- I was educated in St Canice's Primary School, Rushcutters Bay - from Kindergarten to year 3 a co-educational school
- I completed my Primary Education at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney athen went through to Year 7 and completed my education at this school at this time. I left due the being bullied, bashed and being called a 'WOG' (Western Oriental Gentleman)
- I commenced Year 7 High School Education at Waverley College, Waverley, in Term 2 and completed my High School Certificate in 1979
- Throughout my life I had attended masses at St Canice's Parish Rushcutters Bay, St Francis of Assisi's Parish, Paddington, St Joseph's Parish Edgecliff, St Mary's Cathedral Sydney, Our Lady Help of Christians Parish Narooma, Our Lady of The Rosary Kensington, St Aloysuis Church Cronulla, Holy Family Parish, Emerton (Mount Druitt), Sacred Heart Parish South Mount Druitt, St Aidan's Parish, Rooty Hill, Our Lady of the Rosary Church St Marys, St Joseph's Parish Kingswood, St Nicholas of Myra Church Penrith, Corpus Christi Parish Cranebrook and St Patrick's Cathedral Parramatta and Holy Spirit Church, Vincentia
- I was at ST Canice's Rushcutters Bay an Altar Boy - later changed to Altar Server and never attended Altar Service's picnics for at least 5 years.
- In 2010 I was install an an acolyte by one of the Dean's of Bishop of Parramatta - now Arch Bishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher.
- Holy Family Parish Pastoral Council Chair for 2 years from 2016-7 with Parish Priest, Father Greg Jacobs SJ
- Holy Family Parish Children's Liturgy Teacher from May 2017 - May 2019
- Vice- Chair of the Western Deanery Pastoral Council, Parramatta Diocese September 2017 - May 2019 - with Bishop Vincent Nguyen
So, why am I giving you my religious history? Basically, I am I think I am pretty qualified to make Judgment on Cardinal George Pell's job the the High Court of Australia's decision passed on 7th April 2020. I'm not qualified to give count to was claimed as witnessed by two young boys back in 1990's.
I know that former Catholics and some current Catholics thought Cardinal Pell was as guilty as ever for his supposed crimes. I kept my silence as I thought there was a big chance of innocence. Questions were raised especially with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse back in 2013. I thought people, whether innocent or not will be targeting or gunning the high priest of a commonly known religious order. Catholic Cardinal George Pell, if he had done was claimed was being done by him, then should have been dragged to the courts, way back in the 1990's. Was this all about money and greed, only by others. Time may tell.
There is no denial that Catholic priests in the past have not behaved the way a priest should be living in being the ' Good Shepherd of God and oversee his people'. Yet I know the Catholic Church today will take a strong stand against possible priests that misbehave. Priests are as human as us. How do I know all of this, is through involvement and preparation of the Plenary 2020 Council of all Australian Bishops: my involvement as a Vice Chair of Western Deanery Pastoral Council.
Please read the full summary of the Australian High Court Judgment:
Here is the judgment summary from the High Court of Australia.
Pell v The Queen — [2020] HCA 12
Today, the High Court granted special leave to appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria and unanimously allowed the appeal.
The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place.
On 11 December 2018, following a trial by jury in the County Court of Victoria, the applicant, who was Archbishop of Melbourne at the time of the alleged offending, was convicted of one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16 years and four charges of committing an act of indecency with or in the presence of a child under the age of 16 years.
This was the second trial of these charges, the jury at the first trial having been unable to agree on its verdicts.
The prosecution case, as it was left to the jury, alleged that the offending occurred on two separate occasions, the first on 15 or 22 December 1996 and the second on 23 February 1997.
The incidents were alleged to have occurred in and near the priests' sacristy at St Patrick's Cathedral in East Melbourne, following the celebration of Sunday solemn Mass.
The victims of the alleged offending were two Cathedral choirboys aged 13 years at the time of the events.
The applicant sought leave to appeal against his convictions before the Court of Appeal. On 21 August 2019 the Court of Appeal granted leave on a single ground, which contended that the verdicts were unreasonable or could not be supported by the evidence, and dismissed the appeal.
The Court of Appeal viewed video-recordings of a number of witnesses' testimony, including that of the complainant.
The majority, Ferguson CJ and Maxwell P, assessed the complainant to be a compelling witness.
Their Honours went on to consider the evidence of a number of "opportunity witnesses", who had described the movements of the applicant and others following the conclusion of Sunday solemn Mass in a way that was inconsistent with the complainant's account.
Their Honours found that no witness could say with certainty that these routines and practices were never departed from and concluded that the jury had not been compelled to entertain a reasonable doubt as to the applicant's guilt.
Weinberg JA dissented, concluding that, by reason of the unchallenged evidence of the opportunity witnesses, the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have had a reasonable doubt.
On 17 September 2019, the applicant applied to the High Court for special leave to appeal from the Court of Appeal's decision on two grounds.
On 13 November 2019, Gordon and Edelman JJ referred the application for special leave to a Full Court of the High Court for argument as on an appeal.
The application was heard by the High Court on 11 and 12 March 2020.
The High Court considered that, while the Court of Appeal majority assessed the evidence of the opportunity witnesses as leaving open the possibility that the complainant's account was correct, their Honours' analysis failed to engage with the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offending had not taken place, such that there ought to have been a reasonable doubt as to the applicant's guilt.
The unchallenged evidence of the opportunity witnesses was inconsistent with the complainant's account, and described: (i) the applicant's practice of greeting congregants on or near the Cathedral steps after Sunday solemn Mass; (ii) the established and historical Catholic church practice that required that the applicant, as an archbishop, always be accompanied when robed in the Cathedral; and (iii) the continuous traffic in and out of the priests' sacristy for ten to 15 minutes after the conclusion of the procession that ended Sunday solemn Mass.
The Court held that, on the assumption that the jury had assessed the complainant's evidence as thoroughly credible and reliable, the evidence of the opportunity witnesses nonetheless required the jury, acting rationally, to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to the applicant's guilt in relation to the offences involved in both alleged incidents.
With respect to each of the applicant's convictions, there was, consistently with the words the Court used in Chidiac v The Queen (1991) 171 CLR 432 at 444 and M v The Queen (1994) 181 CLR 487 at 494, "a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof".
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