The inconvenient truth for the Aussie media: Pell is innocent

Political and ideological biases have often poisoned the facts, writes David Quinn

Do you remember the case of Fr Kevin Reynolds? He was the priest RTÉ wrongly accused of fathering a child through rape, one of the most serious allegations you can make against someone.

The allegation was made on an edition of Prime Time Investigates in 2011 called ‘Mission to Prey’. Before the programme went to air, Fr Reynolds offered the programme-makers a DNA test to prove he was not the father of the child alleged to be his. The programme declined to take up the offer because they were so convinced of his guilt.

The rest, as they say, is history. The show went to air, but shortly afterwards a DNA test proved that Fr Reynolds was not the father of the child in question. RTÉ had to issue a humiliating apology and Fr Reynolds won a big payout from the station for the appalling defamation.

A question that remains is why RTÉ was not willing to wait for the results of the DNA test? Was it because they could not entertain the possibility that a priest might actually be innocent of an alleged offence? Had they lost sight of the presumption of innocence that belongs to all of us by right because of the general atmosphere against the Church?

Lost 
sight

Is it also possible that the Australian police, the Australian legal system, much of the country’s media and public lost sight of Cardinal George Pell’s right to be considered innocent what he was accused of child sex abuse?

Cardinal Pell, now aged 78, was released from prison very recently having served 405 days of a six-year sentence after being found guilty of sexually assaulting an altar boy in the sacristy of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s, when he was archbishop there.

At this stage Cardinal Pell, as he later became, was already a high-profile Church figure in his country because of his willingness to be a combatant in Australia’s ‘culture wars’ over issues like abortion. He was also a controversial figure within the Church because of his opposition to changing Catholic teachings on matters like women priests, celibacy and contraception.

The media wanted to punish someone for the Church’s undoubted and terrible failure to properly protect children down the years from clerical sex abusers”

He had a ‘take-no-prisoners’ style which meant he was loved by some and loathed by others, including in Australia’s mainly liberal media, not least in the ABC, their equivalent of RTÉ.

ABC has been hostile to Cardinal Pell for decades. The hostility only grew as he rose through the ranks, becoming Archbishop of Sydney, being made a cardinal by Pope St John Paul II and then being brought to Rome by Pope Francis to become the Vatican’s treasurer.

(I should add that I have met Cardinal Pell several times down the years and on a personal level he is much more engaging than his often-stiff media persona.)

In any event, the higher he rose in the ranks, the more of a media target he became, especially as he remained willing to take on all-comers in debate on all the hottest topics.

Cardinal Pell over the years has had several allegations of child sex abuse made against him. All had fallen apart except for the one over which he was convicted. He maintained and protested his innocence all along and defenders pointed out the implausibility of this particular allegation against him.

Verdict

To cut a long story short, the first time the case went to trial, the jury could not return a verdict. At the re-trial, the jury came to a unanimous guilty verdict. Cardinal Pell appealed and on a two-to-one vote, the court decided not to overturn the verdict. He then appealed to Australia’s highest court and had the guilty verdict overturned in a unanimous seven to zero ruling. Legally, he must be presumed innocent.

But the matter does not rest there. Other allegations exist, which the Victoria police are investigating and civil actions against him may be taken.

On the other hand, he might well sue the Victorian police for how it dealt with his case and sections of the media for how they covered it.

His defenders make the point that Australian media outlets, including the ABC, had so poisoned the well of public opinion against him, any jury was automatically biased against him before any trial began, and also wanted to punish someone for the Church’s undoubted and terrible failure to properly protect children down the years from clerical sex abusers. Essentially, the high profile, high ranking, combative Cardinal Pell became the scapegoat.

In a way, his case was similar to that of Brett Kavanaugh in the US. He had been nominated by Donald Trump for a place on the American Supreme Court. He was accused of sex abuse by a woman named Christine Blasey Ford, but also by a number of others. Some of those other accusations were prima facie absurd.

It was a classic case of confirmation bias, that is, we believed whatever suited us”

In the case of Blasey Ford it basically came down to her word against his and who we believed seemed to come down to our politics. Conservatives believed Kavanaugh and liberals believed Blasey Ford. It was a classic case of confirmation bias, that is, we believed whatever suited us.

But at the end of the day, Brett Kavanaugh was legally entitled to his good name and to the presumption of innocence. He has never been charged, never mind found guilty of the allegations made against him. It would have been a huge injustice if his nomination to the US Supreme Court had been blocked.

In the case of Cardinal Pell, it was his word against that of his accuser, except that when you examine the nature of accusation, it is very hard to believe the alleged incident happened, especially as we are expected to believe it took place in the sacristy of a crowded cathedral, right after Mass, when plenty of people were milling about and that Cardinal Pell had unexpectedly broken off from the procession leaving the church after Mass and was not accompanied by his usual priests.

As far as I am concerned, Cardinal Pell is innocent, and as far as the law is concerned, he is innocent. Even some of his severest critics within the Australian Church, including Fr Frank Brennan, SJ, insist he is innocent.

But for many others he is guilty and as with Brett Kavanaugh, what we are willing to believe about him seems to come down to our political and ideological views.