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Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse

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Tisme

Tisme

Apathetic at Best
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I've been watching Pell on the ABC giving his two bobs worth and not withstanding the objectives of the commission, I can't help but wonder who is paying for all the suits who seem to be just there? I assume, given the line of questioning about accountability, many of commission are doing it gratis .... in the interests of the child of course.


So the lead female bulldog is making it clear that she believes it is the top echelon of the Church who are guilty, so I therefore assume the Pope is the one to blame. However as a secular society I'm wondering if the Queen should be hauled before the cameras to explain her lack of action when it was "common knowledge" in the communities that their local priests were doing evil things ...... the coppers would have known.

Pell is a scalp they are after, but me thinks he's a teflon man .......

Of course Andrew Bolt and News Corp will blame the Labor Party :D
 
Tisme said:
I've been watching Pell on the ABC giving his two bobs worth and not withstanding the objectives of the commission, I can't help but wonder who is paying for all the suits who seem to be just there? I assume, given the line of questioning about accountability, many of commission are doing it gratis .... in the interests of the child of course.


So the lead female bulldog is making it clear that she believes it is the top echelon of the Church who are guilty, so I therefore assume the Pope is the one to blame. However as a secular society I'm wondering if the Queen should be hauled before the cameras to explain her lack of action when it was "common knowledge" in the communities that their local priests were doing evil things ...... the coppers would have known.

Pell is a scalp they are after, but me thinks he's a teflon man .......

Of course Andrew Bolt and News Corp will blame the Labor Party :D
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Given that he's been given witness protection, Pell is laughing basically. The question is what is the church going to do from now on about these peddies infesting their organisation.
 
I think you are (way) off the track there Tisme.

The Royal Commission is publicly funded. It arose from the discovery of widespread child abuse in the Catholic Church. The terms of reference were extended to all religions and other institutions to ensure that it wasn't seen as just Catholic Church bashing and that other crimes could be brought to light.

In the past few years the Commission has exposed almost every religious, State and community organisation with records of child sexual abuse.

Cardinal Pell is in the spotlight because he has been a key senior religious figure in Victoria for the past 35 years. It appears as if, despite his central position in the Church, he has never heard of any concrete issues of child sex abuse. The Commission is testing his version of events to see if it is plausible that such a senior person could conceivably have "known nothing" about these widespread practices.

There was a background story on Cardinal Pell and where he was placed in Victoria over the years which highlights the areas the commission is questioning.

The cardinal and the royal commission: the questions George Pell must answer

Australia’s most senior Catholic faces the royal commission into child sex abuse once more, and it’s a last chance to make sense of the conflicting accounts of his handling of years of abuse by paedophiles in his church. By David Marr


Cardinal George Pell is bold. Priests have told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse over and over again that they knew something was going on back then and now regret doing little more than passing the awful news up the line.

They left it to others.

That’s not Pell’s position. He says he knew nothing – nothing while he was a priest in Ballarat about the paedophiles around him, and little about these men and their victims in his years as an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne.

He was never in the loop. No one warned him. No one complained to him. He didn’t read that letter or this report. It never came up at meetings. There’s nothing in the minutes. There’s nothing in the files.

According to the cardinal, he rose through the ranks in a state of nearly perfect ignorance while – as he now acknowledges with remorse – systematic cover-ups allowed paedophile priests to prey on innocent children.
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http://www.theguardian.com/australi...mission-the-questions-george-pell-must-answer
 
Tisme said:
However as a secular society I'm wondering if the Queen should be hauled before the cameras to explain her lack of action when it was "common knowledge" in the communities that their local priests were doing evil things
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Why not, if it can be shown that she was covering up things, the fact that the pope is the pope should not give him any protection, other wise no cult leader could ever be tried for anything.

I know to some the pope etc are on the same level as the queen, but really to the rest of us he is a leader of an immoral cult, and should be questioned with a no holds barred approach the same as you or I would be if we were accused of similar crimes.

----------------------------------

Everyone has probably heard this by now, but its a catchy little tune, lol






And there is this earlier song about the pope,

 
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Cardinal Pel inherited a mess in 1996 caused by Archbishop Frank Little who completely failed the Catholic community. Archbishop Hart stated that Little "had covered up paedophile priests and moved them to other parishes where they would abuse again It is rumoured the Pope made him retire.

Pel was the first to set up compensation schemes in Australia and got rid of priests but I am sure in hindsight he wished he had gone harder as still wanted to protect the Church. When he was a new young priest in Ballarat he would not of been told of all the goings on and probably didn't believe the rumours initially in any case. He received a rude awakening.

Pell comes out of it better than many including the presently dying ex Bishop of Ballarat who completely failed in his duty, however he is human and made mistakes.
 
While we are talking about child sexual abuse, why isn't the Commission looking into child marriages and female genital mutilation in the Islamic church ?
 
Knobby22 said:
however he is human and made mistakes.
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As are all the people in prison, I can't see the fact that you happen to be a human should mean you should have to front up and face the music for your actions (or inactions).

If it can be shown that these men put children at risk to save the reputation of the church or certain priests, and this caused children to be hurt, then they need to face the music, some time in prison will serve both a good punishment and a good deterrent.
 
Value Collector said:
As are all the people in prison, I can't see the fact that you happen to be a human should mean you should have to front up and face the music for your actions (or inactions).

If it can be shown that these men put children at risk to save the reputation of the church or certain priests, and this caused children to be hurt, then they need to face the music, some time in prison will serve both a good punishment and a good deterrent.
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Well yes, but Pell tried and generally succeeded in stopping it. He made mistakes as it took him a while to succeed. Priests have gone to jail but its all too late.

Believe me, I am disgusted with it all and Pell has to front up but he tried and deserves some respect for that.. which he got and that is why he is a Cardinal.
 
Knobby22 said:
Well yes, but Pell tried and generally succeeded in stopping it. He made mistakes as it took him a while to succeed. Priests have gone to jail but its all too late.

Believe me, I am disgusted with it all and Pell has to front up but he tried and deserves some respect for that.. which he got and that is why he is a Cardinal.
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And I am sure that if that is true that's what the royal commission will find out, the truth will set you free as they say, why is he so scared to answer some questions?
 
From what I'm seeing of the RC and Pell's answers he's as evasive as a snake, blaming others and denying all knowledge of the reality of what his subordinates were doing.

Unfortunately I don't think he will ever come back here and face the real music, which is accessory after the fact to a crime or crimes.
 
I think you are being exceptionally generous to Cardinal Pell Knobby. The history of child sex abuse by the clergy around the Ballarat region in the time George Pell was a senior administrator is almost an open book. It will be exceptionally hard for Cardinal Pell to plead ignorance of so many red flags. I don't think the commission has even reached the point of calling up the victims who attempted to directly tell Cardinal Pell of abuse and were just dismissed.

Let's see how it unrolls.
 
Another concern I have about Cardinal Pell was his management of the Melbourne response to child abuse from 1996.

The short story was Archbishop Pell as he then was created a system intended to discourage abuse victims from taking any action, offered minimal compensation (Max $50,000) and then demanded confidentiality and no further actions by victims.

This has already been noted by the Royal Commission. The url I have posted gives the Royal Commission findings on the response of the various organisations investigated in 2013-14

George Pell has proven to be a very sharp operator. You don't want to be on the other side of an argument.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...ised-by-royal-commission-20150914-gjm1l2.html

http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/public-hearings/findings
 
Some of these priests are lucky that they avoided a violent response from the parents of the victims.

A lot of people would just go and give the bast**d a good hiding.
 
SirRumpole said:
Some of these priests are lucky that they avoided a violent response from the parents of the victims.

A lot of people would just go and give the bast**d a good hiding.
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Very lucky indeed...

Unfortunately in many cases the kids coped the hiding from their parents for daring to talk about Father "X" like that.

Horrible but true.

If you can bear it check out some of the stories of the abuse on Broken Rites. Will also give you an insight into the concern many people have about Cardinal Pells role in the situation. Makes you weep.

http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/
 
SirRumpole said:
Some of these priests are lucky that they avoided a violent response from the parents of the victims.

A lot of people would just go and give the bast**d a good hiding.
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Yes, they are lucky it's the RC that's asking the questions, I would think a lot of dads and uncles would be a lot less forgiving, I think if someone touched my nieces or nephews they would be in for a world of hurt.

image.jpg
 
Todays questioning of Cardinal Pell has been expertly dissected by David Marr in The Guardian.

Short story in Marr's view is very simple. Fr Pell came to Ballarat as a young priest with big ambitions. He discovered he was in very messy situation with superiors incapable or unwilling to take serious action against paedophiles.

In David's view Father Pell decided to look the other way because challenging the Church hierarchy would destry his career prospects.

George Pell wasn't much interested in stories of abuse by priests. Which was lucky for his career
David Marr

Had Pell made a big fuss about the abuse going on all around him as a young priest, he would not be at the Vatican. But as he told the royal commission, he stayed clear of such ‘sad stories’

Tuesday 1 March 2016 17.20 AEDT

Here’s my theory. George Pell returned to Ballarat as a young priest with big plans. And why not? He’d gone from Rome to Oxford, where he reckons he was the first Catholic priest to earn a doctorate of philosophy since the Reformation.

Big things were expected of him back in Australia. He expected big things of himself. But for the next 25 years he found himself serving bishops whose record of handling paedophile priests was (in Ballarat) appalling and (in Melbourne) seriously flawed.

Pell is seeing out his career as cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s finances. But what would have happened to his mighty career if early on he had crossed those bishops?
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http://www.theguardian.com/australi...use-by-priests-which-was-lucky-for-his-career
 
Just three words "wasn't much interested" are enough to sum up this Pell person.

Completely contemptible.
 
I am starting to resent the counsel who does all the talking.
 
"Look away, Shut up, Don't ask Questions."

These are the messages that encapsulated Cardinal Pells testimony to the Royal Commission.

I can understand his position. In fact most people would have first hand experience of being in a workplace/organisation where bad things happen and employees and management are expected to ignore or overlook the actions.

Police brutality, political shenanigans, Corporations that deceive and destroy their customers (Think financial services industry)

The examples demonstrated in the Catholic Church take this behaviour to an extreme level. Mind you the Royal Commission found similar activities across a score of other institutions. And it seems as if almost all of them tried to hide or ignore the crimes.

I wonder where we go to from here ? With the Church and beyond.

_______________________________________________________________________________

For what it's worth

Not every Catholic clergy accepted abusive priests. Turns out Mother Mary McKillop who founded the Josephite teaching order in Victoria jacked up when she found a local priest was abusing her students. The consequences were predictable. This was a time when obedience to the Bishop was absolutely demanded and as for the role of women ......



MacKillop banished after uncovering sex abuse

Updated 7 Oct 2010, 2:23pm
Mary MacKillop was banished from the Catholic Church for five months.

Map: Adelaide 5000

Mary MacKillop, the nun who will soon be Australia's first Catholic saint, was excommunicated by the church because she discovered children were being abused by a priest and went public, the ABC's Compass program can reveal.

In 1871, after only four years as a nun, she was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church and turned out onto the street with no money and nowhere to go.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-25/mackillop-banished-after-uncovering-sex-abuse/2273940

Church sex-abuse victims see Mary MacKillop as their patron saint
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http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/178
 
Yes a lot of organisations have skeletons in the cupboard and people are expected to tow the party line for the good of the "brotherhood", sisterhood or whatever.

Abuse within the Defence forces are another example of collusive behaviour. I remember the "bastardisation" scandals from way back as well as the recent sexual abuse cases.

It's a bit different where children are involved though. Zero tolerance should have been the reaction of the church, not a lot of blind eyes.
 
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