![pell mugshot](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/pell-mugshot.png)
This Was a Fair Trial?
CARDINAL George Pell has been found guilty after a re-trial in which the jury did not get to see his accuser testify in the flesh. Instead they heard his evidence reprised from the first trial, whose jury voted 10-2 for acquittal. This time the vote to convict was unanimous.
The likelihood of an appeal succeeding be as it may, there can be no doubt years of pre-trial publicity put the defence at a disadvantage. Below, just a few of factors that may have coloured perceptions when the case actually went to court.
The ABC reports the “social media backlash” after a Sydney mural depicting George Pell and Tony Abbott as newlyweds is vandalised.
…and again from the national broadcaster
The Age‘s then-editor at Andrew Holden first blamed “hackers” for this travesty, which appeared on the newspaper’s Facebook page in 2015. A subsequent apology was somewhat more opaque, conceding an unnamed someone “inadvertently posted a story”.
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins