Miranda Devine: Cardinal Pell’s prison release isn’t a miracle, it’s justice
Through his historic trial, Cardinal George Pell became the scapegoat for all sins of the Catholic Church and robbed of any real chance of justice. Until this week, that is, writes Miranda Devine.
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For those who know Cardinal George Pell, it was no surprise that his first thoughts were for the welfare of others after he was cleared of child sex charges by a unanimous decision of the High Court Tuesday.
In the Catholic Church’s most Holy Week, this good priest who has suffered such a terrible injustice had only mercy in his heart for the accuser whose allegation put him in prison, which tarnished his reputation and abruptly ended his role as the corruption-fighting Vatican treasurer.
“I hold no ill will toward my accuser,” he said in a statement after his release. “I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough.
“The only basis for long term healing is truth and the only basis for justice is truth, because justice means truth for all.”
Cardinal Pell first knew of the High Court decision when a big cheer went up at Victoria’s high security Barwon jail shortly after 10am. Then three neighbouring inmates shouted their congratulations.
In his first personal reflections since the Court handed down its unanimous judgment, he described the moment when he learned his fate.
“I was watching the television news in my cell when the news came through,” he said through a friend. “First that leave was granted and then convictions quashed. I thought, ‘well, that’s great. I’m delighted’.
“Of course, there was no one to talk to about it until my legal team arrived.
“However, I did get a great cheer from somewhere within the jail and then the three other inmates near me gave a great cheer as well.”
One prison officer asked if he was happy about the “miracle”, to which Cardinal Pell replied: “It wasn’t a miracle – it was justice!”
With Easter almost upon us and a deadly virus sweeping the globe, Cardinal Pell’s example of Christian forgiveness is an inspiration.
But it does not negate the need for a full accounting of how justice in Victoria was so perverted that an innocent man could be railroaded through a politically motivated police investigation and an unfair trial.
Cardinal Pell became the reviled scapegoat for all the sins of the Catholic Church. But convicting the innocent does not help the victims of child sexual abuse. Quite the opposite. It allows the guilty to go free and creates doubt over genuine cases.
This was Australia’s Dreyfus Affair, an egregious miscarriage of justice that has savaged the reputation of this country’s legal system around the world.
The allegation that Pell raped two choir boys after Sunday mass in 1996 in a crowded St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne was implausible from the start.
It is frightening that he could be convicted by a jury on the word of one anonymous accuser, whose videotaped testimony played to the court was unsupported by any other witnesses, any forensic evidence, logic or common sense. The same fate could befall any Victorian.
The media lynch mob and the entire Victorian legal system stand condemned. The unanimous decision of the High Court is a repudiation of everyone involved in the false imprisonment of Cardinal Pell.
It raises urgent questions about the jury system, for so long the bedrock of our criminal justice. The jury was not told the whole truth, and crucial information, including about the mental health of the complainant, was withheld.
The onus of proof has been turned on its head in Victoria. Politicians pursuing ideological outcomes and pandering to pressure groups created legislation over the years that altered the balance of justice in favour of complainants, so that defendants in sex trials now have to prove they are not guilty, a reversal of the usual presumption of innocence.
The people of Victoria must demand an independent inquiry of how their criminal justice system got it so wrong, right through to the failure of the Court of Appeal to deliver justice.
The Victorian police commissioner Graham Ashton needs to stand down and any police involved in trawling for complaints and rigging the inquiry must account for their actions, including their repeated insistence that prosecutors accept their flimsy case.
At every step of the way there were terrible failures. But the High Court has restored faith in Australian justice.
Mark Weinberg, the sole dissenting judge on the Victorian Court of Appeal, has been vindicated. His 204-page dissenting judgment last year formed the basis for the High Court appeal.
During 404 days in prison Cardinal Pell, 78, was buoyed by his faith, his innocence, the kindness of prison guards and the thousands of letters and prayers he received from around the world.
“I want them to know I am extremely grateful,” he said.
After his first meal as a free man, steak and vegetables cooked by nuns, he walked thought the gardens of the Carmelite Monastery that is his temporary home and visited the relics of St Therese of Lisieux and her parents. St Therese was a French Carmelite nun who died of tuberculosis in 1897, at the age of 24. She loved flowers and was nicknamed the “little flower of Jesus”.
Cardinal Pell prayed for all those affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and for the people looking after them.
In the small suitcase of belongings which he packed to leave the prison was a 300,000-word manuscript he has been writing over the past 12 months. It is the basis of a book about his case and prison life but also contains his personal spiritual reflections.
It is not known whether the manuscript also contains revelations about the Mafia-like corruption he uncovered at the Vatican before he conveniently was removed.
But one thing is for sure. We can all learn the art of grace, love and forgiveness from the big heart of Cardinal Pell this Easter.