Ivan Yates speaks with the Irish priest who knows the convicted cardinal
At one point Cardinal George Pell was the third most powerful man in the Vatican. Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, has since been convicted for the sexual abuse of children.
Fair Trial
Pell’s verdict had originally been given in December, but a suppression order had meant it couldn’t be reported on until now.
Father Brendan Purcell, a priest who knows Pell personally, joined Ivan Yates on The Hard Shoulder to discuss why he felt Pell did not receive a “fair trial.”
“The problem you have here is presumption”
In the run-up to Pell’s trial in Australia, a book was released along with a TV programme which was “full of allegations” according to Purcell. Allegations that Purcell felt would depict Pell as a monster in people’s eyes.
Yates recapped some of the stories reported about Pell, which included Pell exposing himself in his Cardinal robes and forcing a 13-year-old choir boy to perform a sex act on him.
“What part of this can you not accept as true?”
Yates queried Purcell on the elements of the stories that he did not accept as true, to which Purcell explained that the robes worn by Cardinals have no openings in them to which a male organ could be exposed.
“the description of how it happened is physically impossible”
Listen to the full interview here:
