoria sɛҳuąƖ-abuse cases, the victim testifies in closed court, so the public does not know, and cannot evaluate, the credibility of what was said.
In the first trial, the complainant testified before the jury. They voted not to convict. In the second trial, the complainant did not testify at all, but the records of his testimony in the first trial were entered instead. It appears that the first jury, who heard the complainant live, found him less credible than the second jury, which did not encounter him live.
Cardinal Pell was thus convicted on the testimony of a single witness who presented an incredible story, without corroboration, without any physical evidence and without any previous pattern of behavior, over the strenuous insistence by the alleged perpetrator that nothing of the sort ever took place. That, almost by definition, meets the standard of reasonable doubt.
Even more astonishing, the jury convicted Cardinal Pell of assaulting the second boy, even though he had denied to his own family ever being molested. The second supposed victim died in 2014. He never made a complaint, was never interviewed by the police and was never examined in court.
Absent the public hatred for Cardinal Pell, such a case would never have even been brought to court. But just as the police had their man before they had any allegations or evidence, the prosecutors knew that they had a good chance of getting a jury that was so determined to get Cardinal Pell that they only had to give them a chance."