Theodore Dalrymple astutely weighs in on the overturning of Cardinal Pell’s conviction for sexual assault by Australia’s highest court over at Law & Liberty.

The same principle demonstrates the problem with the case against Cardinal Pell. It is shocking that it was ever seriously investigated at all in the absence of any other possible evidence, and it is even more shocking that is was brought to trial and ended in conviction. Of course, it is terrible for someone who has suffered abuse to not be believed, but it is also terrible for an innocent man to be wrongly accused, even if he is eventually exonerated. It is part of the unavoidable tragic dimension of life that both are possible: not for nothing is the prohibition of bearing false witness one of the Ten Commandments. No one is guilty merely because he is accused.