June 4th, 2015,
A Story of Power and Corruption.
This story is not about Roman Catholicism, Christianity or religion. This is the story about a small group of venal and self-serving corrupt individuals whose commitment to the institution they were a part of completely destroyed their capacity to live up to the tenets of either the Christian faith nor common decency. The very simple idea that the Church should serve the congregation is completely alien to these men who have nothing but derision and contempt for their congregation and the many victims within.
This a story of power and corruption and the names of the institutions are almost immaterial, the deplorable and low conduct described has been exhibited across a wide variety of Western institutions, in Washington DC, in London, in Northern Ireland, Nebraska and Queensland, to name a few very obvious cases.
To state, as Adam Brereton did in the Guardian in July 2014 that “child abuse in Australia has a distinctly Catholic character” is simply an indication of the profound ignorance of the writer.
Ignorance of the abuse that took place at the New South Wales yoga retreat, ignorance of the abuse that took place in the Sydney Yeshiva, ignorance of the abuse that has taken place in dozens of Anglican schools , ignorance of the Queensland government cover up of the rape of a youth in the custody of the State of Queensland in 1988 and so many more. It is beyond pitiful.
The Guardian piece is grounded in two patently incorrect assumptions.
One is the obvious point that many, indeed apparently all major religious institutions located in Australia have harbored child abusers within their ranks at one time or another. To single out the Catholic Church is to by implication exonerate all the others. Why anyone would want to do that or how anyone could possibly be so simple-minded and infantile is a mystery beyond contemplation.
The other tremendously foolish assumption is that WE KNOW what has taken place. What has taken place in the past is still in the process of emerging. Only some of the parties involved have been identified.
The tactic of attacking one specific group serves only to obscure the real issues these cases present.
The truth is that power in Australia has a character of corruption. The cover up of child abuse is merely one consequence of that corruption and the Australian Catholic Church is but one of many prominent Australian institutions that have behaved in a despicable and contemptible manner towards the people of Australia, whom they apparently view with nothing but disdain, judging by their actions.
The Venal, Morally Corrupt and Wicked Career of Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal George Pell was born in 1941, in 1960 he began his “priestly studies” and was ordained as a priest of the Australian Roman Catholic Church in 1966. Pell was elevated to the position of Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, three years after accompanying Ridsdale, the notorious paedophile he had protected for decades, to court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pell
“George Pell AC (born 8 June 1941) is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and the inaugural and current Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, since 2014.[1] He previously served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001-2014), auxiliary bishop (1987–1996) and archbishop (1996–2001) of the Archdiocese of Melbourne.[1] He was created a cardinal in 2003.”
The career of Cardinal George Pell, behind the grandiloquent titles, stands as a grotesque and hideous caricature of the spiritual leader. For decades Pell expended the maximum possible effort to protect known paedophile priests from justice and to ensure that their victims were silenced and marginalised.
Cardinal George Pell instructed his lawyers to crush this victim | Broken Rites Australia
The career of Cardinal Pell has been one of the assiduous devotion to the protection of evil. Because of his actions, hundreds of children have been raped by known child abusers in his employ and under the protection of his formerly respected institution. In person Cardinal Pell is almost the parody of the pompous and self-important hypocrite. He poses to this day as a well intentioned and unsuspecting victim of circumstance. This is laughable.
The actions of Cardinal Pell have enabled and strengthened evil in Australia. This is the Pell contribution, and the extraordinary case of Gerald Ridsdale and the protection he was offered by the church over a period of decades makes this completely clear.
Protectors of Evil- the Case of Gerald Ridsdale.
Gerald Ridsdale was born in 1934, he is a defrocked Catholic priest and one of Australia’s most prolific convicted child rapists. Ridsdale has been convicted of more than one hundred counts of child sexual abuse over several decades. Allegations of child rape against Ridsdale date back to the mid 1950s. Ridsdale’s wikipedia page gives an account of the moves that were made well after his criminal activities were known to the leaders of the church.
“the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, claimed that he had no idea of Ridsdale’s actions until 1975, when the priest was in Inglewood police officer involved with the case spoke to Mulkearns; the latter promised to handle Ridsdale, but moved him on instead.[2] In 1976, Ridsdale was moved to Edenhope.[2] Operation Arcadia, a three-month police investigation into what Mulkearns knew about Ridsdale, concluded that he knew about Ridsdale’s crimes earlier than he admitted.[2] Subsequent revelations in 2013 claimed that Risdale, aged 21, allegedly sexually abused boys as early as 1955.[4]”
“Ridsdale was moved in 1980 to the National Pastoral Institute in Elsternwick, in Melbourne.[2] In 1981 he was moved to Sydney.[2] He was moved to Horsham in 1986; there, two people made complaints about him in 1988.[2] In 1990, Ridsdale was sent to New Mexico.[2] He was appointed chaplain at St. John of God hospital in Richmond on the northwestern outskirts of Sydney.[2] While he was working there, a victim phoned Victoria Police, leading to Risdale’s arrest three months later.”
Following decades of protection from the Australian Catholic Church, who simply moved the predator to another parish when he committed crimes in a certain area (NINE TIMES!) and a compliant police force apparently repeatedly willing to abrogate their responsibility and allow the church to deal with the matter, Ridsdale was finally prosecuted for 30 child sex offenses in 1993.
At subsequent trials Ridsdale was convicted of a further 81 child sex offenses making a grand total of 111 child sex abuse convictions against the long protected priest who will be eligible for parole in the year 2019.
Ridsdale is merely the most prolific and notorious example of the common practice of simply shipping child raping priests onto another unsuspecting parish to harvest new victims. The church acted as a co-perpetrator, it is that simple, they were accessories both before and after the fact. They conspired to pervert the course of justice as a standard operating procedure.
Gerald Ridsdale – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
”In May 1993, Ridsdale was charged on summons in the Melbourne Magistrates Court with thirty counts of indecent assault against nine boys aged between 12 and 16 between 1974 and 1980. Cardinal George Pell, a former Archbishop of Melbourne, testified before the 1993 hearing that Pell, while an assistant priest at St Alipius’ Church with Ridsdale in the 1970s, shared a house together. Pell denied knowing about any of Ridsdale’s ways.[4] Ridsdale pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months’ jail with a non-parole period of three months. A few weeks later, Ridsdale was first put on trial on charges of sexually abusing children. He was jailed in 1994 after pleading guilty to 46 charges of abusing 20 boys and one girl between 1961 and 1982.[2] He was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment with a minimum of 15 years, to be served cumulatively with the previous sentence.[2]
“In 2006, he pleaded guilty to 35 charges relating to indecent assault against 10 boys between 1970 and 1987.[1] He was sentenced in 2006 to 13 years’ imprisonment and with a minimum of seven years, three years of which was ordered to be served concurrently.”
The Ridsdale case also involves the allegation that Ridsdale raped a young girl in the 1970s at the home he shared with Pell, and the crime was actually heard by another priest, (not Pell), who did nothing.
“The inquiry heard the defrocked priest abused the girl at the Ballarat East presbytery in the 1970s, where he was living with a number of other priests, including Australia’s now most senior Catholic leader (Cardinal George Pell)
The inquiry heard the girl went to look at the rock collection in Ridsdale’s bedroom, but saw a pornographic magazine and ran away. When Ridsdale caught up to her, he raped her.”
The girl was eleven years old.
When Gerald Ridsdale attended court in 1993 to plead guilty to the initial batch of 30 child abuse charges, his old housemate George Pell there to offer comfort and support and to act as an advocate.
How Do Pedophiles Choose The Institutional Cover They Will Use?
The Catholic church is but one of many religious and secualar institutions that have harbored and protected child rapists. The perpetrators of these offenses are often “low opportunists” who will place themselves in positions where they have access to and power over potential victims. It doesn’t mean all scout leaders are like that because one or two are and the same goes for all the other groups represented. Make no mistake ALL other groups of the Australian community are represented.
One of the most recent horrific and proven serial child rapists in the US was a highly respected and well liked American Football (gridiron) coach named Jerry Sandusky. It’s not about being a football coach or a scout leader or a Catholic priest is about gaining a position of trust and power with access to children.
The more trusted and venerated the institution the abuser hides behind the more attractive the institution will be to potential abusers. That’s one reason for all the priests. It was one of the best covers available, because it would sound crazy, the victim would sound crazy, and the more devout the community the crazier it would sound.
Imagine what it would be like in Ireland or Italy , a place where the Roman Catholic Church has historically been highly venerated. The child would try to tell the parents or someone and the response would be “What the hell are you saying he’s a holy man!”
So it seems infantile and unfair to blame the institutions on the basis of them being used as a cover by child rapists, because if you understand their psychology a little, they will always try to target the best covers, the most respected institutions, as this will provide the best chance at successful evasion of the law and the continuing ability to offend.
The Response.
The response that institutions make to the unhappy discovery that they have in their employ a child rapist, on the other hand, is very telling.
In the case of the Catholic Church in Australia there has clearly been a long established pattern of protecting the institution-and the abuser before the victims or the congregation of the Church.
It is not disputed that the church knew that Ridsdale was a predator and protected him from prosecution and scrutiny by simply moving him on repeatedly when he abused children. The identities of Ridsdale’s assistants in evil are the only thing in dispute. Ridsdale crimes against children became known to the church by 1975 at the very latest, Ridsdale continued to be employed by the church for at least another decade and a half, the depraved crime spree was only halted when finally one of the victims went directly to the police and the entire cover up began to collapse.
David Ridsdale.
The case of David Ridsdale raped by his Uncle Gerald and allegedly offered a bribe to keep quiet about it by Pell exemplifies the moral corruption of both the institution and many senior individuals within it.
David Ridsdale is the nephew of Gerald Risdale. After being sexually abused by Gerald, David sought assistance from George Pell. David Ridsdale alleges, and there is no reason to doubt the claim, that Pell responded by asking
“What would it take to make you keep quiet about this?”
Pell is therefore personally responsible, without any doubt in my opinion, for protecting Gerald Ridsdale and all the known facts corroborate this version of events.
Stunning Attack on Cardinal Pell from Vatican Child Abuse Reformer Peter Saunders.
On Sunday May 31st, the Australian version of the Sixty Minutes program broadcast a most extraordinary interview with a member of the Vatican appointed anti-child abuse commission Peter Saunders.
It comes more than 20 years too late but the wicked and self-serving Cardinal Pell has finally been publicly destroyed. It was very cathartic viewing..
On Cardinal Pell,
“cold hearted, callous and almost sociopathic” a man who displayed a “lack of care”
and
“quite a dangerous individual”
Saunders added that
“I see not a shred of evidence that Pell has any sympathy, empathy or any kind of understanding or concern for victims and survivors.”
On Ridsdale having been moved nine times Saunders stated.
“It is inconceivable that they (the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Victoria, including Pell) would not have known.”
Adding the blistering…
“These are the people who should be facing criminal charges. These are people who have allowed theabuse of children to continue. And that is an unforgivable crime.”
Every word that Saunders spoke could have been applied to the current British Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron amongst many other notables of the British establishment over decades only to name one obvious example.
These statements of truth were met by Cardinal Pell, typically, with threats of legal action, as if the deluded clown actually believes he will benefit from further scrutiny of his actions in a courtroom!
What on earth did Australian Catholics do to deserve such arrogant, brutish, despicable protectors of evil as “spiritual leaders”?
This is what Pell has been doing for decades of course, reaching into the large church pot of cash in order to make the problem go away by splashing as much of it around as was required to make a problem go away.
The Catholic Church the “Christian” Church that Makes Hundreds of Millions of Tax Free Dollars a Year from its Extensive Gambling Interests!
Religious organisations in Australia are exempt from paying company tax.The rationale behind this policy seems obvious, the Government did not want to be seen to be taking their cut from the donations boxes of churches.
This loophole is exploited in order to run tax free businesses with no religious connection by a wide variety of Australian religious groups.
The most successful products that the tax exempt status has inspired are probably the line of breakfast cereals and other foods run by the Seventh Day Adventist church under the Sanitarium brand name. Clearly the tax free loophole is being exploited here.
The products that the Seventh Day Adventist sell are at least healthy and positive.
The Australian Catholic Church on the other hand is the owner/shareholder of a number of gaming venues in Australia and according to the lone article the major Australian media have ever written on this subject,
Gambling and the church – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
In 2012, the profit from the Catholic holdings in Australian Gaming Venues was more than $130 million dollars
This is a purportedly Christian organisation that is so venal, so greedy, so morally bankrupt that they think it is perfectly okay for them to sell addictive and destructive products (gambling and alcohol) that destroy the lives and families of countless Australians every year!
According to the Australian Catholic Church it is ok for them to do this because after the person loses their home and their family due to their alcohol and gambling addiction the church will chip in to help them out!
The church owns venues that contain hundreds of the hypnotic, mind numbing and completely rigged poker machines (the machines are set to simply pay out around 85% of the money that is put into them,literally all players will lose over time) that see victims sit in a trance for hours as they waste all money on an addictive and unwinnable wager,
For the Catholic Church to be an active participant in this industry indicates that they simply do not care what anyone thinks of them. This is one of those in your face, “go f.. yourself” type of organisations in the level of it’s venality and arrogance.
The appearance even of human decency and moral behavior is a thousand miles beyond them. That ship apparently sailed in the deep distant past. All that remains is the hollowed out carcass produced by these modern day Pharisees.on their very own highway to hell.
These are the actions of people with nothing but contempt for the people of their congregation and for the most basic tenets of the Christian faith.
In it’s way this story is even more shocking than the protection of paedophiles by the Australian Catholic Church because whilst those actions came in response to something unexpected and aberrant, The paedophile protection is what they do when things go wrong, the drinking and gambling venues, these are the brazen everyday reality of the functionally satanic Australian Catholic Church.
Why stop at gaming, why not get into brothels also? After all, running a Licensed brothel is not against the Law any more than running a Licensed Gaming venue so why not go all the way and get into the whorehouse game? Just think how many people the church might help with the funds raised!
The Modern Day Pharisees,
“They taught the law but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law — justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices but not the weightier matters of the law. (Matt 23:23-24”
“They presented an appearance of being ‘clean’ (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), yet they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.” (Matt 23:25-26)
“They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law, but were in fact not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones.” (Matt 23:27-28)
“They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old, and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets, when in fact they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.” (Matt 23:29-36
The Pharisees were the corrupt ruling religious elite in Jerusalem at the time of the life of the Christ figure. Anyone who wants to interpret the story of the Pharisees in the Bible as being intended to demonstrate the unique corruption of Jewish religious leadership, whether in Roman ruled Jerusalem or more generally is completely missing the point of the story in my opinion.
One need only look at the leadership of Australian Catholic Church to understand that the story of the Pharisees could be applied to any hypocritical, self-serving and corrupt religious institution in any place at any time. These are the people whom, seduced by power and status, betray their professed ideals and beliefs in exchange for power in this world.
Make no mistake that if George Pell had been a religious leader in Roman Jerusalem in early AD, he would have been the first in the queue calling for the execution of the Christ figure. He may even have helped out with the nails because Cardinal Pell is the very mirror image of the Pharisees, a corrupt self-serving hypocrite of the lowest and most despicable type. If the people at Vatican headquarters do not relieve him of his commission in the near future it will be clear that the once venerated Roman Catholic Church is beyond reform or repair.
Pope’s top advisor says callous Cardinal Pell should step down
Brief Note.
Cardinal George Pell was himself accused of child sex offenses relating to the alleged rape of a 12 year old boy at a Catholic summer camp in 1960.The matter was investigated by a church appointed commission of inquiry and in 2002 it was found that the complainant was a credible witness but that given Pell’s vehement denials, the passage of time and attendant lack of corroboration, the claims could not be proven.
Nor disproven. The truth was unclear. I chose not to make mention of this because the facts are not known and therefore all associated assertions must by necessity and fairness, be equivocal.
The case against Gerald Ridsdale is unequivocal. Beyond doubt. The protection the church offered Ridsdale is also unequivocal and without doubt. The fact that Ridsdale continued to rape children for more than a decade after his criminal predilections were known to the church hierarchy is also beyond all doubt.
With so much irrefutable evidence of these misdeeds and crimes the neither proven nor disproven allegations against Pell seemed redundant.
Sources
Former Yeshivah centre students tell of sex abuse and ostracism | Australia news | The Guardian
Former Hutchins teacher accused of abuse will not be charged
Child sexual abuse inquiry: Notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale raped girl at home he shared with George Pell, ‘and another priest heard’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The truth is that child abuse in Australia has a distinctively Catholic character | Adam Brereton | Comment is free | The Guardian
Rabbi told child sex abuse victim to ‘let it go’, royal commission told | Australia news | The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/04/rabbi-told-child-sex-abuse-victim-to-let-it-go-royal-commission-told
Senior Vatican official offered bribe to child sex abuse victim, inquiry hears | Australia news | The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/20/cardinal-george-pell-offered-bribe-to-child-sex-abuse-victim-inquiry-told
Child sex abuse inquiry: ‘Bully’ Cardinal George Pell complicated royal commission case with nonsense, David Risdale says – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Gambling and the church – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-27/carlisle-catholic-clubs/4283660
Third Catholic church in Melbourne set on fire | Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/third-catholic-church-in-melbourne-set-on-fire/story-fni0fee2-1227287163553 Can Pope Francis stop Catholic casinos in Australia? @e2mq173 comments
http://nofibs.com.au/2013/12/06/can-pope-francis-stop-catholic-casinos-australia-errol-brandt-e2mq173-reports/ Roman Catholicism in Australia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_
Australia Catholic Church sexual abuse cases – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases
Catholic Church – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church#Sex_abuse_cases
Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Victoria – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_scandal_in_Victoria Revealed:
Face of boy abused in Elm House scandal as Catholic priest and head of boys home are arrested | Daily Mail Online http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274703/Revealed-Face-boy-abused-Elm-House-scandal-Catholic-priest-head-boys-home-arrested.html#ixzz3QCcB1B2E
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_cases_in_Australia
Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitarium_Health_and_Wellbeing_Company#Tax_exemption Archbishop
Denis Hart regrets hurt caused by identical apology letters to clergy abuse victims | Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/archbishop-denis-hart-regrets-hurt-caused-by-identical-apology-letters-to-clergy-abuse-victims/story-fni0fit3-1227036445863
How a decision by Melbourne church leaders was revealed, after 10 years | Broken Rites Australia http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/160
Full story: How the church concealed Father Ridsdale’s crimes | Broken Rites Australia http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/55
Cardinal George Pell instructed his lawyers to crush this victim | Broken Rites Australia
http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/280
College of Cardinals – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Cardinals
List of living cardinals – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_living_cardinals
Cardinal (Catholicism) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_(Catholicism)
Youth detention centre staff to face inquiry
Heiner affair surrounds Goss cabinet’s 1990 shredding of child abuse investigation documents
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/what-is-the-heiner-affair-20090428-alxz.html
Heiner Inquiry Alleged Victim Paid By Queensland Government
Yoga guru was violent sexual abuser, Australia royal commission told – Telegraph
Yoga ashram didn’t consider sex abuse a crime, royal commission told | Australia news | The Guardian
Children sexually abused at NSW yoga retreat, witness to tell royal commission – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Close adviser to Pope Francis slams Cardinal George Pell as a ‘dangerous individual’ | Daily Mail Online
Melbourne’s archbishop defends Pell | Daily Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-3106570/Melbournes-archbishop-defends-Pell.html
Cardinal George Pell WILL to give evidence at royal commission into Victorian abuse | Daily Mail Online
George Pell to be called to second royal commission hearings in Ballarat | Australia news | The Guardia
Pell seeks legal advice after Vatican official slams ‘mockery’ of abuse victims | Australia news | The Guardian
Vatican official and sex abuse survivor ‘will not be silenced’ by George Pell legal threat | Australia news | The Guardian
Peter Saunders, the man who wants to bring Cardinal George Pell to justice
George Pell’s heavy-handed comments ignore the pain of abuse victims
Pell’s man helped pedophile priests – smh.com.au
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/01/1022569845430.html
Alleged paedophile Cardinal George Pell gives perjured evidence at the Royal Commission | Kangaroo Court of Australia
George Pell – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crimes of Empire 
Decent jounalism, good to see some people still have a backbone when it comes to dealing with people in a position of influence and power. Pell’s behavior is very similar to my sibling’s John Harbord Hamond. Dr Patrick Carnes states that sex offenders have 12 sets of 12 behaviors, that are clearly obvious within seconds of meeting them. Australia and Tasmania I hold in high regard for the work they do for survivors. They are ahead of the rest of the world. I have done extensive research. The behaviors are common to all perps. Child rapists are mentally ill. The mental illness is as obvious as that of the crack head. Only the meth or crack head deny the problem to themselves, to everyone else its obvious. Pell falls into this catagory, he knew the victim from childhood, therefore as a family friend and confidant its incest.
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Many thanks Robert, I will look into the work of Dr. Patrick Carnes, I am still in the early stages of learning about this issue and would suggest that you would find a great deal to interest you at the Aangirfan site,
http://www.aanirfan.blogspot.com
I assume you are aware of it but on the off chance you are not, it is a great source for excellent info on this topic. Thanks again Robert.
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Utter nonsense There is absolutely no evidence that George Pell knew the dreadful nature of the abuse that was going on. The supposed allegations against him have all proved to be totally false. You know nothing of the pure character of the man to make such defamatory statements. He like all good decent people finds the very idea of child abuse totally repugnant and like all good priests has found it hard to fathom.He has faced into the heart breaking task of trying to clean out the cesspool created by these depraved and rvil souls.
The truth we need to face is that this is a world wide phenomenon and any organisation which was highly esteemed and enabled access to children was targeted by these evil creatures.-the United Nations peace corps, the scouts, educational establishments . medical centres, the Arts world, and families.,
Next we should be asking ourselves why now-what has made them feel so empowered and confident to act out the evil in their hearts?
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If you had bothered to read this article you would know that I echoed this point almost identically. “The truth we need to face is that this is a world wide phenomenon and any organisation which was highly esteemed and enabled access to children was targeted by these evil creatures.”
Here:”The tactic of attacking one specific group serves only to obscure the real issues these cases present.
The truth is that power in Australia has a character of corruption. The cover up of child abuse is merely one consequence of that corruption and the Australian Catholic Church is but one of many prominent Australian institutions that have behaved in a despicable and contemptible manner towards the people of Australia, whom they apparently view with nothing but disdain, judging by their actions.”
If you had bothered to read this piece you would also have noticed that I specifically criticised Guardian “journalist” Adam Brereton for making the ridiculous statement that “child abuse in Australian has a distinctly Catholic character.
“To state, as Adam Brereton did in the Guardian in July 2014 that “child abuse in Australia has a distinctly Catholic character” is simply an indication of the profound ignorance of the writer.
Ignorance of the abuse that took place at the New South Wales yoga retreat, ignorance of the abuse that took place in the Sydney Yeshiva, ignorance of the abuse that has taken place in dozens of Anglican schools , ignorance of the Queensland government cover up of the rape of a youth in the custody of the State of Queensland in 1988 and so many more. It is beyond pitiful.”
“The Guardian piece is grounded in two patently incorrect assumptions.
One is the obvious point that many, indeed apparently all major religious institutions located in Australia have harbored child abusers within their ranks at one time or another. To single out the Catholic Church is to by implication exonerate all the others. Why anyone would want to do that or how anyone could possibly be so simple-minded and infantile is a mystery beyond contemplation.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/01/the-truth-is-that-child-abuse-in-australia-has-a-distinctively-catholic-character
This was paragraph three so it is clear that you have not read beyond the title. Your opinion is therefore completely worthless. Your comment reads largely as that of a tasked shill for the Australian Catholic church. Either take the time to read what you are seeking to criticise or go away.
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James I must jump on. The first paragraph is gem. Rewind selector:
This story is not about Roman Catholicism, Christianity or religion. This is the story about a small group of venal and self-serving corrupt individuals whose commitment to the institution they were a part of completely destroyed their capacity to live up to the tenets of either the Christian faith nor common decency. The very simple idea that the Church should serve the congregation is completely alien to these men who have nothing but derision and contempt for their congregation and the many victims within.
Excuse my indulgence to re post.
Mark
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Thanks Mark, I am very pleased that you thought it was worth reading at all. Please feel free to post any of the words here anywhere.
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The key point here is that institutions, organisations, governments and occult fraternities – anything which has secrecy, hierarchy and elitism embedded within its walls, however well-intentioned the initial ideology or belief – are open channels to ponerisation i.e. the psycho-panthogenic infection by different degrees of psychopathy.
It still amazes that people STILL don’t get that it is not the assigned label of belief that is the primary problem, it is the effects of pathology which hollows out the insides of these institutions rendering them moral shells. Thus an ethical idea and inspirational ideal no longer exists – only the name. But it is the name that continues to provide cover. And the Catholic Church is a prime example.
You then mix in all kinds of Establishment factions gunning for each other who highlight all kinds of abuse for political agendas then we can see how complicated it is to discover who is on first…
Another winning article calling out the predators in the shadows. Well done.
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Completely brilliant, you cut through perfectly and said exactly what the piece should have said. I will try to learn from this and I will try to find my own words to express this profound and important truth in future. “It still amazes that people STILL don’t get that it is not the assigned label of belief that is the primary problem, it is the effects of pathology which hollows out the insides of these institutions rendering them moral shells. Thus an ethical idea and inspirational ideal no longer exists – only the name. But it is the name that continues to provide cover. And the Catholic Church is a prime example.”
That is a truly stunning paragraph, all I can add is that it seems that these tribal identities are inflicted on people and this becomes the prism for viewing everything and this makes it impossible to see the obvious truth you have elucidated so wonderfully. Thanks and I am in your debt MK.
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Truly glad it helped James.
And likewise friend! All the best.
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You were correct to rebuke me I did actually recognised the value of the points you raised and should have given you credit for them in my response However to line up Cardinal Pell with the Pharisees which you described quite brilliantly was in my opinion unfair and inaccurate.
He is not vain and full of pride and self importance He is actually not preoccupied with the trappings of ecclesial office at all. He is driven by an interest in Truth and in his personal dealings with young people shows great interest in helping them develop an intelligent grasp of their faith. Nor is he a man preoccupied with worldly comforts and luxury He has always lived quite simply.
I am sorry if my failure to give credit to the valid and insightful aspects of your piece led you to assume that I had not bothered to read it through and appreciate its value.
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Fair enough, I respect that fact that you found that description is excessive and it is entirely possible that this description was exaggerated for dramatic effect. The points you have made about the Cardinal do not mesh with my understanding but I will not quibble,the problem is an institutional one, it does not rest upon any one individual nor any single institution. Thanks for your response, I realise the Catholic church is unfairly singled out for criticism whereas other institution are exempted from scrutiny and your defensiveness is understandable in that context. Thanks for your comment.
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