By a 2-to-1 vote, an Australian appellate court this week dismissed George Cardinal Pell’s appeal of his conviction on five counts of “historic” child sexual abuse. For Pell’s supporters, the decision can hardly be surprising. Given the way things had gone, a just outcome would have come as a shock.

Prosecutors accused Pell of surprising two choirboys who were guzzling communion wine in the sacristy of the Melbourne cathedral immediately after Mass one Sunday in 1996. The cardinal was charged with forcing the boys to fellate him while he was still vested in archbishop’s robes.

The allegations were utterly implausible — for several reasons well-established by the defense at trial.

The cathedral’s communion wine was kept locked in a safe, for starters, and Pell couldn’t have left the post-Mass proceedings without his absence being noticed; witnesses attested this never happened. Likewise, the choirboys couldn’t have left the post-Mass proceedings without their absence being noticed; witnesses attested this never happened, either.

Plus, the sacristy would have been bustling with activity. As witnesses testified, Pell was never alone in the cathedral while vested for Mass but always accompanied by at least one assistant. The security arrangements and layout of the cathedral, and the respective locations of the cardinal and the choir, would have made it impossible for the abuse to occur as alleged. Nor is it physically possible to expose one’s genitals while vested in an archbishop’s robes.

Before he died in 2014, one of the two boys denied that he had “ever been interfered with or touched up” — by anyone. All this led 10 out of 12 jurors at Pell’s first trial to vote to acquit. Yet at the retrial, the jurors ignored the enormous weight of exculpatory evidence and voted in December to convict him amid a climate of media-driven anti-Catholic hysteria.

As the dissenting appellate judge was to conclude, the sole accuser’s wholly uncorroborated testimony “contained discrepancies, displayed inadequacies and otherwise lacked probative value.” Oh, well.

Some Catholic priests and hierarchs have abused young boys and men, in Australia and elsewhere. But the sins of a few devils in ­Roman collars don’t justify the scapegoating of an innocent man — or the campaign of misinformation and demonization carried out against him by Australia’s liberal media and legal elites.

“Time’s up for the Catholic Church,” announced The Independent just before Pell’s sentencing. ABC Australia reporter Louise Milligan is using the Pell case to argue for legislation that would force priests to break the seal of the confessional in cases of child abuse. Milligan is author of “Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell,” a bestselling hatchet job that ­inflamed public opinion before his trials. In the book, Milligan openly discusses her loathing of Pell’s conservative brand of Catholicism.

The black propaganda spread from the newsstand to the judicial bar. At Pell’s sentencing this year, the trial judge dwelt bizarrely on Pell’s “arrogance,” a favorite theme of the Australian media. In this ­obsession, one detects the ­resentment of elites who failed for years to stop Pell’s rise as he ­opposed their ideology.

Liberal elites in Australia are ­eager to “correct” the nation’s ­political culture. And they are keenly embarrassed by anything they consider retrograde — ­Catholicism, for instance.

They are zealous and ingenious in punishing dissenters. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, begun in 2013, officially had no specific target. In reality, its major purpose was to incriminate the Catholic Church in Australia and one churchman above all. Under defense questioning, ­officials admitted to undertaking a “get-Pell” operation. Since ­police knew of no accusers in the early going, they resorted to ­advertising for victims in local newspapers.

Why Pell? Equipped with brains, managerial talent and force of personality, he had risen to eminence while espousing all the wrong opinions. A vocal conservative on political as well as theological matters, he doubted climate change and opposed gay marriage. A cardinal since 2003, he ascended to become head of Vatican ­finances and a member of Pope Francis’ inner circle.

With the successful prosecution of Pell, the progressive media and political establishments have their man at last.

Julia Yost is senior editor of First Things.