Letters

Cardinal Pell’s Jailing

Posted

George Weigel’s column in CNY’s March 28 issue was titled “A Tale of Two Georges.” Weigel was referring to Cardinal Francis George, the former Archbishop of Chicago, who died in 2015, and to Cardinal George Pell, the former Archbishop of Sydney, Australia. Cardinal Pell is currently in jail, because of (according to Weigel) “a wickedly perverse conviction on uncorroborated charges of sexual abuse that a jury had been shown could not possibly have happened.” The conviction will be appealed later this year but, as Weigel says, “even if the appeal is successful...the assault on the Church and its leaders will continue.”

On EWTN’s show “The World Over” March 14, John Macauley, an Australian who is an acquaintance of Cardinal Pell and who was an observer at his trial, made a similar observation. He said Cardinal Pell was convicted as a “scapegoat” for real criminals among the clergy. Macauley claimed that, because of the hatred for the Catholic Church in general and the hatred for Cardinal Pell in particular, the legal system in the Australian state of Victoria is now able to find anyone guilty on the uncorroborated testimony of a single individual.

Thank God for EWTN and for George Weigel (and Catholic New York) for informing Catholics about the truth of this situation.

Geraldine Voelkel
Bronx