The Catholic Weekly 12 April 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 3 12, April, 2020 EASTER WILL be a time for quiet prayer and reflection for Cardinal George Pell but unlike last, when he was con- fined to a small jail, there are no bars and wire. After being acquitted by the High Court in a unani- mous 7-0 decision, Cardinal Pell will welcome these Holy days a free man once more. However the suffering of Jesus and His death on the Cross followed by the cele- bration of His resurrection on Easter Sunday has even more significance for Cardi- nal Pell. “When something bad happens to us, death perhaps or disaster, it makes us think again about the significance of Holy Week,” he told The Catholic Weekly while relax- ing in the peace and quiet of the Good Shepherd Semi- nary garden. “To non-Christians it is not common sense to cele- brate the death of a wonder- ful young man we know as the Son of God. “However as Christians we believe suffering is not meaningless, never wasted,” he said. “We might ask our- selves at times what the hell is going on? But He is with us. We might not be sure what He is always up to but we can unite our suffering to Him. “We know there is life after death and justice will reign.” ¾ ¾ Catholic Weekly staff ‘This Easter is special’ If Ihadn’tbeeninthatpositionIwouldneverhaveheardfromsomanypeopleabouttheir lives,saysCardinal Cardinal Pell relaxes and enjoys freedom in the grounds of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd Seminary in Sydney. Suffering is not meaningless, never wasted ... we might ask ourselves at times what the hell is going on? But He is always with us ... we can unite our suffering to Him” Cardinal George Pell While Cardinal Pell was in jail he received thousands of letters and cards from sup- porters and well-wishers, some he knew but many he did not. It was immense spiritual comfort. “If I hadn’t been in that situation I would never had had the opportunity to hear from so many people, to hear about their lives,” he said. “Their support for me was a great comfort, a real tonic.” At this stage Cardinal Pell is not looking or planning too far into the future. At the mo- ment it is savouring the days he can now call friends, walk in the garden, celebrate pri- vate Mass, read and even eat what and when he wants. In some ways the Easter message can be very simple – there is a lot for which to give thanks. LEADING AUSTRALIAN Constitutional law expert and Vice Chancellor of Australian Catholic University, Profes- sor Greg Craven, was not only blunt but scathing in his as- sessment of the media’s role in the conviction of George Pell and following it. “It’s not a surprising deci- sion,” he told ABC TV in an at-times fiery interview on Tuesday after Cardinal Pell was released that clearly dis- comforted ABC TV presenter Karina Carvalho. “This was always a case that had a reasonable doubt a mile wide … that would even- tually rip it apart ... It should not have been prosecuted. It should not have resulted in a ¾ ¾ Peter Rosengren Craven slams the ABC This case should never have gone to court, says ACU’s VC guilty verdict and I think most lawyers thought that sooner or later when it got to the High Court this was the default set- ting. “I think the question is why such a case was prosecuted and what damage it did,” he said. During a visit to the-then jailed Cardinal he said Car- dinal Pell told him that being innocent had “certainly made it easier to bear being in jail.” He slammed the ABC on its record in handling coverage of the case, agreeing that the trial had effectively served as a referendum on the issue of abuse within the Church and the Church’s handling of it. “I have to say that I think your organisation, the ABC, did its very best to be part of the cheer squad that made that happen,” he said. “It wasn’t a case about whether you liked George Pell or want- ed George Pell to be in jail. “The truth was that it was a case about whether it hap- pened. A large group of the ABC and [other] journalists did everything they could to put as much pressure, to drown out any possible contraventions and I think worked closely with police to make sure that there were ‘co- incidental’ leakings of infor- mation, references to ‘victims’ rather than complainants – I think that was a shocking as- pect.” He accused the ABC in its coverage of the Cardinal’s re- lease of trying to deflect atten- tion away from the Cardinal’s innocence by “trying to talk up redacted bits of the Roy- al Commission, talk up civil cases that haven’t even been held. It’s extraordinary.” He flatly rejected a sug- gestion by Ms Carvalho that such references were simply reporting facts. “What has happened to- day,” he re-emphasised, “is that the High Court, seven-nil, unanimously said that the Victorian justice system got it hopelessly wrong and re- stored a person who has been consistently referred to by a variety of media, including leading members of the ABC, as a ‘convicted pedophile’, which he is now not, nor can it be said - that’s the news of the day. “It is astonishing that an or- ganisation like the ABC which places so much emphasis on its trust is rapidly now trying to avert attention from that fundamental fact that you got it hopelessly wrong,” he said. He said he also had great sympathy for both Cardinal Pell’s accuser and other vic- tims of abuse. “In this case you have a complainant who is evident- ly highly credible. There’s no reason to believe that [the complainant] did not believe that he was telling the truth,” Prof Craven noted. “The biggest problem that he had was that he was in a case that was never going to go through to, from his point of view, a successful ending. “The reason that case was prosecuted, the reason that What happened today is that the High Court, seven-nil, said that the Victo- rian justice systemgot it hopelessly wrong ... it is astonishing that the ABC is rapidly now trying to avert attention from that fundamental fact ...” Prof Greg Craven, ACU case went as far as it was, was precisely because of the media fracas that I have been talking about. “So the question I have for you is how much guilt does the ABC feel, having made sure that this victim had gone through years of hell, only to be hurled down when the case should never have been brought?” He said he had no view on whether there should be a re- view of the Victorian judicial systembecause of thedecision. “However elements of the Victorian Police who did everything they could through the investigative process to try and promote a conviction, referring to complainants as victims, constantly leaking that charges would probably shortly be laid … very often in conjunction with journal- ists, very often with the ABC, I think those police, who are currently the subject of a Roy- al Commission into the use of lawyers as police informants, they have huge questions to answer. “Let’s face it, what hap- pened today was not some- thing that the Catholic Church was proved to have done something wrong, it was a case where a member of the Catholic Church was found not guilty of something that a very wide range of the media had been pushing as far as it could for as long as it could.” FINALLY, JUSTICE P12 ABC reporting of the story was shocking, Prof Craven has said. PHOTO: GIOVANNI PORTELLI CARDINAL PELL ACQUITTED