From the time we’re very little, we’re taught that the past was some dark and frightful place full of ignorant peasants, most of whom starved or were burnt at the stake before their 40th birthdays. How unlike us, fair and enlightened moderns! We’ve inoculated our society against religious persecution and natural disaster. No more of heretics roasting on the spit! No more plague-riddled bodies piled high in the streets!

Then the coronavirus struck, and we who mock the medievals for using leeches to cure infections began swilling homemade COVID remedies made of fish tank cleaner and bleach. There are times when a fellow can almost believe the myth of progress, but this is not one of them. Yes, the past was a dark and frightful place. But only the most ignorant peasants could really believe that so much has changed.

Speaking of burning at the stake, I could hardly believe my eyes when I read the news of Cardinal Pell’s acquittal—not because he was guilty, but precisely because he was so obviously innocent. In 2017, His Eminence was convicted of molesting two boys over two decades prior, based solely off of a specious testimony by one of his “victims.” Cardinal Pell appealed the ruling, but it was upheld last year.

By the time his second and final appeal began on March 11, every impartial observer knew full well that Australia’s justice system had no interest in meting out justice. There was no presumption of innocence, no question of reasonable doubts. The courts were out to avenge themselves on the Catholic Church—nothing more, nothing less.

Is it really that black and white? Yes, it is. Here’s the crime of which Cardinal Pell was accused.

In the mid-nineties, two choirboys, cleverly nicknamed “the Choirboy” and “the Kid” by Aussie media, supposedly broke into Cardinal Pell’s sacristy after Mass one Sunday and began quaffing Communion wine. (This was remarkable in itself, given that the unconsecrated wine was kept in a locked safe…in another room.)

On this particular Sunday, Cardinal Pell decided not to greet the faithful outside after Mass, as was his habit. Instead, he made a beeline for the sacristy, somehow giving his entourage of priests and altar servers the slip. Unexpectedly stumbling upon the Choirboy and the Kid, and utterly heedless to the possibility that his altar party would join him at any moment, he immediately seized the opportunity to rape the two boys.

The Kid claims that Cardinal Pell hiked up his alb (a floor-length tunic) and chasuble (a floor-length poncho), unbuckled his belt, and unzipped his trousers. Holding up these vestments with one hand, he used his other to force the boys to perform fellatio, one after the other. Then this middle-aged prelate was supposed to have simultaneously masturbated himself and fondled the boys, all while keeping his alb and chasuble clear of his groin. The Kid says he and the Choirboy then “rejoined the procession,” meaning the attack is supposed to have taken place between the final blessing and the altar party’s arrival at the cathedral door: a span of about three minutes tops.

This is the sum total of evidence given by the prosecution in Pell v. the Queen. There was no semen-stained cassock, no CCTV footage, and no other witnesses—only this single, convoluted narrative. Cardinal Pell’s other supposed victim, the Choirboy, didn’t corroborate the Kid’s testimony: tragically, he committed suicide in 2014, though not before insisting he was never sexually abused by a member of the clergy.

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Many Catholics immediately realized that Cardinal Pell was wrongly convicted, but were afraid to speak out in his defense. Who wanted to be accused of running interference for predator-priests in 2019?

Meanwhile, some progressive Catholics joined the secular media in celebrating the conviction, since Cardinal Pell is (or was) among the five most powerful conservatives in the Vatican. Last August, the left-wing National Catholic Reporter declared that “those who dismiss [the] Pell verdict ignore integrity of legal process.” Isn’t it curious how the Catholic Left, which so often denies the infallibility of Church teaching, was so quick to assert the infallibility of the Australian courts’ rulings? Journalist David Gibson wrote in one gloating, sneering blog post that “Pell’s pals were convinced that this was the greatest miscarriage of justice since the Dreyfus affair, and evidence of a rising tide of anti-Catholicism akin to the persistence of anti-Semitism.”

Actually that’s precisely what it was. If Pell was a rabbi instead of a cardinal, he wouldn’t have spent a single night in prison. The Kid would have been dismissed as a self-hating Jew. And yes: any journalist who upheld his ridiculous accusations would have been likened to the anti-Dreyfusards, manufacturing evidence against a distinguished member of the Jewish community.

Or imagine if Pell was an imam! We’d say his accuser suffered from “internalized Islamophobia.” The mainstream media would spend months fretting over an “anti-Muslim backlash”—which, of course, would never materialize. For every report on the case itself, they would publish a hundred columns about ethnic slurs posted by social media trolls and speculations that the judge was on the Kremlin’s payroll.

This is how we think our justice system works. Whatever its faults, we assume it has built-in failsafes to protect minorities. Even if the odd judge harbors some ethnic or credal animus, we expect the news media to swoop in at the first hint of foul play. Exposés will be written; Twitter mobs will be whipped up. We literally can’t believe an innocent man might be found guilty in two high-profile court cases just because he belongs to an unpopular religious sect. And why is this so hard to believe? Well, because we’re better than that! And what makes us think we’re better than that? Well, because we say we are!

The truth is that Cardinal Pell was the victim of legal persecution. He was the object of a smear campaign by his country’s anti-Catholic media. And if you think we’re too tolerant and enlightened to persecute an elderly cleric for his religion—well, you’re wrong.

The Aussies had themselves a good ol’ Tudor-style priest hunt. Cardinal Pell stood accused of being a Catholic bishop in a nation and an age where the Church is reviled. That’s why I’m amazed he made it out alive.

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In a statement announcing his vindication, the Cardinal said, “I hold no ill will toward my accuser, I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough.” Here’s a man with no illusions about the cost of living a life of faith.

Others might see such naked persecution as an exception to the norm, an excuse to do suspend the law of mercy. Yet Christ Himself warned that persecution is itself the norm for those who follow Him. As we approach Good Friday, we should remember the words Christ spoke as He hung on the Cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

His Eminence clearly doesn’t buy into the myth of progress and our brand new, God-proof society. Would that more of our prelates did the same!

For two days after Christ died, the 10 apostles hid in the upper room. Then on the third day—the first Easter Sunday—He appeared in their midst and said, “Peace be upon you.” As the great Monsignor Ronald Knox quipped, “He, who three nights ago rebuked them for sleeping while he agonized, seems now to rebuke them for agonizing while He sleeps.” Well, we’re all going to spend Easter locked away in our homes. Our Lord will have to livestream Himself into our upper rooms.

When a deadly plague struck Israel, King David and his courtiers, “clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.” In the Middle Ages, when the Black Death appeared in a village, priests would offer more Masses, more penances, to accrue more of God’s graces. Today, the Bishop of Metuchen has allowed his flock to eat meat on Good Friday. I guess he figured having to spend their days sitting on the couch and watching television is penance enough for New Jersey’s Catholics.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying we should defy the bishops, go to church on Easter, and slobber all over each other at the Sign of Peace. But I do wonder: what does Christianity mean to us in the year 2020? Is it merely a moral system that undergirds our right-wing politics? Is it something to debate with neckbeards and libtards on Twitter?

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Robert Graves once quipped that “the remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.” I think the same is true of Psalm 23. In fact, if I was the Devil, I’d tattoo it all over women’s lower backs and plaster it on those cheap wooden signs Baby Boomers hang in their bathrooms. I’d make the Psalm tacky, because it really is very good. So we read:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me.

We all know these words by heart, though I wonder how many of us believe them. I wonder if we allow ourselves to be strengthened and comforted by God, Who has already crossed this valley, and Who died so we might live.

After he was released from prison, Cardinal Pell told Catholic News Agency that “Holy Week is obviously the most important time in our Church, so I am especially pleased this decision came when it did. The Easter Triduum, so central to our faith, will be even more special for me this year.” Yet His Eminence has lived every day of his life as though it were Easter. Few men alive could be so fearless in the face of such evil, and so quick to forgive such gross injustice. That’s why, if I have one prayer for myself this Holy Week, I’d like to become more like George Cardinal Pell.

Michael Warren Davis is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He is the author of The Reactionary Mind (Regnery, 2021).