Are Catholic priests victims of a frenzy to convict?

When two priests have been convicted of child abuse from the distant past -- on very shaky evidence -- and then exonerated -- we have to ask whether it is possible at the moment for ANY Catholic priest to get a fair trial.  And it becomes very likely that Cardinal Pell did not.  Pell has been a prominent conservative so the Left have been out to "get" him for many years, with constant accusations against him, so that would also have built up a halo of guilt around him, no matter how innocent he is.

John Francis Tyrrell walked free from jail last week, an innocent man ruined. Yet another Catholic priest falsely convicted.

Just last December, another Catholic, former Adelaide archbishop Philip Wilson, was also freed. Also wrongly convicted, said a judge.

Two such cases in just three months should make many media commentators pause.

Could Cardinal George Pell be the third victim of what seems a frenzy to convict accused Catholic priests for the sins of their church?

But let me tell you about Tyrrell. He, too, was unanimously convicted by a jury of sexual abuse on the word of a single accuser, using his memory of what allegedly happened in a Geelong school some 50 years earlier.

The Court of Appeal last week ruled that verdict unsound.

The judges said there were “serious discrepancies” between what the accuser had claimed and “the facts that were objectively established by the evidence”.

For a start, the accuser claimed he’d confronted Tyrell at the school in early 1969, yet Tyrell had left in 1966.

One of Fletcher’s victims claimed he’d told Wilson in 1976 he’d been abused, but Wilson said he had no memory of it.

He was convicted anyway and resigned as archbishop.

But last December Judge Roy Ellis overruled the conviction, saying it did not meet the test of “beyond reasonable doubt”. [Due to the difficulty of proving an uncorroborated allegation from long ago]

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Controversial right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos has been banned from Australia after calling Islam a 'barbaric, alien' religious culture

Since common Muslim practices such as polygamy and female circumcision are in fact illegal in Australia, why is Islam NOT reasonably described as barbaric and alien?

Controversial far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos has been banned from entering Australia on tour after his remarks about the New Zealand terror attack.

Immigration Minister David Coleman released a statement on Saturday confirming the decision to cancel Mr Yiannopoulos' visa into the country.

Mr Yiannopoulos' had described Islam as a 'barbaric, alien' religious culture on social media overnight, hours after 50 people were killed and 42 injured in an attack at two mosques in Christchurch.

'Milo Yiannopoulos will not be allowed to enter Australia for his proposed tour this year,' Mr Coleman said.

Mr Coleman has flip-flopped over whether Mr Yiannopoulos should be allowed to enter Australia, having granted him a visa just a week ago.

The government had agreed to the visa after conservative MPs had put pressure on Mr Coleman to override the Department of Home Affairs' advice to ban Mr Yiannopoulos.

Conservative MPs, including One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and former human rights commissioner Tim Wilson, argued that banning the alt-right speaker would be a blow to freedom of speech.

'Mr Yiannopoulos' comments on social media regarding the Christchurch terror attack are appalling and foment hatred and division,' Mr Coleman said on Saturday.

'The terrorist attack in Christchurch was carried out on Muslims peacefully practising their religion. It was an act of pure evil.'

Mr Yiannopoulostook to social media after the announcement on Saturday, where he said: 'I'm banned from Australia, again, after a statement in which I said I abhor political violence'.  

Labor MP Tony Burke took to Twitter to praise the decision to ban the speaker.

'Milo banned. Good. His overnight comments weren't that different from how he has always behaved. There was already enough evidence to ban him which is why the department had already recommended he be banned. The Australian tours for the world's hate speakers must stop,' he urged.

The speaking tour had previously been given the green light despite Mr Yiannopoulos owing Victoria Police $50,000 to cover policing at a Melbourne event in December, 2017, during which up to 500 left-wing protesters clashed with about 50 right-wing activists.

The conservative provocateur's supporters clashed with protesters who chanted 'f*** off Nazi', which led to seven arrests during his 2017 Sydney tour.

The 33-year-old had initially organised a 'Deplorables' speaking tour with convicted criminal Tommy Robinson and self-described 'western chauvinist' Gavin McInnes in December.

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Four Priorities for Australia (and the World)

Viv Forbes

There are four priorities for the coming election.

Firstly: Decimate the Foreign Green Snakes in the Grass.

The climate/emissions obsession started with unelected foreigners in the UN and the IPCC who drafted deep green agendas to be imposed via elected Federal, State and Local governments. Australia must immediately withdraw from the Lima/Paris/Kyoto agreements, reject the 2030 Agenda, and repeal all the green tape they spawned. This costly mess creates no measurable climate or environmental benefits.

Secondly: Build more Reliable Base-Load Power Stations.

Green extremists want to destroy the carbon energy that powers our industries, supports our life style, funds our welfare and provides our jobs. They want to take us back to primitive green energy that can never support modern civilised life.

We have played with weather-dependent wind-solar toys for too long. They will never power an advanced economy, nor will they lift poor nations from poverty. And they provide no demonstrated benefits for the climate, the landscape or consumers. All taxes, subsidies and energy targets that prop up unreliable intermittent energy must be abolished.

Thirdly: Build More Dams and Weirs.

Much of our continent cycles between droughts and floods. Both problems have the same positive solution – catch and store flood waters. The oceans are never short of water, but our land often is.

Finally: Fight Fire with Fire.

Every dry season we lose homes, properties, livestock, parks and wildlife to massive bushfires. There is only one positive solution – copy aboriginals and old-time graziers and use small, managed, early-season fires to remove flammable ground litter. This will require landowners and local fire-fighters (not urban greenies) to manage fuel-reduction burns.

We must fix these four issues. Stop draining Australian money to support foreign agendas and the bloated UN bureaucracy. Let’s help Australians instead.

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'This terrorist manifesto reads like a One Nation immigration policy': David Koch explodes in fiery Sunrise interview with Pauline Hanson over Christchurch terrorist attack

It is clear why the Left are having orgasms over the manifesto.  It shares with normal conservative writing a dislike of  Muslim influences and a wish for immigration restrictions.  To the Left that brands all conservatives as potential terrorists and all-round bad eggs.  But that is guilt by association and a violation of natural justice.  And even the asociation is absurdly weak.  Who is typical of conservatives, the hundreds of millions of conservatives who do NOT become terrorists or the one man who does? 

With the Left, on the other hand the association is much clearer and more troubling.  When Leftists gain unrestricted power -- as with Leftists from Robespierre to Stalin to Mao -- we see where the real murderous potential lies.  Unless restrained by powerful other influences, Leftism always leads to tyranny and mass murder. The deeds of their philosophical allies ARE a realistic guide to the potential of Western Leftists.

In the unlikely event that they had any humility and balance, the Leftists would be asking whether their repeated defence of Muslim hostility had any role in pushing the NZ gunman into his pushback against Muslim terrorism


Sunrise host David 'Kochie' Koch has accused One Nation leader Pauline Hanson of 'empowering' white supremacists in a fiery interview on Monday morning.

Koch didn't hold back when Hanson appeared on Seven's breakfast program, grilling the federal senator on her party's 'anti-Muslim policies' in the wake of Friday's Christchurch terrorist attack which claimed 50 lives.

Alleged Australian gunman Brenton Tarrant released a 74-page terrorist manifesto on social media the day before the tragedy.

'This terrorist manifesto almost reads like One Nation immigration and Muslim policy. Do you feel complicit with this atrocity?,' Koch asked Hanson.

A defiant Hanson hit back.  'David, I feel for those people and I feel for those families who have lost lives. The same across the road here when we had the Lindt Cafe terrorist attacks.

'We have problems but you've actually got to discuss it and debate the issue. Why we have these terrorist attacks in this country. Why is it happening around the world? Why is it happening in many places?'

A fired up Koch then claimed terrorist attacks were carried out by right-wing white supremacists 'egged on by your (Hanson's) comments, by your anti-Muslim comments'.

'(Things like) 'they don't deserve to be here', 'they will take over our country'. Can you understand how that empowers a white supremacist ... into seeing it as a call to arms?' Koch asked.

Hanson then turned the focus to what's happening in the UK.

'People are leaving England to come out here because they have lost their country. England is not the country that they grew up in,' she said.  

'Learn from the mistakes of other countries to ensure that it doesn't happen here. I didn't grow up with terrorism when I was a child. Why is it happening now.

'You make such bold claims that every Muslim is terrible, every Muslim is a threat because they don't look like us and they don't have our religion,' Koch shot back.

As the heated interview continued, Ms Hanson accused Koch of not knowing what was happening in Sydney's western suburbs.

'Go out to Fairfield now, go and ask the Lebanese Christians what has happened to their country. They will tell you the same thing. They're in fear the same thing will happen here,' she said.

'I have a youth centre in those areas and know exactly what's happening there,' an exasperated Koch replied.

In a fiery face-off with fellow crossbencher Derryn Hinch, who was also invited to be part of the Sunrise interview, Hanson downplayed her past connection to under-fire Senator Fraser Anning, who now sits as an independent.

'For you to say that is absolutely disgusting,' she told Sunrise when asked if she had picked Senator Anning to run for One Nation because of his white supremacist views. 'No, I didn't pick him because of that.'

Senator Anning entered parliament in late 2017 as a replacement for One Nation's Malcolm Roberts, who was disqualified from sitting in the upper house due to his dual citizenship.

Senator Hanson kicked him out of the party on his first day when he refused to step aside and allow Mr Roberts to return.

Senator Anning has been branded a 'disgrace' by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Australian leaders for blaming the Christchurch mosque massacre on Muslim immigration.

When parliament resumes next month the coalition government and Labor plan to jointly move a censure motion condemning his comments.

But Senator Hanson said she didn't see the point of a censure motion. 'A censure isn't going to prove, it's not going to do anything ... what is a censure? It will not prove a damn thing,' she said on Monday.

'The people will have their say, not politicians out there beating their chest about all of this.'   

Many viewers disagreed with Koch's grilling.

'I am disgusted with yourself and Sunrise. Regardless of agreeing or disagreeing with the views of Pauline Hanson, she was set up for an ambush this morning. Still the same old, boys club mentality in politics and television,' one viewer tweeted.

Another added: 'Turning off bias. Absolute disgrace. Nothing but an ambush on Pauline Hanson.' 

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here