Bishops in Kerala on hunger strike for Catholic education

CNA Staff, Apr 8, 2020 / 03:02 pm (CNA).- St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne was vandalized overnight Wednesday, hours after Cardinal George Pell was acquitted by Australia’s High Court of a sexual abuse conviction and released from prison.

The door to the cathedral was spray painted with a cartoon image of a devil, along with the message “ROT IN HELL, PELL.” Other doors were daubed with upside-down crosses, the words “NO JUSTICE,” “PAEDO RAPIST,” and “The law protects the powerful.” 

Archbishop Peter Comensoli of Melbourne told Australian media that while he was upset about the vandalism, he was “not entirely surprised.” 

“There remains such strong emotions around all of these matters,” Comensoli told Australian news network 3AW.

Images taken of the cathedral showed police in attendance and that at least some of the graffiti had been covered up with a black trash bag. 

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Church officials had covered up this graffiti “Rot in Hell Pell” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with plastic . But revealed it to allow police investigators to examine it. 6pm <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/7NewsMelbourne?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#7NewsMelbourne</a> <a href=”https://t.co/j3LlIJxwWs”>pic.twitter.com/j3LlIJxwWs</a></p>&mdash; NickMcCallum7 (@NickMcCallum7) <a href=”https://twitter.com/NickMcCallum7/status/1247673837942001664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 7, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

A tricycle was tied to the fence of the monastery in a Melbourne suburb where Pell spent his first night of freedom after more than 400 days in prison. 

“I think everyone is going to continue to hold their own particular position on all of this,” said Comensoli, adding that he hoped “people in the cooler light of the evening will consider what the High Court judgment said and see that in its legal context.”

The director of the office of the Archbishop of Melbourne told Australian media that security around the cathedral would be increased in the following days to prevent further acts of vandalism. 

Pell was convicted in December 2018 of sexually assaulting two choirboys at the Melbourne Cathedral in 1996. On April 7, the Australian High Court unanimously ruled that the evidence presented during the trial would not have allowed the jury to avoid reasonable doubt and ordered Pell’s acquittal and release after more than 400 days in prison. 

The High Court’s Tuesday decision marked the end of a nearly three-year legal process which began in June 2017, when the cardinal was charged with several counts of sexual assault dating back decades. The majority of these charges were dropped before they could be brought to trial. 

Pell, who was most recently the Archbishop of Sydney prior to leaving Australia in 2014 for a position of Prefect of the Secretariat of the Economy, has returned to Sydney after his release from prison.

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Palmerston North, New Zealand, Oct 4, 2019 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a bishop in New Zealand, following an investigation into a complaint of “unacceptable behaviour of a sexual nature” made by a young woman.

Bishop Charles Drennan, 59, was the subject of an investigation by Cardinal John Dew of Wellington. Drennan had led the Diocese of Palmerston North since 2012.

Under Vos estis lux mundi, recent guidelines for investigations into misconduct claims against bishops which Pope Francis announced in May, metropolitan archbishops are placed in charge of investigations into suffragan bishops. Cardinal Dew is Archbishop of Wellington, to whom the rest of New Zealand’s diocesan bishops are suffragan.

Dew said Oct. 4 that upon receiving the young woman’s complaint, the New Zealand Church’s independent investigation body, the National Office of Professional Standards (NOPS), contracted an “independent, licenced investigator” to investigate under Dew’s oversight. The woman requested that details of the complaint remain private, Dew said.

In its Oct. 4 bulletin announcing episcopal resignations and appointments, the Vatican did not specify the reason for Drennan’s resignation.

Bishop Drennan stood aside from his duties during the investigation and both he and the complainant participated in the investigation. Dew said the Church has been in ongoing contact with the woman and is committed to continuing to support her.

“The Catholic Church has no tolerance for any inappropriate behaviour by any of its members. I encourage anyone who experiences such behaviour to bring it to the attention of the Church, police or any organisation with which they feel comfortable,” Dew said Oct. 4.

The Associated Press reports that Drennan was a member of the New Zealand church team of priests and sisters selected to respond to the country’s Royal Commission inquiry into sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults in state and faith-based care between 1950-1999. He was also secretary of the New Zealand bishop’s conference.

Drennan was also chosen by the nation’s bishops as a delegate from New Zealand to the Vatican’s 2015 Synod on the Family, and he also attended the Synod on the New Evangelization in 2012.

He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Christchurch in 1996, and was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Palmerston North in 2011, succeeding as ordinary the following year.

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Melbourne, Australia, Apr 15, 2019 / 11:15 am (CNA).- More than twenty journalists in Australia faced court charges Monday over breach of a court gag order in the case of Cardinal George Pell. The state government of Victoria is bringing charges agains… […]