In which the pond offers prattling Polonius some due process ...

Speaking of witch hunts, as we do routinely in these troubled times, it was these splashes which caught the pond's eye, and not just because it was prattling Polonius out in his best for his Saturday stroll in the Catholic Boys' weekend edition:

Was he suggesting that the Victorian plods were corrupt and incapable of due process? Was he suggesting that the Victorian justice system was corrupt and incapable of delivering due process?

Or had the pond just stumbled on a variation of the Catholic Herald?

Australians have the right to expect better?

The pond would be happy if, after complaints had been made, a proper investigation was undertaken, and then the usual procedures were followed, ending in conviction or a declaration of innocence as the case may be, and without frivolous behaviour by the plods ...

This doesn't necessarily happen, but the notion that anyone is above or outside the law isn't what the pond expects in its Australian expectations.

The notion that conservative christians don't deserve to be capitalised - will the pond's use of Xian now catch on with the Polonius crowd when talking of Christians? - is weird, especially if it's also being alleged that these christians can't expect the benefit of due process ...

Is Polonius suggesting that the entire legal system has got it in for conservative Xians? Is he just talking about journalists and the media? Which is not to talk about the Catholic Boys' Daily ...

Does he think he knows everything there is to know about the case? Of course - next to the Pope and the Holy Ghost, Polonius is nigh on infallible ...

Actually the pond doesn't know the details of the investigation, and it's unlikely that Polonius's biased and skewed telling of the tale provides clarification, insight or truth.

Someone so nakedly parading his convictions and certainties isn't likely to be open to saucy doubts and fears, let alone the facts of a matter.

If the Victorian plods proceed, it will all become clear enough in due course, though it will be a long and difficult road, with the might, weight and still cashed-up Catholic church fighting tooth and claw, ably assisted by the likes of Polonius, producing all sorts of conflations, distortions and sideshows, and doing their best to turn it from a criminal matter into paranoid speculation about persecution of conservative Xians getting done over and being fed to the lions in front of a baying crowd ...

Actually the only crime that the pond knows about with any certainty is that the Pellists have an unholy interest in wearing frocks of a spectacular and colourful kind.

It's not a crime in any criminal sense, more a matter of aesthetics and taste, a crime of pomp and circumstance and brazen vulgarity - how it gets anyone closer to heaven remains a mystery - and besides, a few of the pond's dear men friends love to wear a frock and do it in style. 

The trouble begins when men without taste decide to get into frocks that make them look like solemn Santa Clauses ...

As for the rest, outside a court room where the facts might be led, tested and argued under oath, it's idle speculation as to what Pell might have or might not have done.

Polonius in his prattling is committing exactly the same sort of error he accuses others of, denouncing them while defensively defending the Pellists, without knowing what might be the truth, and parading what he believes to be the facts of the matter ....

In other words, Max Davis was apparently the beneficiary of due process ... which makes a complete nonsense of where Polonius started out, blathering about due process being denied conservative christians ... Xians if you will, and want to capitalise the name ...

The pond can get away with that one, citing Irish genes for the stereotypical joke, but here's the thing. Questioning the entire system of justice in Australia as not offering due process, and confusing and conflating the media and journalists with due process is just another attempt at distraction ...

The plods sometimes get it wrong, but in the case of the Catholic church, a remarkable number of priests got shifted around to continue their criminal activity or got off scot-free, but the pond can't recollect Polonius prattling on at length about the great wrongs done to many innocent children, irretrievably tarnished by the deeds of the many criminals lurking within the church ...

Perhaps if there'd been due process at work in the church, they might have been able to prevent all that's subsequently followed ... because far too many in the church, and far too many of the church's defenders, were prepared to trot out talk of "unsubstantiated claims" which were blatant lies, with sickening amounts of substantiation subsequently produced in courts and the royal commission ...

Let the due process fall where it may, and let the outcomes be argued in court if that's where the matter ends up ... and if it doesn't, there's still the matter of the frocks, and the reality that Pell is a most unpleasant and alienating human being ...

Neither of those is a crime, but then such was the cleverness of the Catholic church that all its evasions and denials and maltreatment of victims and lawyered-about abuse of people were never treated as crimes either ...

And now, as the pond started with talk of witch hunts, we should end with a Rowe witch hunt, with much more good Rowe hunting here ...