As long as Pell is protected by the Pope no one can trust the catholic church

Guest Author Uncategorized

Today’s Guest Author is Jennifer Wilson, with her take on Cardinal Pell and the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse. Thank you, Jennifer, and you are definitely not alone.

BK:

Father Doyle, the CA Royal Commission witness from the US, was superb. His honesty and compassion were most evident. He gave many reasons for the behaviour of priest and the church and what needs to be changed.

The commissioners really appreciated his testimony. Doyle was effusive with praise for the establishment and conduct of the RC and on behalf of the “good” clergy in the US he expressed heartfelt thanks for what they are doing and how they are going about it. He said that of all the similar inquiries around the world this RC stands out and its findings and deliberations will be so important in the future.

Eat your heart out Pontificating Paul Kelly and your ilk!

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, this morning expressed his horror and outrage at the latest report from the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse on the extent of that abuse within his church.

The Archbishop was at pains to reassure listeners that after years of intense and ongoing scrutiny (thanks to former Prime Minister Julia Gillard ordering the Royal Commission which catholic MP Tony Abbott and his catholic henchman did everything possible to sabotage) catholic schools are by now among the safest possible places for your child to be.

While he might have a point he is missing the point: the former head of the church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, is himself under investigation both for alleged child sexual abuse, and for his role in covering up the offences of other priests.

Cardinal Pell is currently in Rome, in a position that keeps him very close to Pope Francis. Victorian Police yesterday submitted a second brief of evidence against the Cardinal to the DPP. The Vatican is a sovereign state from which Pell cannot be extradited. When last required to appear before the Royal Commission, Pell pleaded a heart condition that left him unfit to fly long distances. He gave evidence via video link.

I would like to ask Archbishop Coleridge how anyone can trust the catholic church in Australia when its former head is under the protection of the Pope. I’m struggling to imagine this situation in a secular organisation in which 7% of employees were guilty of sexually abusing children, and 4,400 alleged cases of child sexual abuse had been brought against it.

Both these figures are conservative: how many victims have not made complaints? How many have suicided? How many made complaints that were mishandled by the church, or dismissed?

As a fish rots from the head, so has the catholic church. I’m neither heartened nor impressed by various catholic clergy and lay commentators wringing their hands at the awfulness of it all. Had it not been for an atheist ordering an investigation, this would still be hidden, and the perpetrators still protected.

I’m willing to bet a great deal that no one, but no one inside the church would have taken action to prevent the sexual abuse of children, or to instigate useful investigations that resulted in prosecutions, and demands for moral accountability.

This will not be over until those at the highest level are held accountable, including the Pope. Until churchmen and catholic commentators are willing to acknowledge that accountability starts at the head, nobody is safe in the catholic system, and the fish continues to stink.

329 thoughts on “As long as Pell is protected by the Pope no one can trust the catholic church”

  1. Ecuador: Right-Wing Candidate Vows to End Asylum for Assange

    Guillermo Lasso, ex-banker and leader of Ecuador’s right-wing opposition, says he will revoke the asylum granted to Julian Assange since 2012.

    In an interview with The Guardian newspaper published Thursday, Ecuadorean presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso, leader of the right-wing CREO party, pledged that if he wins in next week’s presidential elections he will revoke the asylum granted to Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, arguing it is no longer necessary.

    “The Ecuadorean people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear,” Lasso said during an interview in Quito. “We will cordially ask Señor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.”…

    While polls suggest Lasso is still far behind the leading left-wing candidate Lenin Moreno, of the Alianza Pais party, the threat of revoking Assange’s asylum takes on new meaning given U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2010 statement that the WikiLeaks founder should face the death penalty for his work with Manning.

    While Trump’s views on WikiLeaks appear to have softened since it published a series of emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign, the U.S. president’s apparent disdain for judicial process appears to validate the Ecuadorean government’s initial doubts that Assange could receive a fair trial in the U.S. where it is widely suspected a grand jury has authorized charges against the Australian national.

    http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ecuador-Right-Wing-Candidate-Vows-to-End-Asylum-for-Assange-20170209-0002.html

  2. Brazil’s Olympic Legacy Far from Fulfilled at Idle Game Venues

    A lack of activity and upkeep is plaguing facilities including the site of swimming competitions, where craters from disassembled pools collect stagnant water.

    Less than six months after Rio de Janeiro hosted the first-ever Olympics in South America, game venues sit idle and already in disrepair, raising questions about a legacy that organizers promised would benefit the Brazilian city and its residents.

    A lack of activity and upkeep is plaguing facilities including the site of swimming competitions, where craters from disassembled pools collect stagnant water, and Rio’s famed Maracanã stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremonies.

    The field there, one of the most iconic soccer pitches in the world, is giving way to dirt and scrub. Electricity was cut recently because of a financial spat between local officials and the contractor hired to manage the stadium.

    Before the games, organizers touted the venues as facilities that could easily be repurposed in sports-crazed Rio. But little more than one beach volleyball tournament has been played at any of the venues — and even that drew criticism because it involved throwing sand on the Olympic tennis court.

    Federal, state and local governments, along with private partners, paid more than US$12.8 billion to host the Olympics, about US$7 billion of which was for game venues and related facilities.

    http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazils-Olympic-Legacy-Far-from-Fulfilled-at-Idle-Game-Venues-20170209-0021.html

  4. Bitter and twisted – that’s Fizza.

    Actually, Shorten IS a working class hero. He turned up at Beaconsfield in April 2006 to look after union members and stayed for two weeks until the two miners still alive were safe..Shorten became the public face of the rescue.

    Here’s an interview from back then.
    http://www.abc.net.au/sundayprofile/stories/s1637536.htm

    Then LOTO Beazley didn’t bother going and not one Howard minister bothered either. No-one cared enough to make even a brief appearance. It was just workers trapped in a mine, why would a Liberal care?

    Shorten followed up by working with miners to get an inquiry into the disaster and better work conditions.
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/miners-vote-to-reopen-mine/2006/05/11/1146940660807.html

    What was Fizza doing at the time? He was parliamentary secretary to John Howard and had just returned from an official Palm Sunday visit to the Vatican. Two months later Turnbull was sued over his part in the HIH/FAI scandal.
    http://www.ad2000.com.au/the_scandal_of_australia_s_anti_life_catholic_politicians_march_2007

  5. Reuters Leaks Trump-Putin Phone Call, Reveals Trump Unfamiliar With Russia Nuclear Treaty

    In the past week, the press complained that the White House never published a detailed read out of the Jan. 28 Trump-Putin phone call, one of the first held by the new US president, because allegedly the staff had disabled recording equipment. Today, it was Reuters’ turn to be the latest to leak the full details of a Trump high level phone call (as reported yesterday, leaking within the Trump administration has become a major issue) this time, the highly anticipated if unrecorded call with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Reuters cited two unnamed U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.

    The leak, while unconfirmed – in today’s press briefing Spicer refused to comment saying it was a private call – revealed several interesting facts, first that Trump denounced the START treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads “as a bad deal for the United States.”

    More notable was the disclosure that “when Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.” During a debate in the 2016 presidential election, Trump said Russia had “outsmarted” the United States with the treaty, which he called “START-Up.” He asserted incorrectly then that it had allowed Russia to continue to produce nuclear warheads while the United States could not.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-09/reuters-leaks-trump-putin-phone-call-reveals-trump-unfamiliar-russia-nuclear-treaty

  7. It’s the Labour Party’s fault!

    Media freaks out over Brussels blackout as part of city plunges into darkness

    A power failure affecting several areas of the Belgian capital has caused a Twitterstorm with pictures of pitch-black cityscapes. However, it appears that the media got way more apprehensive than Brussels residents as unconfirmed reports of “sirens and police” emerged.

    The sudden blackout affected the Evere, Schaarbeek and Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgian gas and electricity network provider Sibelga has confirmed. It said the cause of the power failure was not immediately clear.

    https://www.rt.com/news/376881-brussels-blackout-media-panic/

  11. How can one cope with a world where the passwords and security required simply to have one’s say are as strict as trying to access one’s bank account?

    Sorry – only just found you in Pending. Would you like me to ask The Boss to ban your preferred login name? Fiona

  13. Yay!

    News Corp posts second quarter loss citing Australian newspaper impairments

    Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has posted a second quarter loss citing impairments in its Australian newspaper business as a key factor.

    The struggling empire reported a loss from continuing operations of $US219 million ($287 million) compared to a profit of $US106 million in the prior year.

    News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson said the results were hurt by a continuing decline in advertising income and “an impairment of the print-related fixed assets of our Australian newspaper business”.

    Mr Thomson said the loss included $US537 million of non-cash impairments and write down and a one-time gain from the sale of News Corporation’s real estate business in Europe

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/news-corp-posts-second-quarter-loss-australian-newspaper-impairs/8258334

  15. Ashby is on a nice sideline

    Michael Pucci, a former Liberal National party MP who runs One Nation’s Queensland campaign, confirmed Cottam had been disendorsed for failure to submit paperwork and pay after she was given “several chances” to do so. “It’s a candidacy fee,” he told Guardian Australia. “It’s a fee they have to pay to be a candidate.”

    James Ashby, a senior adviser to the federal leader, Pauline Hanson, said the fees “go to office administration costs and ECQ nomination costs”. Neither denied the fees also paid for marketing materials.

    Ashby said his firm provided the banners for $110 each but corflutes, flyers and other materials were provided by other commercial suppliers.

    “That’s my free-market rate. [The candidates] are welcome to buy their materials anywhere else.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/10/one-nation-disendorses-candidate-for-not-paying-2400-upfront-fee

  16. Is what happened in South Australia yesterday similar to what Enron did in California in 2001?

    The California electricity crisis, also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001, was a situation in which the United States state of California had a shortage of electricity supply caused by market manipulations, illegal[5] shutdowns of pipelines by the Texas energy consortium Enron, and capped retail electricity prices.[6] The state suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts, one of the state’s largest energy companies collapsed

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

  20. That coal stunt leaves Morrison wide open for ridicule come budget time.

    You know how parents threaten misbehaving children that if they’re naughty that all they’ll get is a lump of coal for Christmas? Well, that will be pretty much all Australian families will be getting from this government because it doesn’t like them.

  21. Anyone for celestial ephemera?

    Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková visits our skies around every six years from the outer reaches of our solar system beyond Jupiter.

    This year, Comet 45P makes its closest approach to Earth tomorrow (February 11) as it zips past about 12 million kilometres (or some 32 times the Moon’s distance) away from us.

    …

    If you stay up late on the night of February 11 (or get up early on the morning of February 12, depending upon where you live) you’ll see another special event — as the bright star Regulus slips behind the Moon.

    Occultations of stars are like watching a solar eclipse — except they are rarer and you don’t need any special eye protection to see them.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/comet-45p-and-winking-stars-in-feburary/8255034

  22. The Shovel –

    Scott Morrison Brings Piece Of Soul Into Question Time

    Treasurer Scott Morrison bought a blackened piece of his soul into question time yesterday, in a visual stunt designed to fluster the Opposition.

    Mr Morrison usually keeps his soul in a jar in his parliamentary office, but decided to bring it along on Thursday to see what kind of reaction he would get.

    Opposition and crossbench MPs were visibly shaken when they realised what the Treasurer was holding, with some describing it as the most horrific object they had ever seen.

    “I’d heard Scott Morrison had a soul, but I didn’t really believe it until I saw it up close,” one MP said. “He was just waving it around and laughing. It was fucking brutal”. Others say small flakes of his soul were seen falling onto the floor of the House.

    It is the first time Mr Morrison has been seen with his soul this year

    http://www.theshovel.com.au/2017/02/09/scott-morrison-brings-piece-of-soul-into-question-time/

  23. Here’s a thought –

    Was it wise of Turnbull to single out Richard Pratt, Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox in his rant?

    Turnbull’s electorate has many Jewish voters. Turnbull named two notable Jewish men – Pratt and Lew – and another who has long supported the Jewish community – Fox – in his rant and implied they might have encouraged or supported Shorten in the past.

    In doing that Turnbull showed us a nasty side of himself that a wiser politician would have kept hidden – his lurking anti-Semitism. No matter how you try to explain this away as Turnbull just using the first billionaires who came to mind, or not having any intention of insulting anyone rich, it’s not going to wash. Turnbull behaved despicably. A man with more judgement and more political nous would have restricted his comments to Shorten alone and would not have tried to be clever by naming others.

  24. Accountants demanding their pound of flesh.

    Not good Trumble, not good.

    Accountants have demanded compensation for the havoc caused to their businesses by the failure of Australian taxation office computer systems.

    The federal government’s tax portal, website and other online services have been frequently unavailable, causing significant disruption to agents and accountants.

    The tax office has sought to blame the provider of its storage systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and recently suggested it may have breached its contractual requirements.

    The Institute of Public Accountants, which largely represents small accounting firms, has demanded any compensation should flow to affected businesses.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/10/accountants-want-compensation-for-tax-office-computer-system-failures#comments

  27. *Not like we don’t want to do the same thing, I should say.

    I fail at double negatives on hot days.

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