Post by sw7777 on Dec 19, 2018 20:39:53 GMT -5
I was in a newsagent 4 days ago, and all the newspapers had front pages blank, saying "we cant report this story in Australia" as there is a legally mandated reporting blackout.
Why?
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www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/cardinal-pell-convicted/
"Yesterday in Australia, a court convicted Cardinal George Pell of sexual abuse. Bizarrely, the story cannot be reported on in Australia because of a court gag on the media. Here’s a link to the report in Crux.
More:
In a decision that will undoubtedly create shockwaves around the globe, Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Church official to stand trial for sexual abuse, was found guilty on Tuesday by a Melbourne Court.
In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, after nearly four full days of deliberations, a jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts on five charges related to the abuse of two choirboys in 1996.
The trial, which began on November 7, has been subject to a media blackout at the request of the prosecution, and follows a first trial in September ended after a jury failed to reach consensus.
Pell, who is 77 years old, is currently on a leave of absence from his post as the Vatican’s Secretary for the Economy.
In June 2017, Pell was charged by Australian police with “historical sexual assault offences,” forcing him to leave Rome and return home vowing to “clear his name.”
This past May, after a four-week committal hearing, an Australian magistrate struck down some of the more serious charges against Pell but ruled he stand trial on five charges related to sexual abuse of minors. The allegations, however, are from two separate periods, the 1970s and the 1990s, hence Judge Sue Pullen’s decision in May to mandate two different trials.
I have not commented on this because honestly, I don’t know what to say. As both a Catholic and an ex-Catholic, I have admired Cardinal Pell as a voice of orthodoxy, so this conviction is a punch in the gut. The fact that I admire him does not make him innocent of the charges, of course. However, the reporting ban on the trial proceedings makes it impossible to know how testimony went down there. Was the trial fair? As far as I’ve been able to tell — someone correct me if I’m wrong — we don’t know the specifics of the charges, because it is not permitted under Australian law to report them."
Why?
------------------------------------------------------------
www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/cardinal-pell-convicted/
"Yesterday in Australia, a court convicted Cardinal George Pell of sexual abuse. Bizarrely, the story cannot be reported on in Australia because of a court gag on the media. Here’s a link to the report in Crux.
More:
In a decision that will undoubtedly create shockwaves around the globe, Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Church official to stand trial for sexual abuse, was found guilty on Tuesday by a Melbourne Court.
In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, after nearly four full days of deliberations, a jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts on five charges related to the abuse of two choirboys in 1996.
The trial, which began on November 7, has been subject to a media blackout at the request of the prosecution, and follows a first trial in September ended after a jury failed to reach consensus.
Pell, who is 77 years old, is currently on a leave of absence from his post as the Vatican’s Secretary for the Economy.
In June 2017, Pell was charged by Australian police with “historical sexual assault offences,” forcing him to leave Rome and return home vowing to “clear his name.”
This past May, after a four-week committal hearing, an Australian magistrate struck down some of the more serious charges against Pell but ruled he stand trial on five charges related to sexual abuse of minors. The allegations, however, are from two separate periods, the 1970s and the 1990s, hence Judge Sue Pullen’s decision in May to mandate two different trials.
I have not commented on this because honestly, I don’t know what to say. As both a Catholic and an ex-Catholic, I have admired Cardinal Pell as a voice of orthodoxy, so this conviction is a punch in the gut. The fact that I admire him does not make him innocent of the charges, of course. However, the reporting ban on the trial proceedings makes it impossible to know how testimony went down there. Was the trial fair? As far as I’ve been able to tell — someone correct me if I’m wrong — we don’t know the specifics of the charges, because it is not permitted under Australian law to report them."
!!
