https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/defending-the-indefensib...

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/aust...ned-kelly/ar-AAGmHH4?ocid=spartanntp[/BCOLOR]

There wouldn’t be many convicted criminals who’ve enjoyed as much slavering support as George Pell.
In some parts of the media, old and new, he has been fashioned - dare I say groomed - as a sort of modern-day Ned Kelly. A political prisoner, almost a freedom fighter, who set himself against a repressive elite and now languishes in a cell for his bravery.
It’s all rubbish, of course.
He’s a convicted paedophile.
He’s probably facing the prospect of charges for perjuring himself on the stand at the royal commission.
And to pop a rancid cherry on top of his personal toxic sundae, he was uniquely responsible for the added torment of the already traumatised victims of institutionalised child rape within the Catholic community.
George Pell is no Ned Kelly. Why, then, is so much energy being devoted into trying to make him a folk hero for conservatives?
© Jason South George Pell leaves the Melbourne Supreme Court after Victoria's highest court rejected his appeal. There is still a chance, however small, that he might yet beat the charges in the High Court, but it’s not much of a chance, and whichever way that final appeal goes, there is one outcome you can bet on with confidence: Pell’s defenders will do immense damage to the institution of the courts and the justice system as a whole in the prosecution of their culture war.
Because that’s what this is. The extra-judicial defence of George Pell is not a fight for truth or righteousness - it is simply a continuation of politics by other means.
It is disgraceful.
The systemic abuse of children by paedophile clergy is not a myth or a meme. It is a massive and well-documented atrocity that has taken the lives of an unknown number of victims, and caused vast suffering to many, many more.
It has blighted the existence of survivors and their families and done incalculable damage to the church itself.
A truly conservative response to the conviction of so senior a figure as Pell would not seek to diminish or even negate his crime. A true conservative would accept the vital importance of a perpetrator accepting personal responsibility for his actions and attempting to make amends for them, no matter how impossible that restitution might be.
Instead we get conspiracy theories, special pleading and brazen contempt not just for the court and its officers but also for the victims of the crime.
George Pell is no Ned Kelly and his champions are not conservatives.​