CARDINAL PELL, THE MEDIA PILE-ON AND COLLECTIVE GUILT – BOOK LAUNCH

On Tuesday 7 December, barrister and senior counsel Margaret Cunneen SC launched Gerard Henderson’s Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-on and Collective Guilt which, Margaret Cunneen’s words, “is a meticulous chronology which draws together all the stakeholders, as they would call themselves, in the attempted destruction of Cardinal George Pell. As Gerard illustrates so eloquently, they believed what they wanted to believe.” Margaret Cunneen was introduced by Dr Michael Casey of the PM Glynn Institute and Professor Zlatko Skrbis, Vice-Chancellor of Australian Catholic University, welcomed guests and acknowledged Cardinal Pell’s long association with ACU.  The introductory comments are reproduced here at the end of Margaret Cunneen’s paper.

CARDINAL PELL, THE MEDIA PILE-ON & COLLECTIVE GUILT – BOOK LAUNCH

MARGARET CUNNEEN SC

Thank you, Dr Casey, Vice Chancellor, Senator Abetz and sundry heroes of my life. It is an extraordinary honour to have been invited by Dr Henderson to launch his magnificent book on the abhorrent offensive which was sustained against His Eminence Cardinal Pell.

Perhaps Gerard invited me because I, too, like His Eminence, was pursued and pilloried by Peter McClellan’s agenda driven Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Perhaps it is because I have spoken publicly before about the wicked targeting of the brilliant conservative Catholic who achieved the highest position in the church ever achieved by an Australian. Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy in the Vatican, the third most senior role of God’s Catholic Church on earth. And perhaps it’s because Gerard knows that I have known His Eminence for many years now and could never give any credence to the allegations against him.

The week before the child abuse Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was announced, at the end of 2012, I was appointed by Premier Barry O’Farrell to inquire into the police investigation of allegations against a number of then deceased Catholic priests in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. It was prompted by claims of an activist former police officer Peter Fox, who appears in Gerard’s book as one of many “Pell antagonists”. In my Commission’s report, I found that his claims of a Catholic police mafia covering up allegations against priests were completely unfounded. And I also found that he had completely lost his objectivity when it came to talking about Catholics in any way at all. But I didn’t know, until I read it in Gerard’s book, that Fox had told some ABC program that I had acted as if I was running Guantanamo Bay.

When I was appointed to inquire into the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, I was horrified at the number of people, many of them lawyers and many christened Catholics, who said to me, “Are you going to get Pell?” And I explained to each that the Cardinal has never had jurisdiction over anything in Maitland-Newcastle. And he’d been a resident of Victoria during the whole lifetimes of the couple of rogue imposter priests that I was looking at. “But he’s the boss Catholic,” they’d say. “He’s the head of the Catholic Church,” they thought. And they thought they could blame him for every case, no matter where in Australia, and no matter when.

I am gratified that His Eminence in his Prison Diary described my commission of inquiry as “much more even handed than the McClellan outfit”. As Gerard explains, Cardinal Pell became an ongoing target for most of the media, and he nominates the many who vilified His Eminence, and the few who remained steadfast in their support. There was a widespread belief that Cardinal Pell was somehow solely responsible for all child sexual abuse in the Australian Catholic Church at whatever time. But, as Gerard explains, all archbishops and bishops are autonomous in their own archdiocese or diocese and report directly to the Pope in Rome. Also, the religious orders, of course, report directly to their provincials in Australia, and they report to their international heads, who then report to the Pope. The structure of the Catholic Church was not well understood by most journalists covering the allegations against the Cardinal. And even those brought up in the Catholic faith seemed to get that wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, two and a half years ago, I was invited to give the Patronal Feast Day address of the St Thomas More Society, which is a fellowship of lawyers, inspired by the example of the saint, his life of law and public service and, of course, his martyrdom at Tower Hill. This was at a time when His Eminence was imprisoned, and his appeal to the Victorian Court of Appeal had been heard, but not yet determined. What I said perhaps I drew from one of Chris Merritt’s excellent articles; Chris is here tonight.

We pride ourselves, don’t we, on the sophistication of our legal system in comparison to those of other parts of the world, those of earlier times. For decades in this country, we mocked with a sense of superiority, the Stalinist show trials of dissidents whose guilt had already been determined. In law schools and in public discourse, we took pride that our common law system with its appeals, checks and balances, hard won evidentiary rules developed for the protection of individual liberty, and the golden thread of the presumption of innocence would never be eroded. But the apotheosis of our legal system, our justice system, has passed.

This was what I said two and a half years ago:

Martyrdom is revived today. No one is physically slain by the state. But dry, bloodless martyrdom is now the ultimate sanction of the legal system. It is blandished, propelled and rewarded by an agenda driven press, and a purulent deeply anti-Christian social media. His Eminence Cardinal Pell is, as we are all so painfully aware, imprisoned now in his own Tower of London. While we fervently pray that the Court of Appeal will muster the courage to deliver justice. Even that result will only mean that those judges will become joint targets with the Cardinal of the baying mob. But could it be that the law is now the last place that a Catholic Cardinal, ever true to the immutable tenets of his faith, accused of sexual assault of choirboys can expect justice?

I quoted Paul Kelly, who’s here tonight too, where he recognised the political strategy of the Child Abuse Royal Commission as the combination of a moral crusade, a cast of victims and coming systemic dismantling of the Catholic Church. Ultimately, that commission was not a court at all, no matter how much it was held up to be and no matter how much the head of it demanded that everyone call him Your Honour. It was an investigatory body and it produced statistics that were selectively reported in the media, making it seem that those most responsible for child abuse in the history of Australia were Catholic clergy, and that most victims were altar boys and choristers in Catholic churches and schools. This was not the case. Live-in welfare institutions were the location of the majority of sexual assaults on children studied. From having prosecuted hundreds of child sexual assault cases, I can assure you that a child is in most danger of sexual assault in his or her home, and appreciably more so in Aboriginal communities.

I interpolate from bits of an old speech that – as Gerard reminds us in his book – he appeared on the ABC Insiders program, brave chap that he is, just after the Royal Commission was announced and said that he was concerned that it would be a distraction from the sexual abuse that is known to be happening in the present in a number of Indigenous communities. But, as I said in 2019, the Royal Commission did not go there. It published as a fact that 4444 complainants reported that they had been sexually abused by Catholic clergy. But the Royal Commission wasn’t a court. Not only was the criminal standard of proof not satisfied, no proof was required. Just a complaint.

And I said this:

Cardinal Pell’s conviction must go down as the most iniquitous miscarriage of justice in Australian jurisprudence. Apart from the conviction, relying on one witness alone, the circumstances surrounding the alleged assaults are just too implausible for any reasonable person to accept. What is it about that complainant whose word alone was accepted over the evidence of the Cardinal, the other boy present, who had before he died told his mother there was nothing untoward going on, and the Monsignor whose job it was to accompany the Cardinal. Why does he, why does that complainant have a monopoly on the truth?

When I said that two and a half years ago in an organisation of Christian lawyers, some left in audible disgust. And I felt the hostility that Gerard experienced so much more publicly as he defended the rule of law and the Cardinal throughout all of the travails of His Eminence. As Gerard says in his chapter “Royal Commission or Roman Catholic Commission?”, the Royal Commission is best known for its focus on Cardinal Pell as well as Catholic institutions. Literally thousands of pages of submissions, transcripts and findings were devoted to Pell and the areas in which he worked. In spite of this, no evidentiary or documentary evidence was found to develop a case against the Cardinal.

Gerard’s book shows how the vituperation piled onto the cardinal reverberated through the Victorian Police and into Victoria’s prosecuting authorities and its courts. Gerard describes how the two judges of the Victorian Court of Appeal who in the majority dismissed the Cardinal’s appeal, held that the complainant’s inconsistency and uncertainty in giving evidence increased rather than diminished his credibility. However, as Gerard writes, they also held that any uncertainty and imprecision on behalf of the opportunity witnesses, weakened the defence’s case. A contradiction, he writes, that was never explained.

Gerard, in company with I hope most lawyers and everyone else, commends the minority judgement of Justice Mark Weinberg which was almost twice the length of the joint judgement of the majority in the Victorian case of George Pell against The Queen, as one of the most important judicial dissents in Australian legal history. To any lawyer, it was so evidently and eloquently correct. It was a blueprint of the High Court’s seven-nil judgement, allowing the appeal. And Gerard excoriates another Pell antagonist, an academic, for the ignorance of this comment: “Pell’s acquittal on the narrow technical ground that he did not commit the crimes for which he was charged on the indictment was never going to provide closure or catharsis for the many Catholics and non-Catholics who sympathise with the scores of victims of other priests”.

Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt is a characteristically and meticulously researched history of how dozens and dozens of people from the media, law and police, every one of whom would proclaim themselves inclusivity and diversity loving, justified their appalling anti-Catholic, anti-conservative bigotry by, as he demonstrates, believing what they want to believe. And taking comfort that the conviction demonstrated the hypocrisy of Cardinal Pell’s Catholic theological conservatism.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have known Cardinal Pell for 20 years now, having met him on the set of a Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypothetical show in Melbourne. The show was terrific fun, of course, and afterwards, the cast of guests was entertained in the studios of HSV7 Melbourne. As the quite convivial evening wore on after the show, only three of the guests were left enjoying some amusing yarns – His Eminence, who was still Archbishop of Melbourne, me and one Mr Roger Rogerson.

I had met Roger Rogerson before, when he was a witness for the Crown. At that stage, of course, he had some minor blemishes, but no capital crimes yet on his slate. In fact, I digress, when I’d called him as a witness in a criminal trial back in 1995, defence counsel was keen to ensure that the jury knew very well that he was disgraced former Detective Sergeant Rogerson. So, defence counsel said to him, “Mr Rogerson, you’re the Roger Rogerson who was accused of trying to kill one of your police colleagues, aren’t you?” And he said, “Everyone I’ve tried to kill is in Rookwood”.

The Cardinal, the rogue former policeman and I enjoyed a terrific conversation and quite a long one too, two of us on Victoria’s finest ale and one taking a Scotch whisky. I spoke to His Grace, as he then was, about his achievement in having set up Australia’s first process for investigating and compensating claims of clerical sex abuse. He was horrified about the abuse and he was gratified that he was in a position to lead the way, in reform and in making practical amends with sensible limits. The extraordinary future for all of us was unknown. Thanks be to God.

I have shared some other wonderful times with His Eminence. In 2010, we and 18 other people were invited by then New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipioni to be in his inaugural Community Awareness of Policing Program, which Andrew Scipioni had developed. Many hundreds of people have done that course since, but we were in the first lot. We had tremendous fun participating in police training of all sorts and taking part in police boats at marine area command and counterterrorism and the police wing, police air wing. But my abiding memory of that course was being in the front passenger seat in a police car on the skid pan at the driver training lot at the Goulburn police academy. And Cardinal Pell was driving. It was scarier than teaching your naughtiest son how to drive. He went for it. His faith rendered him fearless, well, that’s how I saw it. He got top marks in the driving. He threw himself into the training. He really enjoyed the whole course which went for two or three months, once a week, or some such. All the participants really grew to love his humanity and his enthusiasm and his great sense of humour. The Commissioner was obviously already a fan having handpicked the group.

But His Eminence didn’t top the shooting class; he was pipped by Dr Jamal Rifi, who was representing our Muslim brethren. When he was appointed third-in-command at the Vatican, I wrote to His Eminence to congratulate him and I remember thinking that such top international recognition, if it occurred in acting, or in sport, or business would be so well recognised and applauded throughout our society. By the time of his gracious reply, I had become aware that the ICAC had targeted my family for some ill-conceived but unrelenting attack. That was just the months after McClellan dragged me in and cross-examined me for two days for allegedly covering up sexual abuse because I had at one stage recommended that there be no further proceedings in a particular child sexual assault case, because there was no chance of conviction. No prosecutor has been game to do that since. So now everyone’s on trial for everything. And that’s all part of the problem. But I digress. And there’s plenty of work for someone like me now as a result, working as a barrister.

When His Eminence replied to my letter, I noted his elegant coat of arms on the top of his correspondence, bearing the words: “Be not afraid.” And those words that so often appear in the Old and New Testaments did remind me of the great hymn of my school days – “If you pass through raging waters in the sea, you shall not drown. If you walk amid the burning flames, you shall not be harmed. And if wicked tongues insult and hate you all because of me, blessed blessed are you.” I felt a divine message of hope and strength and we know how His Eminence got through his disgraceful and horrible ordeal.

Gerard records how the Victorian Police Commissioner of the time gave completely incorrect answers about the Pell investigation after the High Court judgement, never conceding that the investigation started with the solicitation of allegations. Victoria Police’s Operation Tethering set up in 2013 became publicly known five years later when, at Cardinal Pell’s committal, the detective running it admitted that the cardinal had been the target before any complaints had ever been received. They’d commenced operations in 2013, to see whether he had committed crimes that had gone unreported. But a complainant only came forward in 2015. And Gerard refers to this in his book as a “get Pell campaign”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a tremendous supporter of juries. I gave a closing address to one today and I’m confident of a just verdict of not guilty. It’s one of those cases that really should have been stopped, but no one’s now got the guts. Each one of us, and every judge, harbours his or her own prejudices about people of this sort or the other. And for judges, prejudices about a lawyer representing a particular party can and do exist. One can’t guard against one’s own prejudices – even attempting to can mean unwarranted favour to the other side. But between 12 jurors, prejudices are levelled out. And the jury is the most independent arbiter of fact available, if its independence has not been compromised. Such was the vitriol poured over the Cardinal in a campaign of at least six years, there just weren’t 12 people who could judge without prejudice.

Gerard quotes Justice Mark Weinberg, a true hero of this chronicle, as saying, “I’ve said previously in judgments that juries almost always get it right, but the word is almost.” The media, both social and anti social, encouraged the vile, baying mob who ranted and writhed about the entrances to the Cardinal’s court appearances. The day after he was convicted, the sister of the allegedly abused boy said, “The public has sent the strongest of messages to these men of white privilege and power, you no longer rule the world.” What’s going on?

The Royal Commission’s findings suggest that a proposition doesn’t require the support of any evidence or reasoning. It’s simply “true”, no proof required. And if members of the legal profession can say something like this, it’s little wonder that lawyers can argue that allegations of sexual assault do not need any corroboration or evidentiary support. They’re credible just by themselves. Many in the press accept this proposition. And it’s likely that a proportion of those who end up on juries do too. So, we really are in danger of losing not only the concept of a fair trial, but the basis of morality. Blame can be transferred to the imagined characteristics of the group to which the individual belongs. Unstated motivations to bring down an individual to whom one has formed a dislike, to bring down a prominent member of an institution against one which one may have formed a grudge. Or to be celebrated and supported and probably financially compensated or rewarded is another motivation.

We first knew of the detail of the allegations against Cardinal Pell from a book by Louise Milligan. Gerard traces the effects of this book and the accolades it continued to attract, even after its premise had been utterly discredited. That book received a Walkley Award and a superscription from Thomas Keneally, which says in effect, Pell got what he deserved because he was a notable neo-conservative, who had questioned climate change, and had raised only muted opposition to the federal government’s heinous asylum seeker policy. Ladies and gentlemen, Gerard’s book is a meticulous chronology which draws together all the stakeholders, as they would call themselves, in the attempted destruction of Cardinal George Pell. As Gerard illustrates so eloquently, they believed what they wanted to believe. They were desperate to justify their hatred. They thought they had. Then, when the High Court resoundingly declared them wrong, they had to trash the legal system, including the presumption of innocence, and then the hatred can continue. Gerard the lawyer explains the applicable law with clarity. His compendious lesson on tendency and coincidence evidence decodes the concept so elegantly. His dry wit is palpable. As he says of the barrister representing the crown in the Victorian Court of Appeal – his “position was that A was a witness of truth. It’s just that the Crown found it difficult to explain precisely what the truth was.”

The foreword to Gerard’s book is by the Honourable John Howard, who said “I never believed the charges ultimately brought against the Cardinal. That was based on my assessment of him as a man, and the implausibility of the alleged offences having taken place within the circumstances which were alleged”. Gerard records the commendation he drew from former Victorian Chief Crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert for Keith Windschuttle’s excellent The Persecution of George Pell. When Gerard wrote to Mr Silbert about something he had written, Silbert replied: “We lawyers are used to defending clients and interpret their acquittals as a failure of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. I must say that after reading this [The Persecution of George Pell], I was persuaded that not only was the standard of proof not met, but the Pell was an innocent man”. Gerard Henderson’s Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-on & Collective Guilt will also reinforce readers of His Eminence’s innocence. And in addition, it powerfully makes the case against those who whipped up the vituperation against him and those who shamelessly piled-on. Thank you, Gerard, for your sense of justice and your fortitude in writing this important book, which it is my honour to launch.

INTRODUCTORY SPEECHES

DR MICHAEL CASEY – Thank you for joining us this evening for the launch of Gerard Henderson’s new book, Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt. I’m Michael Casey, the director of the PM Glynn Institute here at ACU, and the Institute is delighted to be hosting our friends from The Sydney Institute on campus for the launch of this important book. We have many distinguished guests with us tonight, including figures from politics. I note in particular, the presence of Senator Eric Abetz, figures from the media, the law, arts and letters, education and business. And we also have with us many, many supporters of The Sydney Institute and of the PM Glynn Institute.

We’re also honoured to have with us tonight our Vice-Chancellor Professor Zlatko Skrbis who’ll say a few words of welcome in a moment. But before I ask the Vice Chancellor to do that, I’d like to acknowledge country and offer the university prayer. In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ spiritual and cultural connection to country and in continuing ACU’s commitment to reconciliation, it’s customary to acknowledge country as we pass through. Today we acknowledge and pay our respects to the first peoples, the traditional owners and custodians of the lands and waterways. We thank them for their continued custodianship. We acknowledge and celebrate the continuation of a living culture that has a unique role in this region. We acknowledge elders past and present, and thank them for their wisdom and guidance as we walk in their footsteps. And the university prayer:

“God of all truth and goodness,

bless us as we gather here at Australian Catholic University.

May we be strengthened

in mind and heart to pursue

what you inspire,

with insight and deliberation,

that our world may advance.

In true wisdom and justice for all:

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

—

Vice Chancellor.

WELCOME SPEECH – PROFESSOR ZLATKO SKRBIS

Thank you so much, Michael. What a pleasure to be here today. It is so tempting to acknowledge so many of you, but the list would be long. It’s still early in the evening and I think we’ve got better things to discuss. But can I just say, one and all. Thank you so very much for being here today.

I’m absolutely delighted to be able to welcome you at Australian Catholic University. But I would like to single out three individuals. Ms Margaret Cunneen who is going to be launching the book. Dr Gerard Henderson, of course, the author. And his wife, Mrs Anne Henderson, both recipients of the honorary doctorate from ACU. Delighted to be here. So welcome to this occasion.

It is an important and significant occasion. Gerard approached me a few weeks ago and asked me to consider hosting this launch event here at ACU. In this context, I would like to make three observations. Of course, the answer was yes. A resounding yes. ACU is a continuing supporter of The Sydney Institute. And the Institute, of course, is a non for-profit current affairs forum, encouraging debate and discussion. Now, ACU is always proud to support pluralist views and discussions.

Secondly, as you would have noticed, walking onto this floor, Cardinal Pell has had a long-standing connection with this institution. It is therefore right that we provide a launch site for the book, which is a gripping story about the charges brought against him and, ultimately, the High Court unanimously upholding the appeal and quashing the original conviction. This was the drama that, as the Honourable John Howard put it “gripped the attention of many Australians”.

Thirdly, in this book, Gerard brings to life an epic court case and the context that enveloped it. It is a story about the media and justice, but also a story about a man caught up unjustly in the turbulence of our times. Can I just say what a privilege it is to be hosting this event here tonight. Thank you so much Michael.

DR MICHAEL CASEY:  Thank you, Vice Chancellor. It’s my pleasant duty now to introduce Ms Margaret Cunneen. Margaret Cunneen is one of the state’s most distinguished barristers. She commenced her career in the law as a law clerk in the New South Wales Attorney General’s ministerial office in 1977, and was called to the bar in 1982. She joined the Office of Public Prosecutions in 1986, serving as a Crown prosecutor from 1990 and as a Deputy Senior Crown prosecutor from 2002. She has appeared in hundreds of criminal trials and appeals over 30 years, securing convictions against some notorious offenders in cases involving some horrendous crimes. She was appointed Senior Counsel in 2007 and from 2012 to 2014, she was the Commissioner of the New South Wales Special Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of Child Sexual Abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. After a long career as a fearless Crown prosecutor, she continues to practise at the bar as a fearless defence barrister.

It is customary in Who’s Who in Australia to list one’s recreations. Some of us perhaps, if we happen to be listed in Who’s Who at all, might mention gentle pastimes, like watching the sea or drinking alone. But Margaret lists her recreations as a 4th Dan Black Belt Taekwondo and boxing. In an interview in 2019 when asked what advice she might offer to young women entering the law, she said be brave and bold. Advice she has clearly followed herself in her own outstanding career. All of which makes her the perfect person to launch Gerard Henderson’s book Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt. Please welcome Ms Margaret Cunneen.