Pope has no option but to be swift and brutal if the High Court rules against George Pell

Pope Frabcis will need to swift and brutal if the High Court rules against the cardinal. Anything less would rightly be seen as a total travesty of church justice, given Pell is a convicted sex offender.

If you’ve ever been inside a prison you will know that it is generally horrid. Much, much worse than the popular misconception of our jails being akin to upmarket motels.

George Pell, having lectured the world on morals and ethics since the 1960s, will have discovered this the moment he was strip-searched upon arrival at the Melbourne Assessment Prison six months ago.

Once the cardinal discovered that he would be relatively safe inside under 24-hour guard, it would have afforded some very short-term comfort.

But the long-term impact of liberty deprived is a cruel process of psychological destruction, where it is extremely hard to communicate with family and friends.

Nothing happens quickly. There are awful, damaged people everywhere, although in most cases they are just people who have taken the wrong turn or been born into the wrong circumstances. Three quarters will be inside one way or another because of drugs.

In Pell’s case, he has few excuses. Indeed, it’s been a life of privilege for many decades.

The Vatican will soon have to strip-search its own values when the question of Pell and the High Court arises.

In many ways, the High Court will define both Pell and the church on the abuse question.

In the event of the High Court agreeing to review the case, the Vatican, indeed the Pope, will be wanting a clear outcome.

If the Pell convictions are overturned then Pope Francis will have the relatively easy task of retiring the cardinal. Beyond that, it becomes a pretty straightforward public relations exercise.

The Pope, through whatever process the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decides, will have no option but to defrock him.

Like so many things with the church, the process of dealing with a sex abusing cardinal is opaque.

It is not a given that the church will be able engineer a full canonical trial, fundamentally because it is hard to see how any investigation will afford the bishops the necessary access to all the evidence.

This leaves open the spectre of a truncated inquiry in Rome, or even — as The Australian reported yesterday — a papal captain’s call on Pell’s future.

This scandal has not been timed well for Pell, if that is how to describe it. It comes as Pope Francis has committed to the attempted eradication of abuse across the faith. Worldwide.

This will leave him with no option but to be swift and brutal if the High Court rules against the cardinal. Anything less would rightly be seen as a total travesty of church justice, given Pell is a convicted sex offender, guilty of molesting two choirboys.

It is complex for the Australian church.

Pell has the support of the Australian bishops and his closest friends in the church are sticking right by him.

While this can seem hard to understand, there seems to be a strong belief from his supporters that the attacks he is convicted of are implausible.

These questions about the attacks don’t necessarily mean that all the church folk are all pro Pell. They are not.

But people who have spent considerable amounts of time in the cathedral, or indeed working the altar of other churches, just find it difficult to fathom.

They have been buoyed by the dissenting judgment of Justice Mark Weinberg, who shares the scepticism.

Of course, as the majority judgment in the Court of Appeal found, sex abusers can do really strange, cavalier things.

It will be up to the High Court to put an end to the speculation.

If it fails to deliver Team Pell what they want, then the Vatican axe will have to fall on Pell.

Given the way the case has unfolded, this seems to be the most likely outcome.

It would leave the Pope with no option but to act decisively, in the long-term interests of the ailing church.