19 10, May, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au COMMENT Juries of the inglorious revolutions T he sexual revolution created awhole new class of crimes, and created awhole new set of procedures to try them. It granted anonymity to accusers, a change thatmet with surpris- inglyweak opposition. I didnot really understand the force of this until I found myself unexpectedly defending the long-deadBishopGeorge Bell [a close friendof theGer- manpastorDietrichBonhoef- fer] against ancient charges of child sex abuse. BishopBell couldnot be triedbecause hewas deceased. But theChurchof England’s treatment of his case verymuch reflected the newarrange- ments. Hewasmore or less pre- sumed guilty. His unnamed accuser was designated a victimand a “sur- vivor”, not an alleged victim, before any inquiry began.The procedure that adjudgedhim guilty, inprivate, didnot follow the presumptionof innocence andmade no serious effort to discover if therewas a defence (therewas). I found tomy shock that an inaccurate claim—that he wouldhave been arrested if alive—persuadedmany ap- parently fair-minded, educat- ed, and intelligent people of his guilt, though an arrest is evi- dence of nothing at all. Thanks to some truly ded- icated anddeterminedwork bymany people, and some very good legal work, the thing wasmore or less set right. But a grudgingChurchof England has yet tomake full restitution. Sowhen I saw the case in Australia against Cardinal George Pell, it was not just the similar name that arousedmy interest. I knew froma recent visit to Sydney that Australia hadundergone an anti-reli- gious revolution. I knewverywell howpow- erful allegations of child abuse hadbeen inweakening the Church.My instinctswere to believe that George Pell, who behaved like an innocentman, hadbeenwrongly accused. But what if thiswas just bias? I sought to keep anopenmind. I wouldpresume the cardinal was innocent, but wouldnot let myChristian sympathy close mymind to serious evidence against him. I had taken the same view in the Bell case. I resolved at the beginning never to be afraidof the truth. If the evidence against George Bell was convincing be- yond reasonable doubt, then I wouldhave to changemy view of amanwhose brave and self- less actions I hadmuch ad- mired. I wouldhave to accept that theworldwas a bleaker, worse place than even I had feared. I knewwell enough that therewere paedophile priests. The same had to apply toCar- dinal Pell. And then a strange silence fell over the trial. I know that therewere valid legal reasons for this silence, but it still seems tome that someway should have been found for a case of suchmoment to be heard openly and reportedopenly, while it was going on. WhenPell was convicted, I felt I had to accept the verdict because I was innoposition to dispute it, andhadnot heard what the jury hadheard. But thewhole sky darkened at the news. If such amanwas guilty of such a filthy thing, and a jury had agreedupon this after a fair trial, then the forces of good- nesswere in rapid and frighten- ing retreat. And then, amid the dismal suppressionof freedomand the economic lunacy nowgrip- ping theworld, came a sudden shaft of light.TheHighCourt of Australia overturned the verdict and freedCardinal Pell. And then I readwhat they had said. It was startling anddisturb- ing, not because therewas any ambiguity in it, but because of something else. A court state- ment declared: “TheHighCourt found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought tohave entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with re- spect to eachof the offences for whichhewas convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place.” The judges ruled: “On the assumption that the jury had assessed the com- plainant’s evidence as thor- oughly credible and reliable, the evidence of the opportunitywit- nesses nonetheless required the jury, acting rationally, tohave entertained a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt in rela- tion to the offences involved in both alleged incidents.” This seems tome to be a very politeway of suggesting that the jury didnot entertain that rea- sonable doubt. Imay be very grateful that theHighCourt took this view, because it seems tome that justicewas done whenGeorge Pell was freed. But will there always be such HighCourts, andwillmost peo- ple be able to reach them? In this egalitarianworld, in which a series of inglorious rev- olutions haswholly changed the nature of justice, I amnot sure that the oldEnglish jury is muchof a defence anymore. And I cannot begin to say how sad thismakesme. This article first appeared at www.firstthings.com The Cardinal Pell casewas not about the cardinal. It was about the death of the jury system And then, amid the dismal suppression of freedom and the economic lunacy now gripping the world, came a sudden shaft of light. The High Court of Aus- tralia overturned the verdict and freed Cardinal Pell. ” Peter Hitchens 1300 554 552 www.girafferemovals.com.au •
[email protected] One of Sydney’s most trusted removalists 50 YEARS OF REMOVAL Fast. Safe. Efficient. Country • Interstate • Long or Short Term Storage For over 50 years the Keoghan family have run an honest, professional removals business. We service homes, units, offices, parishes, schools, colleges and government departments. looming feast of the outpour- ing of the Holy Spirit, of the third person of the Trinity himself, into the Church at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has been the soul of the Church ever since - her chief mover, shak- er and maker. So yes the Church is divinely instituted - and animated. This is why the bishops To become fully human I t was great to read Dr Philippa Martyr’s article last week - most obvi- ously because it’s good to hear from a Catholic wom- an about the gift of women Catholics. She also touched on the interaction of the human and the divine in the Church: “But the Church isn’t a hu- man institution ... The Church is a divine institution, found- ed by God Himself when He lived on earth with us. Its continued existence is guar- anteed by God Himself, thank goodness, because we’re pretty hopeless.” Of course the Church is di- vinely instituted: otherwise, as St Paul says elsewhere, we’ve all been wasting a good deal of our time. But there are different ways to understand this. What’s important is that when we say the Church was divinely insti- tuted, it doesn’t mean Jesus told Peter “you’re the pope” and the apostles “you are bishops, priests and deacons” and then went on chilldown for 2000 years at the right hand of the Father. This would be to not only make Jesus a liar (“Lo, I am with you always”, etc), but would also be to ignore the have situated our reflections within the action of the Holy Spirit - and so also the Cath- olic Church - from day one of Plenary Council preparations. As articulated on the web- site: “We hope over the next three years ‘to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches’. This was the in- struction given to the seven churches of Asia Minor in the Book of Revelation. From that time on Christians have met to listen to the Spirit at times of important decisions. We are called to do so again.” So when the Spirit speaks and acts, he does so ecclesial- ly, in and in view of Commu- nion across time and space. If we are listening to the Spir- it, and want to bear His fruit, we will obviously do exactly the same. Yet if God is doing the leading and healing and teaching - what about me? Where is the space for my cre- ativity and projects and gifts? What little I have is crushed in the face of God’s infinite perfection in all things, right? And then what about my own freedom in regard to all the others: why do I have to be where they are, do what they do? This thought is also a temptation - not too different from the original one back in the Garden. And we now know the cost of giving into that one. For due to the goodness of God, his very being the origin of any and all being, there is no danger of being annihilated, manipulated or devalued in the abandonment of myself to God’s plans and action. Humanity given to God flourishes. The only certain- ty is that anything outside of that is pure deprivation of the very good that I desire. An immense suffering. Given God animates and heads the Church, the re- sponse to the second concern is not dissimilar to the first. I don’t ‘have’ to be with anyone - but genuine love supposes I will not be found anywhere else. And apart from the oth- ers I would not be part of the Church: I heard the Gospel from others, I receive sac- raments from others, I am taught, governed, and sanc- tified by others - and I am loved by the others. Sinful, foolish, and hurtful as they might sometimes be - without the others there is no Church on earth: and I’d know no God. Founded and animated by Love, the Church does things in a loving way - with and in view of the good of all the others in a way which utterly transcends personal histories or national borders. In short: it is not only that the Church is of Divine act - but that our cooperation with the Divine is far more human than a human act without the Divine. Fr Josh Miechels is a priest of the Emmanuel Community. He is currently Assistant Priest at Our Lady of the Rosary, Fairfield. His daily podcast can be found at The Furnace Our cooperation with God is far more human than a human act without the Divine, writes Fr Josh Miechels. PHOTO: CNS Fr Josh Miechels Columnist