| SYDNEY, Australia - Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranked Catholic clergyman to be found guilty of child sexual abuse, has had his appeal process fast-tracked and might spend only three more months behind bars before it is heard.The Victorian Supreme Court has set June 5 and 6 for the bid for an appeal to be heard and any subsequent appeal hearing over which three justices of the Australian state’s highest court will preside.
Lawyers who spoke who Catholic News Service on the condition of anonymity said the appeal date was unusually soon given most appeal hearings are set a year or more in advance. They also noted it was unusual for an appeal date to be set before a sentence has been handed down.(...)
Prominent Sydney lawyer Bret Walker will replace Pell’s original defense counsel, Robert Richter, who has been criticized for mismanaging the cardinal’s defense and drew criticism for remarks at the sentencing hearing Feb. 28. The following day, Richter issued a lengthy written apology after he appeared to denigrate the severity of the abuse that saw one victim commit suicide at 35. (...)
The verdict has been questioned publicly by Pell’s supporters in the Church and in the Australian media.
Australia’s former prime minister, the Jesuit-educated, one-time seminarian Tony Abbott, who ran the country from 2013 to 2015, also weighed in.
“You’ve got to feel for the victims, who’ve been dreadfully betrayed by an institution they should have been able to trust. You’ve got to feel for the people who are dismayed by this verdict against someone they’d put up on a pedestal,” Abbott told Sydney radio show host Ray Hadley.
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