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Category: Religion (Page 1 of 11)

Cardinal Pell. The Appeal.

August 25, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I have so far refrained from any comment on the outcome of Cardinal Pell’s appeal. To say I was disappointed with the outcome would be an understatement.

I have written extensively about this case here:

and here:

The prosecution case was based entirely on the evidence of a single person, some twenty years after the events.

The fact that it was a single person, and the delay, do not in themselves mean the complaint has no foundation. But those factors make both prosecution and defense more difficult. That is part of the reason the Victorian DPP decided not to proceed with prosecution, leaving (highly usually) the Victorian Police to prosecute the matter.

It has been suggested that the existence of a single witness/complainant should not be a barrier to a finding of guilty, and that in some instances, murder and sexual assault, for example, there may be only one witness, or none.

That is correct. But in the case of murder, there is no doubt that a crime has occurred. There is a body, blood, at least a missing person with additional evidence of criminal activity.

In the case of allegations of rape or sexual abuse, the prosecution normally requires some additional evidence besides the word of a single complainant; bruising, semen, witnesses who can corroborate at least part of the complainant’s story.

It was unremarkable, though sad and disappointing for her, that Victorian Police did not prosecute Kathy Sherif’s long-standing allegation of rape against Bill Shorten, an assault she alleges occurred at a Labor Party function in 1986 when she was sixteen. Kathy was able to produce witnesses who corroborated many aspects of her story.

The case against Cardinal Pell was far weaker: A single complainant who came forward only in response to public requests for complaints, who offered changing and inconsistent evidence, no corroborating witnesses, no forensic evidence of any sort, and multiple witnesses who gave evidence that they were with the then Archbishop throughout Mass and while he greeted parishioners immediately after, when the offences were alleged to have occurred. For details and more information about the background of the case, read my two articles linked above.

The first trial ended in a mistrial, with jurors reportedly voting ten to two in favour of a not guilty finding. The second trial took place after months of inflammatory reporting, especially in the Guardian, on the ABC, and in Louise Milligan’s scurrilous book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.

There was a carnival atmosphere in the press, a feeding frenzy of malice and bigotry, the like of which we have not seen since the Chamberlain case. John Bryson’s book on that case was titled “Evil Angels” the evil angels being the Australian media.

Some of the comment on social media has likewise been almost demonic in its hatred and disregard for truth. If people have not carefully examined the evidence and the background, then their comments say nothing about Cardinal Pell and his guilt or otherwise, but say a great deal about themselves.

Like the media-driven guilty findings in the Chamberlain case, the guilty finding in the Pell case is an indictment, not of Cardinal Pell, but of the Australian media, and to some extent, the Australian judiciary.

The dissenting judge in the Appeal, Justice Weinberg, was the only judge of the three with any history and significant experience of criminal cases. Part of his opinion can be found here:

Cardinal Pell – The Media and Judiciary’s Disgrace

August 11, 2019 / / 1 Comment

I have been frustrated by news stories today suggesting that “disgraced” Cardinal George Pell has broken the law by posting material to social media.

Firstly, Cardinal Pell is not “disgraced.” It is the media and the Australian judicial system which are disgraced by the verdict against him, which was based on the evidence of a single witness, a person of zero credibility, whose testimony was inconsistent, and in several places demonstrably false. I have written about this before and will not repeat those discussions here. If you are interested you can find the relevant articles and others by me at this link.

Secondly, and obviously, Cardinal Pell did not post anything to social media, because he has no access to social media. He wrote a letter to a group of people who have supported him in prayer and fellowship. They posted a scanned copy of his letter in on Twitter.

Is there a law against publicising correspondence received from prisoners?

I hope not, because I have transcribed it and copied it below. It does not reference his alleged offences, or the accuser, or anyone involved in that sorry excuse for a trial. It is simply a pastoral letter from a minister of the Gospel to a group of friends.
……………………………..
Melbourne Assessment Prison
1/8/19

Dear Kathy and brothers and sisters in Christ of the Support Cardinal Pell group.

First of all let me thank you for your prayers and messages of support, these being immense consolation, humanly and spiritually.

A word of explanation. I have received between 1500 – 2000 letters and all will be answered. So far I have only responded to letters from my fellow prisoners (to nearly all of those who wrote) and a few other special cases. Your kindness is not forgotten and will always be fondly remembered.

My faith in our Lord, like yours, is a source of strength. The knowledge that my small suffering can be used for good purposes through being joined to Jesus’s suffering gives me purpose and direction. Challenges and problems in Church life should be confronted in a similar spirit of faith.

We must always remember that the Catholic Church is one, not just in the sense that good families stick together whatever their differences, but because the Church of Christ is based in the Catholic Church, which constitutes the Body of Christ. One ancient saying teaches that there must be unity in essentials (Jesus’s essentials) but there can be diversity in non-essentials. But everywhere and in everything we must have charity.

I agree that we have reasons to be disturbed by the Instrumentum Laboris of the Amazonia Synod. This is not the first low quality document the Synod secretariat has produced. Cardinal G. Müller, formerly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has written an excellent critique. I am no expert in the region but I have been to Ecuador and Amazonian Peru, where a Sydney priest Fr John Anderson runs a parish of exemplary piety, pastoral activity and orthodoxy. As in the Amazon a lot of water has yet to run before the end of the Synod.

One point is fundamental. The Apostles’ Tradition, the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, taken from the New Testament and taught by Popes and councils, by the magisterium, is the only criterion doctrinally for all teaching on doctrine and practice. Amazon or no Amazon, in every land, the Church cannot allow any confusion, much less any contrary teaching, to damage the Apostolic Tradition.

The Spirit continues to be with the Church. You have every right to make your voices heard, reasonably and in charity. We need not expect the worst.

Yours in the Lord,
Your grateful brother
+George Card. Pell
……………………………

Fear, Faith and Folau

June 27, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Freedom of speech is an essential characteristic of any successful society. If people are not free to say what they believe, there can be no testing of ideas against each other and against reality. Without that, there can be no progress in science, in art, in literature, in education, in society and policy.

But the fact that freedom of speech is essential does not mean there are no limits. Famously, freedom of speech does not give anyone the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. Unless, of course, there is a fire. Speech that would cause grave harm by generating panic is rightly proscribed.

A just society is also right to place limits on hate speech, where hate speech is words intended to generate hatred against an individual or group, and to cause deliberate harm. Words which demand actions which are proven to be harmful to individuals or groups may also be restricted. For example, persons purporting to be health professionals should not be able to suggest to worried parents that bleach enemas will cure their child’s autism.

Beyond these extreme examples, a free and open society should be willing to tolerate a wide range of views, even when those views make some groups or individuals distressed or angry.

On social media I will unfriend and even block people who repeatedly post holocaust-denying material, or anti-semitic news or cartoons, including claims Israel has no right to exist or to defend its borders, or who post anti-vaccination propaganda. All of those views are dangerous, and misinformed if not deliberately ignorant. I want no part in sharing them or passing them on. But I would not want the government or employers to enforce rules which meant those people could not express their views without risk of fines, imprisonment or loss of employment.

There are some obvious exceptions. You should not expect to be able to work for the Salvation Army, for example, while publicly expressing the view that the Salvation Army is stupid, and its views on drugs and alcohol are oppressive. You cannot expect to work in a paediatrician’s practice while publicly maintaining that childhood vaccinations are a dangerous scam designed to make doctors more money.

Holocaust denial is simply silly, and is almost always based in malice. But making the expression of such views illegal creates the impression there is something to hide, or of fear of the truth. As far as possible, where it does not cause grave and immediate harm, the expression of any opinion should be permitted.

But being entitled to express your views does not mean anyone is obliged to listen to them. Nor is any person or business obliged to give you a platform for your views. When social media giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google shut down conservative writers, they are not impinging on anyone’s freedom of speech. They are sovereign companies and can enforce whatever rules and policies they like. No one forces you to use them. If your views are not welcome there, find somewhere else.

Nor does freedom of speech mean you are free from the natural consequences of what you say. If you are free to say what you wish, people are free to respond as they wish. They may decide they don’t like you, or that you are stupid or a bigot. They may decline to invite you to their home or to events, they may block you on social media. They may decide not to do business with you.

At what point does government or an employer have the right to demand someone keep their views to themselves? Most people would say when there is clear danger of grave and immediate harm. Israel Folau’s Instagram post a few weeks ago, and his comments at church, caused deep offence in some circles. Do they cross that line?

Taking offense is not always an unreasonable or juvenile reaction. There are ideas and graphics on social media I find offensive. When they appear I either ignore them, or if the person who posted them seems open to reason and discussion, I may try to engage in some fact-based discussion. What is juvenile is demanding that someone else take action because you are offended. Especially when, as in Israel Folau’s case, people appear to have gone out of their way to find something to be offended about.

No one is obliged to follow Israel Folau on any social media platform. I don’t. Nor is anyone obliged to go the church he goes to. If you don’t like something someone says on Facebook or Instagram, either engage with them and show them where they are wrong, or ignore the post, or unfriend or unfollow them.

But wait just a gol-darned minute.

If someone is whipping up hatred against another person or group, it does not matter whether that takes place in an auditorium or a phone booth. If speech is intended to cause deliberate harm to others, and is foreseeably likely to do so, then society not only has a reasonable interest in imposing restrictions, but a responsibility to do so.

I have gay friends. The best man at my wedding, my best friend at the time, is gay and is a supporter of the re-definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. I have gay family members. I would be distressed and angered if anyone suggested they were less worthy than others, or somehow less human, and that it was therefore appropriate to hate or exclude them.

Is that what Israel Folau was doing? If you follow only the mainstream media you might have got that impression. His post on Instagram and subsequent comments in church have been framed as a deliberate and malicious campaign against gay people and their rights by a militant homophobe. But media and corporate lobbyists are often wrong, so if we want to arrive at a fair appraisal, we need to look at what Israel Folau actually posted and said.

The Instagram post that started the furore was a quote from chapter six of St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.

The focus of this passage of scripture is twofold. First, sin separates us from God. When we choose to step outside God’s perfect will for us, we turn away from what gives us life. It is as if a plant decided it no longer needed sunlight and water and was going to go its own way. The results of our choosing to do it our way are all around us – loneliness, frustration, anger, despair. The ultimate result for us as individuals if we continue to choose our own path rather than God’s, is eternal separation from Him, not by His will but ours.

Paul tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us. That is the point of the list quoted by Folau. It is the opposite of singling out any group for derision. I am on the list at least twice. Everyone is on the list. We have all turned aside, we are all lost, none is better than any other. Incidentally, although it often goes unmentioned, this is the reason homosexual persons male or female are safer and more respected in predominantly Christian countries, or countries with a long history of Christian influence, than anywhere else. Yes, homosexual acts are sinful, and so is lying, disrespect for parents, drunkenness, laziness, etc, etc. To homosexual persons who say “But you are saying we are sinners and will go to hell” St Paul, Israel Folau, and other Christians reply “Yes, exactly like all the rest of us.”

The second focus of St Paul’s list, and its ultimate purpose, is to let people know that whatever the nature of their particular temptations and sinfulness, no matter how far they have turned off the path, it is always only one step back. St Paul’s list, shared by Israel Folau, is an invitation to everyone to return home, to find life, light, hope, and peace again, and most importantly, an eternal life of joy. Again, this is the opposite of singling out a group for hatred and exclusion. It is a universal invitation to love and fellowship.

“Well, OK,” some might say. “But what about his targeting of trans-gender kids? There can be no excuse for that.” And that would be right, if that were what had happened.

But it wasn’t. Folau said that children needed to be protected against early sexualisation. It didn’t matter whether gay or straight. Just let children be children. That is a long way from attacking children.

He also suggested children needed to be protected against activist practitioners and bureaucrats and misguided parents into being pressured to make decisions they could not understand, which would cause them serious harm, and which they would later regret. There is a large body of experience and evidence to support this point of view.

Johns Hopkins Hospital was one of the pioneers of sex-change surgery. It no longer performs sex-change operations because it found a high level of profound regret post-surgery, higher levels of depression, and far higher levels of suicide. Its psychiatrists and surgeons formed the view that gender dysmorphia is a psychological problem that needed psychological solutions, and that attempts at surgical intervention were counter-productive, even destructive.

You may disagree, and you are free to quote other studies or experiences to support your point of view. But that does not mean that Israel Folau’s views are hateful or malicious.

As I write, today’s news reports that Maria Folau, a Silver Fern, a member of New Zealand’s national netball team, has been targeted by the ANZ and another corporate sponsor, and her dismissal from the team demanded, because she has not publicly rebuked her husband or distanced herself from him. The ANZ, for heaven’s sake, that champion of social justice and paragon of corporate responsibility.

You have to wonder whether in omitting the context of Folau’s views and the passage of scripture he shared, and the distortion of his comments, and now the targeting of his family, his accusers are not doing exactly what they indict him of; singling out an individual or group for exclusion and hatred.

There has also been ridicule and hatred directed at the Folau family because they asked for support in meeting legal costs. But here too, there are other things to keep in mind. Israel Folau has already put over $100,000 of his own money into paying legal bills and countering persecution neither he nor any member of a free society should have to face. He has assets, but that does not mean he has large amounts of cash. Footballers have a short career, generally no more than fifteen years to build up assets to provide for their families for a lifetime. Folau has done this responsibly and carefully.

My wife and I give over $400 per month to various church groups and charities. If I choose to give $20 to Folau’s defence fund this is in addition to, not instead of anything else. I suspect this is the case for most who have contributed. It is interesting that so many people seem to have discovered an interest in sick children over the last few days, and are suddenly inspired to claim loudly that sick children are more important than justice. Both are important.

It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Israel Folau or not. If you have ever posted anything on social media anyone could disagree with or find offensive, or ever said anything in any gathering that an over-zealous employer could claim had potential to bring his or her business into disrepute, eventually the mob will come for you.

Who will stand with you then?

The Deletion of Faith

June 7, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I was very pleased today to see the Google doodle commemorating the life and achievements of Elena Cornaro Piscopia, who lived from 1646 to 1684, and who in 1678 was the first woman in the world to receive a PhD from any university.

Google doodle of Elena Cornaro Piscopia

Google doodle of Elena Cornaro Piscopia

I was less pleased to see no reference in the doodle to Elena’s faith as a Catholic Christian, which was her guide and her motivation throughout her studies and her life. So deep was her faith and commitment that at age eleven she took a vow of chastity, and in 1665 at age nineteen became a Benedictine Oblate.

She was guided and encouraged through her academic career by priests who were both friends and tutors.

This is part of her Wikipedia entry:
“As a young girl, Lady Elena was seen as a prodigy. By the advice from Giovanni Fabris, a priest who was a friend of the family, she began a classical education. She studied Latin and Greek under distinguished instructors, and became proficient in these languages, as well as French and Spanish, by the age of seven. She also mastered Hebrew and Arabic, earning the title of “Oraculum Septilingue”. Her later studies included mathematics, philosophy and theology.

Elena came to be an expert musician. She mastered the harpsichord, the clavichord, the harp and the violin. Her skills were shown by the music that she composed in her lifetime. In her late teens and early twenties she became interested in physics, astronomy and linguistics.

In 1669, she translated the Colloquy of Christ by Carthusian monk Giovanni Lanspergio from Spanish into Italian. The translation was dedicated to her close friend and confessor, Fr. Gianpaolo Oliva. The volume was issued in five editions in the Republic from 1669 to 1672. She was invited to be a part of many scholarly societies when her fame spread and in 1670 she became president of the Venetian society Accademia dei Pacifici (The Academy of the Peaceful).

Her PhD was conferred on 25 June 1678, in Padua Cathedral in the presence of the University authorities, the professors of all the faculties, the students, and most of the Venetian Senators, together with many invited guests from the Universities of Bologna, Perugia, Rome, and Naples.

The Lady Elena spoke for an hour in classical Latin, explaining difficult passages selected at random from the works of Aristotle. She was listened to with great attention and when she had finished, she received plaudits as Professor Rinaldini proceeded to award her the insignia of the laurea, the book of philosophy, placing the wreath of laurel on her head, the ring on her finger, and over her shoulders the ermine mozetta.”

Elena is not alone in having her firmly and repeatedly expressed views of what guided her work and gave it value, deleted without mention from secular re-tellings of her story.

The latest example is the film biography of JRR Tolkien, which somehow manages to get through two hours of story-telling without even a passing reference to the fact that Tolkien was a Catholic Christian, who was vocal throughout his life about the fact that his faith was his light, his guide and his motivation.

If you leave out the central motivation and guiding principle in someone’s life, you are not leaving something out, you are simply not telling the story.

This deletion of any references to faith in the lives of Christian artists and scholars extends into their work. Peter Jackson’s shallow but commercially successful parody of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a perfect example.

Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as a work of Catholic theology, and it is. But any references to faith, to providence, the nature of sacrifice, service and leadership, the structure and meaning of the universe, to sacraments; for example the baptismal saving of the company from the servants of death through the wild waters of the Bruinen, the Lembas or waybread given to sustain the hobbits on their journey, and the absolution of Boromir, are carefully skirted around or left unmentioned.

I won’t even start on Disney’s appalling mockery of the Narnia stories. If you take out the heart of a story, there is no story left, only cheap thrills and silliness.

Perhaps the most egregious omission from Peter Jackson’s movies was the huge gap in the story where Tom Bombadil should be. A casual watcher of the movies, someone unfamiliar with the books, would probably not notice the absence. But Tom Bombadil and Goldberry tell us half of the purpose of the quest.

Defeating evil is not just about destroying evil in the form of Sauron (sauros, Greek, means lizard or dragon) and the ring. It is about restoring the good.

In Bombadil and Goldberry, in their laughter and song and dancing, in their imperviousness to evil, and in Bombadil’s naming of animals, Tolkien paints a picture of Adam and Eve before the fall, and therefore of God’s original plan for humanity – a life of joy, of laughter and dancing and song, of bliss in the little things, without fear or sickness or knowledge of death, or the possibility of using others or being used by them.

The quest is not simply the destruction of an evil object, but the restoration of hope, of love and truth and joy and peace. Bombadil and Goldberry show us what that can mean; the end point and purpose. The Lord of the Rings is not the story Tolkien told without them.

Faith is essential to Narnia, to the Lord of the Rings, and to making sense of the lives of Tolkien and of Elena Cornaro Piscopia. Our understanding of them, of their work, and of the meaning and purpose of our own lives, are very much poorer without it.

Israel Folau and the Hateful Intolerance of the Lovingly Inclusive

April 12, 2019 / / 0 Comments

A few days ago, rugby player and Wallabies team member Israel Folau posted a quote from 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10 on Twitter and Instagram.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce immediately claimed this was homophobic, and threatened to withdraw Qantas’s sponsorship of the ARU unless Folau’s contract was terminated.

The ARU caved instantly: “We want to make it clear that he does not speak for the game with his recent social media posts.” Well, no. He never claimed he did.

“In the absence of compelling mitigating factors, it is our intention to terminate his contract.” In other words, unless Israel Folau is willing to grovel, apologise for offending Mr Joyce, and promise never to quote the Bible again, he will be fired.

Chairman of the Australian Rugby League, Peter Beattie, has already announced that Folau will be excluded from any future NRL team.

These actions are grossly hypocritical for two reasons. I will explain why in a second.

But first, let’s note that in his letters to the church in Corinth, Paul is addressing Christians. Some people in that congregation, despite claiming to be saved and living in the grace of God, continued to act in ways which were not compatible with the Gospel.

Paul goes on to say in the next verse “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” In other words, you are a new creation. You are no longer to think or act in the ways you did.

There are plenty of things in his list to be offended about, if you are inclined to take offence. Paul mentions drunks, adulterers, liars, thieves… He is not targeting any particular group of people. He is challenging all Christians to live in accordance with the commitment and promises they have made, and the grace they have been given.

If they don’t, then as much as they persist in actions which are contrary to the teachings and example of Jesus, to that same extent, they reject the love of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul is not condemning anyone.

Nor was Israel Folau when he repeated Paul’s words. He is noting that their actions and attitudes condemn them, and calls them (us!) to repentance, so they (we!) might find and continue in abundant and eternal life. Paul and Israel Folau are not homophobic, liar-o-phobic, or thief-o-phobic. If they are phobic about anything, they are phobic about sin itself, as every Christian should be.

If you are a Christian this should not be a source of anger and offence, but of reflection and thankfulness.

If you are not a Christian it does not relate to you at all, so why would you be offended by it? People in other religions believe lots of things I don’t believe. Hindus think it is terribly wrong to eat beef. Muslims think it is an abomination to eat bacon and that anyone who wilfully does so will end in the fires of hell. Buddhists believe that if you were born disabled or caught some dreadful disease or suffered some tragedy, it is because you deserve it, and there is no point in trying to help you. I might think these beliefs are regrettable, but why should I be offended by them? They don’t apply to me.

Even more, why would I try to stop people who hold those beliefs from expressing them? To do so would be unkind, exclusive, and judgemental.

It is just as unkind, exclusive, and judgemental when Alan Joyce uses his considerable financial power to stop Israel Folau from expressing his beliefs.

This is the first point of hypocrisy. That in the name of inclusiveness and diversity, Joyce uses his power to bully, silence and exclude someone who sees things differently from him. Unless Folau recants (he won’t) he will be fired. This will affect not only him, but his family. Who is really being hateful and exclusive here?

The second is that while condemning Israel Folau, Qantas under Alan Joyce’s leadership continues to partner with the national airlines of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Public flogging, stoning, crucifixion and amputation are all accepted and practised punishments under their Islamic law. In 2014 an Asian housemaid was stoned to death in Abu Dhabi. In 2010 an 18 year old woman who had been gang raped by a police officer and five other men withdrew her complaint after the courts threatened her with flogging and a lengthy jail sentence for extra-marital sex. She was still required to serve a year in jail. Homosexual acts are capital crimes in both Qatar and the Emirates.

None of this seems to be of any concern to Alan Joyce and Qantas executives. But when a hardworking and talented young Australian of Tongan extraction quotes the Bible to call other Christians to repentance, they publicly vilify him and demand he be forced out of his job.

Fair enough? I don’t think so.

Christchurch Terror

March 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

It is important to try to understand the mass murder in Christchurch, but it is just too early to make any sound or meaningful assessment. Despite the manifesto, we do not know enough about Tarrant’s background and thoughts, and we know nothing about any of the others who may have been involved. That hasn’t stopped the mainstream media with its screeching headlines. More on that in a minute.

I know Christchurch a little. My mother was born at Lyttleton, Christchurch’s port and a very pretty place, and I have spent time in Christchurch and worshipped at the cathedral. That poor city has had more than its share of troubles.

Christchurch Cathedral

Christchurch Cathedral

Lyttleton Harbour, Christchurch

Lyttleton Harbour, Christchurch

What we can say, and the first thing we must say, is this. There is no excuse, ever, for religious or political violence against ordinary people. Whatever their background, the victims thought they had found a home in New Zealand, and were entitled to feel safe and welcome.

What we cannot justifiably do, at least yet, is make the judgments about Tarrant’s views some media organisations have made.

Someone who hates capitalism, corporatism, and conservatism, who despises President Trump’s economic and foreign policies, who describes himself as a former communist, now an eco-fascist, who recently visited Pakistan and said he liked and respected the people there, and whose most admired country is communist China, is neither a white supremacist, nor right wing.

If he wrote the manifesto in his name, he is highly intelligent, and thoroughly evil.

To repeat, there is no excuse, ever, anywhere, for acts of terror against civilians. All such acts, wherever they occur, and by whoever they are committed, must be condemned, and every step taken to stop them recurring.

Tarrant suggested he was trying to defend the West and its traditions. The opposite is true. He has comprehensively betrayed our values and our history.

Cardinal Pell Sentenced

March 13, 2019 / / 13 Comments

On March 13th, Cardinal George Pell was sentenced to six years jail on charges of child sexual abuse. He will be eligible for parole in three years and eight months.

Some people have pounced on comments at sentencing made by Pell’s defence team, suggesting that these were admission of guilt. This is not the case.

In both Australian and UK courts, once a jury delivers a verdict of guilty, the defence may not dispute that finding (until any appeal is lodged) but has to address the court as if the fact of guilt were now established.

The presiding judge is under a similar obligation, so Justice Peter Kidd’s remark prior to sentencing that his comments and sentencing were made on the assumption that the offences took place as alleged is striking and unusual. I have been present during a number of criminal trials, and I have never heard any judge say anything similar, almost as if he were distancing himself from the verdict, and making it clear he was going through the motions as required.

Why would he do this? Perhaps because the evidence falls far short even on a balance of probabilities basis, let alone where guilt is required to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a principle in English and Australian jurisprudence that if there is a reasonable explanation of the evidence that is consistent with the defendant’s being innocent of the charges, a verdict of not guilty must be returned.

Not only were there reasonable alternative explanations of the evidence, but on the evidence given in court by multiple witnesses, it was simply impossible for Cardinal Pell to have committed the offences as alleged.

Some people have suggested that since the court was closed, no one can know what the evidence was, and therefore no one apart from the jury knows the full story. But this is not the case. The court was not closed. Several journalists and members of the public attended throughout. Media suppression is not the same thing as a closed court. That simply meant that details of the case could not be published in Australia until the suppression or der was lifted.

The prosecution’s case was that following Mass at the Cathedral, Archbishop Pell had found two boys in the sacristy drinking altar wine, and had forced them to give him oral sex. The “second victim,” who died before the case came to trial, had said specifically that nothing of the sort ever took place. The entire case against Cardinal Pell was the testimony, more than twenty years after the alleged events, of a single person whose credibility was not permitted to be challenged in court.

The prosecution did not dispute that after Mass Archbishop Pell had been at the door of the Cathedral greeting parishioners as they left, or that after this, he had been in the company of several other people until he left for another function.

The only time in which the alleged offences could have occurred were in the period after the final blessing, until the exit procession arrived at the main doors.

In summary, this is what the prosecution claimed on the basis of the word of a single, uncorroborated witness:

As the procession was forming to leave, two choir boys absconded, unnoticed by anyone at the time or later. At about the same time, the Archbishop, celebrating in his Cathedral for one of the first times, also absconded, also unnoticed by anyone else in the procession, or the hundreds of other people in the Cathedral. The boys returned to the busiest room in the Cathedral at that time, the sacristy, where they found some altar wine which they began to drink, even though altar wine is never left there unattended.

According to the alleged victim, neither the sacristan nor any of the other altar servers or helpers, who would normally be constantly in and out of that room at the time, were anywhere to be seen. Archbishop Pell entered the room, unseen by anyone, and demanded the boys give him oral sex.

It was not disputed that he was wearing his eucharistic vestments. These consist of a close fitting cassock with thirty-nine buttons from top to bottom, a cincture – a wide band around the waist of the cassock, an alb, a long white robe tied with a rope or cord (both cassock and alb are full-length garments, reaching from neck to floor), and over these a dalmatic and a chasuble, both heavy brocade garments reaching to the knees.

Evidence given by the prosecution’s single witness was that these garments were pushed aside. They cannot be pushed aside. It is just possible that they could be lifted enough to give access to everyday clothes underneath, and that these could then be opened, but the cassock, alb, dalmatic and chasuble would need to be held with one hand the entire time. It would tight and uncomfortable, and movement would be almost impossible. This would still be the case even if Pell were wearing only an alb, stole and chasuble over his street clothes, as some parish clergy do.

The prosecutions’ case is that having taken a few minutes to lift these tight, heavy garments and open his normal clothes underneath, the Archbishop, with very limited movement and one free hand, chased the two boys around the sacristy, unnoticed by the large number of people moving between that room and the sanctuary, forcing each of the boys to give him oral sex.

He then masturbated to completion, rearranged his garments, walked back through the Cathedral and re-joined the procession before it arrived at the Cathedral door, again without anyone noticing, while the two boys re-joined the choir, also without anyone noticing either that they were back or that they had been gone.

All of this, according to the prosecution, from the time the procession left the sanctuary to the time it arrived at the door, about one hundred metres distance, took place in about five minutes. In reality (I have been to mass at that Cathedral) about three minutes. Three minutes!

The story is manifestly ludicrous. It is impossible, simply silly.

Juries get things wrong. Facts can be complex, laws confusing, and trials long. But the finding of the jury in this case is unaccountable. The verdict is not an indictment of Cardinal Pell, far less the Catholic Church as a whole, but of Australia’s mainstream media, and Victorian Police.

Operation Tethering, the Victorian police investigation into Cardinal Pell, started in 2013. It was not set up to consider complaints of criminal behaviour; there hadn’t been any. It was set up to generate them. This campaign included the placing of advertisements in Victorian newspapers inviting people to make complaints. If you invite complaints, you will get them. The police had their man. They just needed a suitable victim.

Comparisons have been made between the calumnies heaped on Pell by the media, and the feeding frenzy of hate and condemnation directed at Lindy Chamberlain between 1980 and 1988. The media have been evil angels in both cases, and in the case of Henry Keogh, and of Archbishop Wilson, and others. A rush to gleeful condemnation has become an ugly, but presumably profitable, feature of some parts of Australia’s mainstream media. But at least in the Chamberlain and Keogh cases, something had happened which required investigation. Juries in both cases were misled by mind-bogglingly incompetent forensic experts. For Cardinal George Pell, there were no incidents or complaints to investigate. Police had to go hunting for offences with which to charge a man they had already decided was guilty.

The verdict will be overturned on appeal. But massive harm has been done, to Cardinal Pell himself, of course, to the credibility of Australia’s media and judicial system, and not least to genuine victims.

For Whom the Pell Tolls

March 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

The guilty verdict in the trial of Cardinal George Pell is a travesty. It will be overturned on appeal, as was the equally baseless and vindictive conviction of Archbishop Wilson of Adelaide.

Thoughtful commentary here from gay activist Milo Yiannopulos. Having been the priest in charge of a small cathedral, and having frequently been involved in Sunday worship and other services at larger metropolitan cathedrals, I know the scenario described by the single accuser is simply impossible. A bishop in attendance is always in the company of a priest, during preparations before Mass, and when greeting parishioners after.

Cardinal George Pell

Cardinal George Pell during his trial for historic child sex abuse.

My view of this from general experience is confirmed in this particular instance through communication with observers present at the trial, and one person who also was present at the first, which was declared a mistrial after the original hung jury, which reportedly voted not guilty ten to two.

According to those observers, the trial was a “slam dunk” for the defence, which not only showed Cardinal Pell did not commit the offences alleged, but that it was simply impossible for him to have done so.

Catholic History, Sex, and Cardinal Pell Part II

January 10, 2019 / / 2 Comments

This is part two of a two part response to media articles (not in Australia, where the media are banned from reporting or commenting on this issue), Facebook and Twitter posts responding positively to the conviction of Cardinal George Pell on charges of child sex abuse. Part one discussed general issues about the history and credibility of the Catholic Church. This second part addresses the child sex abuse scandal, and the trials of Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell.

Strangely, for one usually so sceptical and questioning, the alleged high rate of child abuse in the Catholic church was something I simply absorbed from the ether, or perhaps from the ABC, which, since I disagree with it about almost everything, is my primary news source. Looking back, I am still not sure why, while enthusiastically poking holes in most other ABC reporting, I was content to accept their claims about the church being the locus of most child abuse. I wasn’t a Catholic at the time. Perhaps it was simply comforting to be able to think of something so nasty as being nothing to do with anyone I knew, or any organisations I was involved in. Except it wasn’t true.

It is hard to know where to start with this, so I will make just a few key points, which you can follow up or check if you wish. During the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse, the ABC breathlessly reported that 60% of child abuse in a religious institution took place within the Catholic Church. Shocking! How disgusting! What a hive of degenerates! Except that by not telling the whole story, the ABC was saying something completely untrue. What was left out was that during the time under investigation, 80% of children who attended a religious school or were resident in a religious institution, were students in or resident in a Catholic institution. The twenty percent of students/residents in institutions run by other religious groups accounted for 40% of the total abuse reported. In other words, a student in a non-Catholic religious school was more than twice as likely to have been molested than a student in a Catholic school.

In fact, Catholic clergy have lower rates of abuse than clergy of other religions or denominations (some groups, for example the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have far higher reported rates of abuse than any mainstream denomination). In turn, clergy of other denominations have lower rates of abuse than occur in secular community and sports groups and public schools (the boy scouts in the US has just filed for bankruptcy because it cannot keep up with payouts for abuse claims). And abuse in any church, school or community group is far outstripped by abuse in the home. Bettina Arndt noted “It’s total hypocrisy. We jump up and down in the Royal Commission about abuse of people in institutions. We don’t give a stuff about the major risk for children which is, you know, children in single parent families being abused by boyfriends passing in and out of those families … There are a whole lot of areas [of sexual child abuse] we don’t discuss because they are not politically correct. Obviously, we’re trying to get the Catholic Church and attack churches.” Ninety percent of all child sexual abuse occurs within the child’s own home.

The Royal Commission noted that there had been 2504 incidents of alleged child sexual abuse in the Uniting Church between its inauguration in 1977 and 2017. This compares with 4445 claims of abuse in the Catholic Church between 1950 and 2015. Some parts of the media pounced on this figure as again proving the disproportionate amount of abuse that occurred within the Catholic Church. But two other factors need to be considered. The Commission did not consider any abuse claims made against the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches during the 27 year period from 1950 to 1977. Most abuse claims in the Catholic Church occurred in the 1970s. This may also have been the case in other denominations. But whether so or not, this is 27 years in which abuse in the Catholic Church was considered and counted, but not in other denominations. In addition, media reports generally failed to note that the Catholic Church has five times as many members as the Uniting Church. On the Commission’s figures, a child attending the Uniting Church was more than twice as likely to have been molested than a child attending the Catholic Church.

Another important fact that become clear in the cases reported to the Royal Commission is that almost all reported abuse in the Catholic Church occurred in the sixties, seventies and early eighties. Was it disgusting? Absolutely. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Should perpetrators be brought to justice? Absolutely. Is it still happening? No. Or hardly.

So what changed, that the rate of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, already lower than other denominations and community groups, was reduced dramatically even further? Part of the answer is that strong leaders like Phillip Wilson and George Pell were appointed to positions where they able to make a difference. It is no co-incidence that those two, who were most vigorous in setting up systems to support victims and to ensure that perpetrators were stopped, are also the men who have been targeted by the media and the courts.

At the time Archbishop Wilson was charged, I spoke to a senior priest, now a bishop. The charges seemed incomprehensible to me. On the evidence available it was not clear how any responsible prosecutorial team could reasonably expect a conviction. He agreed. “They don’t care,” he said. “They just want to get a senior Catholic.” Hard to believe, but if so, then the trials of Wilson and Pell are not so much trials of those two men, but a trial of Australia’s system of justice.

I wrote an article shortly after Archbishop Wilson’s conviction (that he had known of and failed to report abuse by priest James Fletcher) which was published in Quadrant Online. In it I argued that the malleability of memory is so well understood that a conviction could not possibly safely be based on two alleged conversations never noted or reported to anyone else until formal complaints were made over forty years later. I suggested that the presiding magistrate’s finding that the case against Archbishop Wilson was proven could only be understood in the light of the kind of media bias noted above, and predicted the verdict would be overturned on appeal.

It was. District Court Judge Roy Ellis offered similar reasons to set aside the conviction as I had suggested in my article. Some of the evidence considered at the original trial as contributing to a finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt was even more ludicrous than I had first believed. One of the two conversations which contributed to the “proof” of later Archbishop Wilson’s alleged guilty knowledge of the sexual abuse perpetrated by James Fletcher took place in the confessional. The complainant acknowledged he could not see the priest was to whom he was speaking clearly, but thought he saw red lips, and said the priest had a deep voice, and on this basis came to the conclusion it was Fr Wilson, then a 25 year old parish priest. But Archbishop Wilson does not have red lips or a particularly deep voice. The original finding that Archbishop Wilson had known and deliberately covered up knowledge of the activities of James Fletcher, based on this and one other alleged conversation more than forty years earlier, was clearly and grievously wrong. Justice is not done, nor are victims helped, when innocent people are vilified and persecuted.

One of George Pell’s first actions on becoming Archbishop of Melbourne was to set up clear processes for dealing with complaints of sexual abuse. This was not in response to media alarm about child abuse. The Boston scandal, for example, was five years in the future. Nor was it an attempt to protect the reputation of the Church. Pell was one of the first in any organisation in the world to put protocols in place which protected victims, supported them through whatever processes they wanted to follow, including police action where appropriate, required any accused person to stand down during independent investigation, and which instituted a one strike you’re out policy.

It is hard to think of anyone in Australia who has done more to prevent child sexual abuse, to bring those responsible to justice, and to support victims and simplify processes for them.

However, it did not take long for The Guardian and the ABC to identify Archbishop, later Cardinal Pell, as an enemy, a prime target. He is on friendly terms with John Howard and Tony Abbott. He has publicly dismissed climate alarmism as a scam which, if policies based on it and urged by the UN and various celebrities were instituted, would cause serious harm to the world’s poorest people. He publicly described abortion as the worst possible child abuse. He declined to be sorry when some Catholic teachings, on the nature of marriage, for example, or the sinfulness of homosexual activity, were claimed to be offensive. He believes that Western culture is worth preserving, and that immigrants to Australia should enter the country legally, and apart from a carefully measured number of refugees, should be people who are willing and able to make a contribution. And perhaps worst of all, he noted that it is impossible to take proper action to correct a problem until the problem is correctly identified and therefore any proposed remedies to sex abuse in ecclesiastical settings needed to take account of the fact that while girls and young women are overwhelmingly the most common victims of sexual abuse, almost all of the child sex abuse that had taken place in the Church involved homosexual men and adolescent boys. Others who have pointed out this connection have been met with similar fury, most recently, German Cardinal Walter Brandmueller .

If you did not know Cardinal Pell, and you wanted to invent a perfect nemesis for Australia’s left-wing media, you could not do better than to come up with a an intelligent, energetic, tough-minded, rugby-playing, politically and religiously conservative straight white male.

The ABC’s almost psychotic obsession with finding something dreadful to report about Cardinal Pell was noted at least as long ago as 2015, when veteran Australian journalist Gerard Henderson suggested the mainstream media had the wrong target, and was focussing on Pell simply because he is a social conservative.

Then there are comments from left-wing media consumers. “He must have done something, they’re all at it.” (No, they’re not). “Even if he is not a pedophile himself, he protected them, moved them around.” (There is no evidence whatever this is the case.) “He had to know something.” (ABC journalist Paul Bongiorno, who shared a house with notorious pedophile Risdale says he didn’t, and never said anything. As soon as Pell was in a position to do something to stop child sex abuse happening and to support victims, he did). “Someone needs to be held accountable.” (Yes, the perpetrators and anyone who assisted or covered up for them. As I noted above, there is no correction to injustice in committing the further injustice of vilifying and convicting people who are innocent.)

But what of the specific charges against Cardinal Pell? They were that, while Archbishop of Melbourne, he found two choir boys drinking altar wine after Mass at the Cathedral, and demanded they give him oral sex. Shocking? Yes. Terrible? Yes. And ludicrous, as Andrew Bolt noted at the time this claim was first made public .

Firstly, despite the gruesome headlines, there was one complainant, not two. The second boy alleged to have been a victim denied he had ever been abused. The accuser only claimed the second boy had been involved fifteen years after the alleged event, and after that boy, then a young man, died of a drug overdose in 2014. So a single, uncorroborated complaint.

The accuser was not able to specify an exact time when the claimed abuse took place. Instead, he claimed it occurred on a Sunday some time between August and December 1996. St Patrick’s Cathedral was being renovated during much of this time, and Archbishop Pell celebrated Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral only twice during the accuser’s four month window. On both of those occasions, Pell remained at the door of the Cathedral after Mass, greeting and talking with parishioners and visitors before leaving for other engagements. On both of those occasions he was accompanied by another priest who gave evidence that he was with Pell, rarely at more than arm’s length distance, for the entire time he was at the Cathedral.

Other witnesses pointed out that on both of the occasions on which Archbishop Pell celebrated Mass between August and December 1996, choir practice was held immediately after Mass, and that the absence of two choirboys would have been noted immediately. Other witnesses gave evidence that the accuser’s description of finding and drinking altar wine in a back room was unlikely in the extreme, given that altar wine was kept in a vault and only brought out in required quantities before Mass.

The presiding judge instructed both defence and prosecution teams that they were not to question, or to bring into evidence anything that might call into question, the credibility of the accuser. This is a frankly astonishing instruction – the case against Pell rests entirely on the credibility of his single accuser. More than one of the choir members at the time has said that even if it had only been the accuser’s word against Cardinal Pell’s, given the personality and history of the accuser, there could be no confidence any such events ever took place.

But it was not merely the accuser’s word against Cardinal Pell’s. Journalists and members of the public present at the trial said it was “a slam dunk for the defence.” The defence evidence, some of which is summarised above, showed not only cause for reasonable doubt, not even that Cardinal Pell did not commit the alleged offences, but that it was not possible for him to have done so.

The verdict is not an indictment of Pell and the Catholic Church. It is an indictment of the media, whose vindictive witch hunt led to a public furore and frenzied demands that someone, anyone, be punished. It is also an indictment of police departments and court administrators who allowed themselves to be driven by that frenzy, and perhaps, of the running of the trial and instructions given by the trial judge to the jury. There is a long-standing principle of Western jurisprudence that if there is a reasonable explanation of the evidence which is consistent with the defendant’s innocence, a verdict of not guilty must be returned. At very least, that should have been reiterated to the jury, and evidence of the accuser’s personal and criminal history made available as bearing on the credibility of his accusations.

The verdict will be overturned on appeal, as was the equally egregious verdict against Archbishop Wilson. So no harm done.

But harm has been done. Firstly to Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell, both faithful servants of the Church and the wider community. Secondly to the Church, which despite having lower rates of abuse than other bodies, has been, with a few appalling exceptions, open, forthright and pro-active in acknowledging abuse where it occurred, and putting processes in place to support victims. Many other institutions face a far larger public reckoning; there is filth lurking in places yet undreamed of. Thirdly to Wilson and Pell’s friends and families, who, like many other friends or family of alleged child abusers, have been subject to irrational hatred and slander, as well as unnecessary pain and doubt and confusion. Fourthly to genuine victims of child abuse, who, seeing these trials and their politically-driven outcomes, will wonder how they can rely on those whose duty it is to listen to them and protect them. And finally, following these debacles, harm has been done to Australia’s courts and police, whose credibility and independence is rightly called into question.

Catholic History, Sex, and Cardinal Pell Part I

January 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

There have been several media articles (not in Australia, where the media is banned from reporting the issue), posts on Facebook, and comments on Twitter over the last two weeks rejoicing in the conviction of Cardinal Pell on charges of child sex abuse.

That trial and its outcome are nothing to rejoice in.

I intended to respond to those posts and articles by addressing the trial and the evidence presented. But when I began, it became clear that I could not do so without first considering the context of some of the other reasons the Catholic Church is commonly held in contempt by Australia’s left-wing media and others.

Consequently my planned response is in two parts. This first part addresses some of the common misconceptions about the Catholic Church and its history. This is not a comprehensive discussion, but a brief summary. For anyone seeking more information, I recommend Diane Moczar’s Seven Lies About Catholic History, which is both well-research and documented, and easy to read.

The second part focusses specifically on the child sex abuse scandal, and the trials of Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell.

I became a Catholic a few years ago because I was convinced that the faith taught by Jesus to the Apostles, and by the Apostles to those who came after them, was the same faith taught in the Catholic Church today.

Paul describes the Church (1 Tim 3:15) as the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Jesus (Mat 16:18) said the gates of hell would not prevail against it. But the entire edifice of Protestantism is built on the belief that between the 1st and 16th centuries the Church had fallen away from the truth, the gates of hell had prevailed against it, and there had been a great corruption of the faith, an apostasy so deep that remedying it required the formation of an entirely new church.

There is no evidence this large scale apostasy ever took place. Reading the early church fathers makes it clear that what the early church held and did and believed was the same Catholic faith as now.

For example, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c 110 AD) bear witness to the structure of ministry (bishops, priests and deacons), the day of worship (Sunday), and the crucial role of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood.

Justin the Martyr (c 140 AD) writes of the incarnation, the trinity, Sunday worship as opposed to the Jews who worship on Saturday, grace and the call to love as the reason “God cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, setting it aside and nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:14) He writes of the Eucharist as the defining form of Christian worship, and the importance of careful and humble adherence both to revealed truth and to reason.

There is clear continuity from the Apostles into the early Church. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (in what is now Turkey), had been taught by the beloved Apostle, John. Amongst those taught by Polycarp was Irenaeus, who was born in Smyrna and later became a priest, then Bishop of Lyon in Gaul, now France. Amongst other things, Irenaeus (c 150 AD) bore witness to the importance of the church in Rome, stating that all churches everywhere must be in fellowship and agreement with that pre-eminent church. He talked about the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her co-operation with the will of God. He talked about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and he identifies the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the only gospels to be given credence in their description of Jesus’ life and work.

Or read the history of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), where the generous and formidable Bishop Nicholas of Myra (better known to us as Santa Claus) slapped the heretical priest Arius across the face. Not because what Arius taught about the person of Jesus could not be taught from Scripture – both Arianism and Orthodox Christianity can be supported from Scripture – but because everyone knew, including Arius himself, as St Nicholas suspected, that Arianism was simply not what the Apostles had taught, was not the tradition in which St Paul had commanded the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:15) to stand firm and to which they were to hold fast.

These are just a few examples of hundreds of possibilities. “Sola Scriptura,” the idea that the Christian faith in its entirety can be formulated exactly from the Bible alone, is a late medieval invention, a nonsense. No text can be read without context, or outside of an interpretive community. Sola Scriptura leads to a never-ending splitting of the Church, and a never-ending parade of prophets and preachers who have at last discovered the real meaning of the Bible, or who have received some new revelation.

There were other issues I needed to consider. I already knew that the claimed opposition of the Church to science was nonsense. Science and the scientific method could only take hold in a world view that the material world is objectively real, not simply an illusion, that the material world is good – something worth investigating, not an evil to be escaped from, that the material world is ordered according to rules which can be investigated and understood, and not by the whim of inhabiting spirits or an god who rules by fiat, and that faith has nothing to fear from the truth. This is the standard Western understanding, so it seems difficult to many Westerners to imagine that people could think otherwise. But in reality this combination of beliefs is uniquely Judeo-Christian. This is why science, the systematic and objective study of reality for its own sake, has taken root and flourished in the West as nowhere else, which has in turn given the West enormous advances and advantages in science and technology. The Church has always been the patron and protector of science.

The usual response to this claim by detractors is: “But what about Galileo?” The fact that most people can think of only one possible counter-example in 2,000 years of Church history is itself telling. In reality, Galileo was never tortured, never imprisoned, and was always free to teach the Copernican theory as a theory, as was done in other Catholic universities throughout Europe. (Catholic universities is a tautology, by the way – every university was Catholic.)

The Church insisted that students be taught every reasonable alternative, with the evidence for and against, and allowed to make up their own minds. The problem the Church had with Galileo was that Galileo refused to teach anything except his own pet theories. In many of these, he was completely wrong. For example, as Einstein noted in 1953, his theories about tidal action were nonsense. Galileo believed the rings of Saturn were not rings but a large moon on either side. He was savage in his attacks on Jesuit astronomer Orazio Grazzi, who correctly described comets as small heavenly bodies, while Galileo insisted they were reflections shining on vapours rising from the earth, and refused to teach or consider any other possibility. As philosopher of science and Berkeley professor Paul Feyerabend noted, it was the Church, not Galileo, which was on the side of reason and science.

But what about the Crusades? Don’t they prove a violent and imperialistic tendency in the Church? Well, hardly. The Crusades were a limited response to nearly 400 years of Islamic aggression. The magnificent Christian civilisations of the Middle East and North Africa were crushed, millions tortured, raped, murdered, leaving a legacy of violence and poverty that remains to this day. Spain was invaded. The great centres of Rome and Constantinople were besieged. Nor was it only Christians who were affected. Zoroastrianism was virtually wiped out in Persia, and the invasion and destruction of the peaceful and creative Buddhist society of what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan was well advanced. The Crusades were not even an attempt to regain lost territory, but to stop the advance of terror any further into Europe, and to enable safe passage of pilgrims to the holy land.

But the inquisition – that was horrible and violent, and there can be no excuse for that, right? Well, again, no. Kings and queens from the earliest days of humanity until quite recently almost all held that uniformity of religion was vital to a unified and loyal state. Anyone who did not believe as the King did should be executed as a traitor, or at least exiled. At no time was this more clear than in Spain following the Reconquista in 1492. The Church stepped in and said, in effect “Wait. If anyone is going to decide who believes the right thing, that should be us.” During the entire period of the Spanish Inquisition, from 1480 to 1700, of 44, 674 cases heard, 826 people were handed back to civil authorities for execution – less than 2% of the total. What would have happened without the Inquisition? Without that brake on royal power, as many as 72,000 Lutherans, Catholics and other religious undesirables were executed by Henry VIII in the last 20 years of his reign. The Inquisition saved thousands of lives.

But what about child abuse? Surely a church whose leadership is so prone to child sexual abuse must be deeply corrupt? Part two of this article addresses that issue, and the cases against Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell.

On the Christian Duty to Warn of Sin and Its Consequences

October 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Do Christians have a duty to warn others of sins and their consequences?

Ezekiel 33:8.9 When I tell wicked people they will die because of their sins, you must warn them to turn from their sinful ways. If you refuse to warn them, you will be held accountable for their death. If you do warn them, and they keep sinning, they will die because of their sins, but you will be innocent of their death.

Leviticus 19:17 Do not hate your neighbours, but rebuke them frankly, so you do not share in their guilt.

Or in Glen Campbells’ paraphrase:
If you see your brother standing by the road
With a heavy load from the seeds he’s sowed
And if you see your sister falling by the way
Just stop and say, you’re going the wrong way

Well, that’s pretty clear. Christians have a duty to warn friends, neighbours, family, if they are on the wrong track.

On the wrong track means living in such a way that they will cause serious harm to themselves or to people near them. And the most serious harm is to live in a way that alienates them and those around them from the love of God, to act in ways that shut God’s grace out of one’s life. That is, to live in mortal sin, which denies a person the ability to know the depth of God’s love and purpose for his or her life here and now, and without repentance, shuts them away from experiencing God’s love forever, which is hell.

But how does this work in practice? Are Christians meant to go around telling all and sundry: “Stop doing that. It will ruin your life and you will go to hell?”

Probably not.

It is not any particular sin that alienates us from God, or even a besetting sin – a lingering temptation we cannot seem to shake, to the point where we feel it to be part of who we are – so much as Sin itself. Repenting of a particular sin does not make us right with God. An axe murderer who repents of his axe murders and decides to commit them no more is not thereby set right with God and destined for heaven.

What we aim to do is what Jesus aimed to do. To help people recognise that without God their lives are empty, and become emptier to the point that they narrow down into loneliness and darkness and resentment, till that resentment becomes spite, and gnaws away at us forever and there is no hope of redemption. And to know that by choosing to repent of sin and live for Jesus, they can replace that anguished darkness with light and hope and eternal life.

That does not mean they (and we) may not still sin, and make mistakes and bad choices, but that they are saved; they are on the road that leads to life, and the more they walk on that road, and the more they try to follow Jesus’ example, the more peaceful, joyful and purposeful their lives will become.

So what does this Christian duty of warning, leading, advising mean in practical terms?

Firstly, it is a very serious thing to pretend something God has said is a sin is not a sin. People cannot repent of a sin they do not believe is a sin. If we tell people it is fine for them to continue to behave in a way God has said is not OK, we will most certainly be held accountable for the harm that comes to them.

This is a bit like a parent who insists, against a toddler’s screams of outrage, that the toddler must not stick forks into electric sockets. A parent who did not do his or her best to stop this behaviour, especially if it was repeated, would be considered at fault if the child came to serious harm.

Secondly, any such warning must, like that of a parent for a child, spring from genuine love and compassion. It has been well said that people will not care what you say until they see that you care. If you do not have a history of practical care and friendship for a person, then warning them that a particular action will cause them harm and separate them from the love of God, is not likely to be heard as anything other than self-righteousness and judgmentalism.

However, Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, lest you be judged,” is often taken out of context. It most certainly does not mean that we cannot judge evil actions. We can and must, and so must any just and civilised society. Rape is not OK, theft is not OK, murder is not OK.

The judgement we are not to make is that others are less valuable to God than we are. No matter what they have done; murderer, child molester, bully, wife beater, etc, etc, – every single person who has ever lived is loved by God so dearly that He sent His only Son so that person could have life eternal, that is, be with Jesus as a beloved friend forever.

God does not write people off, so neither must we. We must endeavour to see and treat every person we encounter in the knowledge that that person is valued, treasured by God beyond any human measure. We must not use, abuse or dismiss others, we must not judge or belittle them.

This means, if anything, that our duty to warn is even greater, not less. But how to do this? Our example must be Jesus.

We certainly need to heed Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7:4,5 “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Examine your own life first; the way you treat the members of your family, your language – even when alone, what you look at and let your eyes linger on, the little shortcuts you take in business, the shading of the truth, the failure to take responsibility, the over-eating, the laziness. Be a harsher critic of your own decisions and choices than you are of anyone else’s. The first soul you are responsible to God for is your own.

But don’t wait till you are perfect! You never will be, not in this life, anyway. And like a loving parent, the fact that you fail sometimes should not stop you trying to help and protect others.

Two examples from the life of Jesus:

Luke 19:1-10, the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector.

Tax collectors were despised not just because they were civil servants to the hated Roman occupiers, but because they abused and stole from the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, and because they frequently used violence to extort money where it was not owed. They were scum. Or that is how most of Jewish society saw them. Yet Jesus invites himself to dinner at the home of a tax collector.

Complaints ensued. Understandable complaints! Jesus was someone who had consistently spoken for the poor, who was one of the poor and lived among them. He had also spoken unmistakeably about the need to live justly before God. Zacchaeus knew this. Jesus showed him by his actions that he was loved by God. It was up to Zacchaeus to accept the offer of fellowship, not just a once-off over dinner, but to be Jesus’ friend for all eternity. Or to reject it, knowing that if accepted, it meant he needed to make a break with his past; not just to cease acting in the way he had, but to make what amends he could, and to try to live a life of integrity and generosity from then on. Salvation came to Zacchaeus not just when Jesus spoke to him, but when Zacchaeus responded with repentance.

Love, not abuse or lecturing or rejection, led to Zaccaheus’s seeing that he was loved by God, and could have a life in which he was loved and valued by others. Jesus did not accept or slide over his sins, which were many and grievous, but the most important thing was to let him know that in spite of everything, he was valued, and could have a life richer and deeper than the materially rich but horribly empty life he had led to that point.

John 8: 1-11, the story of the woman caught in adultery.

I was astonished to read on a website recently (I cannot now find the link, sadly) that Jesus was a leader in recognising and blessing the sex industry. The author’s argument was that Jesus had not condemned the woman, who was following her chosen career (according the article’s author), but rather, had condemned those who stood against her. Therefore Jesus recognised and accepted the dignity of sex work. But this is not how John describes what happened. Jesus does indeed ask the woman “Has no one condemned you?” and when she answers “No, lord,” He replies “Then neither do I condemn you.” But this is not an acceptance of her actions.

The crowd was about to stone her; a horrifying punishment that is still used in some Middle-eastern countries. What is meant is “Has no one thrown a stone? Has no one condemned you to death?” They had not, and neither would Jesus. But not condemning someone to death is not saying their actions were acceptable. Jesus makes it clear that she is acceptable, valued, and worthy of love, but that her actions are not. “Go then. And do not sin again.” According to some traditions, this was Mary of Magdala, who become one of Jesus’ followers, and was the first to bring the good news of His resurrection to His disciples.

It was the combination of unfailing genuine love and service to the person, unyielding, relentless, unconditional love and acceptance of them as a person, along with unyielding rejection of behaviour harmful to them and others, that brought both Zacchaeus and Mary Magdalene to repentance, into fellowship with Jesus, and into eternal life. This is the example we are to follow.

A last word. There is this: Proverbs 9:8 “Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.” Mockers are not people who mock you or your ideas, but those who mock the need for God, or faith in God. As I noted above, it is not repentance from any particular sin which saves us, but turning to Christ. It is in a relationship with Jesus that we are born again and find eternal life. Without that, turning from any individual sin is meaningless.

There is no point in suggesting to people who are not Christians that a particular behaviour is setting them on the wrong road or alienating them from God. Not only is there no point, but such suggestions are likely to reinforce the view that Christians are judgmental and uninterested in them as persons. This is what Paul meant when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:12 “I have no business judging those who are outside. It is those who are inside we are to judge.”

We are called to love others because God loves them. Even when they are rude, spiteful, dishonest, even when they reject us and use us and say unkind things about us, God loves them and gave His Son for them. We are called to do the same. People are not objects, or even projects. They are to be treasured for themselves, because God treasures them.

Of course we will sometimes get it wrong. We will lose our tempers, be selfish, harsh and thoughtless. That matters, but it is not the end of the story. Because just as all those around us are loved, so are we, and God our Father is relentlessly, unyieldingly forgiving and welcoming.

We are loved, and so we are called to love.

The Conviction of Archbishop Wilson – Further Reflections

May 28, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The media cannot reasonably be expected to report every piece of evidence. This means that any assessment based on media reports is necessarily tentative. It is entirely possible that any one media outlet may have omitted some critical point. But it is unlikely that every major outlet should fail to report the same argument or piece of evidence which was essential to the court’s findings. So it is possible to have a reasonable and careful discussion of any court finding, provided some care is taken.

The SMH report quoted in my earlier article is a fair summary of what was required to be proven by the prosecution before the defendant could be found guilty as charged. A reasonable doubt at any step should have resulted in a finding of not guilty. The finding of guilty is an assertion that each step is proven. A key step is the magistrate’s acceptance of the accuracy of the boys’ reports of conversations they allege took place over forty years ago.

One of my concerns about this is that the magistrate seemed to have no awareness of research conducted over the last half century into the construction, development and malleability of memory. Given that this is the single most important factor in his arriving at a guilty verdict, he had a responsibility to familiarise himself with this now substantial body of knowledge. It might be suggested that it was up to the defence team to draw this material to the magistrate’s attention, and it is surprising and disappointing they did not.

Trial histories are full of examples of witnesses, often multiple witnesses, swearing that x was what was said, y was what happened, and z was the person who did it, with guilty verdicts being delivered on this evidence, and sometimes, in the US, death sentences being imposed, only to find later through audio or video recorded evidence, or DNA or other scientific evidence, or other witnesses, that x was not what was said, y was not what happened, and z was out of the country at the time.

However, even if there were conversations and they took place substantially as the boys remember, it is possible that then Fr Wilson did not understand what was being said to him. Even in everyday conversation there is often a substantial gulf between what the sender intends, and what the receiver hears and understands.

To give an example, I have a close friend who is a teacher. An autistic girl at the school at which she works developed an attachment to her, and became her intermittent shadow. She would often chatter as the teacher was at work, on yard duty, marking, preparing lessons. Often the teacher listened attentively, but just as often, her attention was necessarily elsewhere. On one occasion the child’s parents withdrew her from the school, claiming (quite reasonably as it turned out) that she was being bullied. School authorities said they had not been aware of this, but the parents’ response was that her daughter had told them she had reported it to the teacher, my friend. My friend was horrified. She had no memory of this at all. Was it possible she had simply tuned the child out, or had been so distracted by other things that she did not hear or absorb what was said?

This was reported only a few weeks after the conversation was supposed to have taken place. Conversations allegedly involving Fr Wilson were reported between thirty and forty years after they were supposed to have taken place. This length of time is another confounding factor. Statutes of limitations are not a technicality. The more time goes by, the harder it is for an accused person to remember where he was and what was said and done, harder to find diaries or other documents or witnesses who would be able to show he was elsewhere. The more time goes by, the more cautious a court needs to be, and the more it needs explicitly to recognise the additional difficulties faced by an accused person in finding and presenting exculpatory evidence. If anything, this obligation becomes greater rather than less, the more odious the alleged crime.

On the information so far publicly available, Magistrate Robert Stone attended to the preceding factors in a cursory if not frivolous fashion, and proceeded directly to considering the credibility of Archbishop Wilson. Even if he was entirely justified in accepting the boys’ accounts as accurate in every detail, and in putting aside the difficulties faced by Archbishop Wilson in responding to events alleged to have occurred so long before, he made two sets of comments which suggest this assessment was not entirely objective.

Firstly, as noted above, his reprimand to Archbishop Wilson for what Stone described as a “technical” objection, that is Wilson’s comment, when asked, that he would not make any judgement about the guilt or otherwise of any person before that guilt had been proven. This was reported in the media, and seems to have been taken by Stone, to mean that Wilson would not have taken allegations of abuse seriously, and would not have acted on them, because he would not have believed them anyway. But that is a very long way from what Wilson actually said. A sensible process is to listen carefully and respectfully to allegations of abuse, to follow up and investigate carefully, to report to police or other authorities if appropriate, but to withhold final judgement until all the facts have been thoroughly and fairly considered. That has been the practice of Catholic authorities for many years. It ought to be the practice of any investigating body, and of the courts.

Secondly, and equally disturbingly, is Stone’s dismissal of Archbishop Wilson’s claim that he had never heard, directly and to him as the first point of contact, any complaint of sexual abuse. Stone’s disbelief of this claim is not based on any evidence, but on Stone’s prejudices. I was a clergyman for thirty years. I never in that time had made to me personally, any complaint of sexual abuse by another minister. I knew complaints were made, and over the period of my ministry three of these involved people I knew; I know hundreds of clergy. I had one complaint made to me about sexual abuse by a family member (something vastly more common than abuse by clergy) which I reported, and later in my ministry I had multiple complaints of emotional and verbal abuse by a senior clergyman, which I acted upon to the best of my ability so as to be fair both the complainants and to him. But not once a direct complaint of sexual abuse by a priest or minister. It seems odd to me that Stone should have been so adamant that this was impossible or even unusual.

It is accepted in criminal law that if there is a reasonable explanation of the evidence that is consistent with the innocence of the accused, then a verdict of “Not guilty” must be returned. Those responsible for delivering that verdict, whether a jury or a judge or magistrate, have a duty to keep this consciously in mind at every stage of proceedings. Magistrate Stone did not do so. There are reasonable alternatives to his conclusions at every link in the chain of reasoning. On the available evidence, this case should not even have been brought to trial. If Archbishop Wilson were not a high profile Catholic leader, it almost certainly would not have been.

To summarise, I would not find Archbishop Wilson guilty even on the balance of probabilities, and Stone’s finding of “proven,” that is, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, goes so far beyond the available facts as to seem absurd.

There is no justice for victims in sending the wrong people to jail.

The Ridiculous Injustice of the Conviction of Archbishop Philip Wilson

May 24, 2018 / / 2 Comments

In a case that hung entirely on circumstantial evidence and which saw the veracity of ancient recollections accepted by the bench,  Archbishop Philip Wilson was found guilty of covering up sexual abuse by a fellow priest. If Wilson isn’t planning an appeal, he should.

A New South Wales court on Tuesday found Roman Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson guilty of covering up sexual abuse of boys by a priest he knew forty years ago. It was alleged and accepted by the court he had been informed by two separate victims in the 1970s that parish priest James Fletcher had sexually assaulted them, and had failed to act on that information. At the time, Fr Wilson was a junior priest who shared a house with Fletcher. By failing to act at the time, and by failing to give evidence of the information he held at the time of Fletcher’s trial in 2004 and 2005, Wilson was found to have covered up Fletcher’s repeat sexual offences.

Magistrate Robert Stone said that he had been convinced by “the number of people who have complained, and weight and quality of these people”  and that “The whole of the evidence as to sexual abuse from all families provides material that a person would believe.”

Indeed. No one doubts that Fletcher abused the complainants, or that he was a deceptive and selfish individual who betrayed his church and vulnerable people in his care, and who caused great harm to his victims. Anyone with a heart could not help but be saddened by the harm he did, and supportive of his victims, who were entirely right to feel betrayed and angry.

But that was not the question.

The question was, when was Fr Philip Wilson made aware of the abuse committed by James Fletcher against Peter Creigh?  Creigh first told his family about the abuse he had suffered in 2009, more than thirty years after the abuse took place, five years after Fletcher’s trial for abuse of other boys at about the same time, and three years after Fletcher’s death. When asked why he not mentioned the abuse before, he asserted he told the priest who shared the house with Fletcher. That priest was Philip Wilson. When questioned later, a second victim, un-named at this stage, also claimed to have told Wilson about the abuse at the time it occurred in the mid-Seventies.

At this point it may be appropriate to note the vitriol directed at Archbishop Wilson because he said, again in response to questions, that he did not make assumptions about anyone’s guilt or innocence on the basis of accusations only, but preferred to wait until the matter had been proven in court. This is, of course, the position that any sensible person, including police, journalists, and the courts, should take. But Wilson has not only been abused for this in the popular media, but was also, bizarrely, reprimanded by the presiding Magistrate in his case. Reprimanded for taking a view which is exactly the objective and careful view a magistrate would take.

In 2009, Creigh told his family about the abuse. In 2010 he wrote to his local bishop. He and the bishop (not Wilson) then met, and the bishop subsequently wrote to Creigh outlining what support the diocese was able to offer. Two and half years later, in 2013, Creigh was interviewed by police, and alleged that he told Wilson about the abuse at the time. Another person known to Creigh was subsequently interviewed by police, and when questioned, made a similar claim. Since he was apprised of these claims in 2014, Archbishop’ Wilson’s position has been exactly the same: he insists he has no memory of those conversations ever having taken place.

What really happened? There are a number of possibilities.

First, the two boys, now men, have clear and accurate memories of conversations they had forty years ago with a priest whom they correctly identify as now-Archbishop Wilson. This is the position Magistrate Robert Stone says is proven.

At the other end of the scale, the two men are simply lying about having told Archbishop Wilson, possibly to get back at the church they believe failed them, or to enhance the size of any compensation payout they may receive.

Or they may not have told anyone at the time, but as they have gone over and over in their minds the events at that time, have genuinely come to believe they did do so. Or they may have told someone, but misidentified who that person was. Or they may genuinely remember having had conversations with a person who was indeed Fr Wilson, and later come to believe that they must have talked to him about the abuse that occurred around the same time.

Memory is a strange thing, and as cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has demonstrated, the merest word or question or suggestion can create “memories” which the person holding them absolutely believes are the accurate recall of real events.

So again, what really happened? Further, was the court’s faith in memory misplaced? As the Sydney Morning Herald noted in reporting the guilty verdict against Wilson:

It was a circumstantial case and the prosecution had to overcome a number of significant hurdles in their bid to prove Archbishop Wilson concealed the sexual abuse allegations against Father Fletcher.

Not only did Crown prosecutor Gareth Harrison have to prove that Mr Creigh told Archbishop Wilson about the sexual abuse in 1976, but that Archbishop Wilson remembered it and had a belief that the allegations were true between 2004 and 2006, after Fletcher had been charged with child sex offences and before his death in jail.

They also had to prove that Archbishop Wilson knew or believed he had information which might be of assistance in securing the prosecution of Fletcher for the sexual abuse offences against Mr Creigh.

While I have a passing acquaintance with Archbishop Wilson, and acknowledging that my view is subjective, it is my belief that had he known of the alleged offences, he would have brought them to the attention of his bishop and not hesitated to come forward to give evidence later when Fletcher went to trial. Someone who knows the complainants may take the view that they are people of courage and integrity, and that they would not have made the claims they have unless they were sure they were true. It is entirely possible for both of these things to be correct.

What is not possible, as I see it, is to reach the conclusion that one option is proven beyond reasonable doubt. Yet that is exactly the opinion reached by Magistrate Stone. Many will look upon his decision not as an end in itself but as the basis for an appeal.

Why is Britain Selling Weapons to our Enemies?

May 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Erdogan is no friend to the West. He is a violent, oppressive dictator, and a supporter of terrorism.

Prime Minister May knows this; hence the “stern warning.” Is the UK so desperate for money it has to resort to selling powerful modern weapons to the enemies of civilization?

Turkey is a serial human rights offender and supporter of terrorism. Why sell them weapons?

Turkey is a serial human rights offender and supporter of terrorism. Why sell them weapons?

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