Australia's top Catholic official charged with sexual assault offenses

[M&M]

To those Australians here, what exactly is the Royal Commission? How much stock can we put into it? Someone posted on Answermug a while back that we are under investigation with the Royal Commission in Australia. I did a search on Royal Commission in Australia with sex abuse without Catholic or JW's and it seems that they claim to have over 1,000 victims for pretty much every denomination in Australia. Is there another step beyond the Royal Commission or something where this Cardinal surpasses all the other claims? I really don't know anything about the Royal Commission but I know our brothers don't just wink at it. Years ago someone on answerbag gave a link to where supposedly we are the worst at covering pedo's. I clicked on the link and saw that they included Michael Jackson as a JW pedo. I quickly found out it was run by an apostate and haven't clicked on it since. I know that there are legitimate as well as illegitimate claims for every religion but there is nothing in our teachings, doctrines, etc that I see that would increase the odds of one of our going rogue so to speak. I do see a pattern of teachings, doctrines, saving face etc with the Catholic Church and not just in tabloids or Australia.

 

EDIT: I am also under the impression that JW's are counted and  held accountable for every individual, Elder or not, as well as rather or not the offender was a JW at the time of the offence as well as rather or not an allegation could be verified. The Churches are only counted or held accountable if the alleged abuser was an active member of the Clergy. (And usually if there were multiple victims)

Edited June 29, 2017 by M&M
Addition

[paulc]

It seems to me that if Mr. Pell was innocent of these allegations that there could be  nothing that could prevent him from going to Australia so as to clear his name. He cannot stay in the Vatican because of his close connection with the pope. I wonder how many children are accusing him. I think he's going to jail, where he belongs! Just when you think that things can't get any worse for the Catholic Church. Makes me wonder what's next.

[Raven]

9 hours ago, Thesauron said:

You're mixing things up a bit, so let me address just one thing - the amount of sexual offenders in the Catholic Church. When you are to become, say, a bishop, that trajectory starts very early on, and marriage is forbidden, and normal sexual relations laden with heavy issues of shame and sin. For a very small minority, it seems like a logical solution to use children, who are less, how to put it, sinful, or whatever, and also, sadly, easier targets. Let me remind you that the people who resort to this are in a very small minority. So, what I think is that if you let people who are about to become priests and bishops and whatnot, engage in normal relationships, you probably wouldn't see this issue to such an extent, at least not anymore than in the population at large. Just my guess, mind you.

Actually I think M&M was onto something when he said this...

18 hours ago, M&M said:

I also think that perhaps there are some that are being particularly attracted to these positions because of such inclinations and easy access to children.

That certainly would explain it. If pedophiles seek out such roles, it's no wonder that so many cases exist. Granted, a lack of marriage probably doesn't help the situation, but what I'm trying to say is that marriage (or a lack there of) is not the issue here. If people who are attracted to the same sex find marriage to be a cure for their problem, then perhaps you are right about people who are attracted to children who get married, but it's not making sense to me. Why do so many of them keep practicing after being married?

[hatcheckgirl]

To those who have the stomach for it, this is a very sad and horrible account of the paedofile ring among priests at an orphanage in Ballarat, where Pell was a priest (he claimed he knew "nothing" about it). We haven't been informed of the exact charges, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of the charges against him. 

 

Like I said, it's a horrible read, a first-person account by victims now in their 60's, regarding young girls at the mercy of abusive nuns and paedofile priests at an orphanage in Ballarat in the 60's. So be warned, it is a sad read.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/feature/girls-paedophile-and-cardinal-pell

[hatcheckgirl]

9 hours ago, M&M said:

To those Australians here, what exactly is the Royal Commission? How much stock can we put into it? Someone posted on Answermug a while back that we are under investigation with the Royal Commission in Australia. 

http://jwtalk.net/forums/topic/21440-child-abuse-cases/?do=findComment&comment=469456

 

Have a look at this thread. It has all the info on the RC.

[M&M]

53 minutes ago, hatcheckgirl said:

http://jwtalk.net/forums/topic/21440-child-abuse-cases/?do=findComment&comment=469456

 

Have a look at this thread. It has all the info on the RC.

Wow, 47 pages? That's  a lot of reading. You can't give me a short synopsis can you? If not, I understand and I will try to peruse some of that thread.

[ To those Australians here, what exactly is the Royal Commission? How much stock can we put into it? Someone posted on Answermug a while back that we are under investigation with the Royal Commission in Australia.  ]

[RichardPNZ]

Royal Commission is a major public inquiry  that is not used very often, once started they can not be stopped the only limits are the terms of reference.

[Thesauron]

That certainly would explain it. If pedophiles seek out such roles, it's no wonder that so many cases exist. Granted, a lack of marriage probably doesn't help the situation, but what I'm trying to say is that marriage (or a lack there of) is not the issue here. If people who are attracted to the same sex find marriage to be a cure for their problem, then perhaps you are right about people who are attracted to children who get married, but it's not making sense to me. Why do so many of them keep practicing after being married?

I don't think they seek out these positions particularly. The trajectory to get there is far too long. I think other issues are far more important, such as the way ordinary relationships are viewed, as I've stated. Their feelings will not change after marriage, that is a misunderstanding, it does not help gay people either. But imagine this - a young boy sets out to have a career in a church that frowns upon marriage and normal sex for their leaders. He wants to remain clean and righteous, obviously, and whatever happens, he abstains from sex. Only, he still gets strong sexual feelings as he gets older. And using children is almost like not having sex at all in his mind. Marriage at this point will not help, but had they allowed for normal relationships from the beginning, it might have been avoided. More studies are needed on what treatments might help after the fact.


Johan

[hatcheckgirl]

This is going to leave such a stench on the church.  We recently had our census results showing for the first time there are more people answering "No Religion"  than religious people.  So more people here are viewing religion as no part of their lives anymore.  This will have a huge bearing on those left still clinging to some sort of religion, especially those who are still catholic.

[Raven]

25 minutes ago, Thesauron said:

I don't think they seek out these positions particularly. The trajectory to get there is far too long. I think other issues are far more important, such as the way ordinary relationships are viewed, as I've stated. Their feelings will not change after marriage, that is a misunderstanding, it does not help gay people either. But imagine this - a young boy sets out to have a career in a church that frowns upon marriage and normal sex for their leaders. He wants to remain clean and righteous, obviously, and whatever happens, he abstains from sex. Only, he still gets strong sexual feelings as he gets older. And using children is almost like not having sex at all in his mind. Marriage at this point will not help, but had they allowed for normal relationships from the beginning, it might have been avoided. More studies are needed on what treatments might help after the fact.


Johan

Many clergy started out as alter boys, and merely stayed with the organization they were already apart of. If they were abused as children (which is very likely in that environment), statistically they are much more likely to continue the cycle of abuse when they get older. In effect, the Catholic church has been proliferating pedophiles like some kind of factory. Once it has produced these pedophiles, whether it makes them abstain from marriage or not, they are still the same spoiled fruitage of the Catholic church.

[hatcheckgirl]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/george-pell-how-italian-media-reacted-to-sex-assault-charges/8666944

 

Chris Lamb, the Rome correspondent for Catholic journal The Tablet, said the Vatican had so far put on a show of support for Pell... 

Lamb said the charges put the issue of sexual abuse back on the agenda for Pope Francis.

"It shows it's not something that's going away from the Church and it's something that's going to have to be constantly looked at and dealt with," he said.

"I think there is still a need for better and policies and procedures in dealing with cases from the Vatican end … they need to get everyone on board to deal with this very serious issue more robustly.

"It's a landmark moment for the wrong reasons in the sense that Cardinal Pell is the highest ranking church leader to ever face formal charges.

"It is a big moment and it will have long term ramifications for the Church."

[Thomas Walker]

14 hours ago, M&M said:

To those Australians here, what exactly is the Royal Commission? How much stock can we put into it?

 

The RC is the Australian Equivalent of the Special Prosecutor. They have the authority to subpoena anyone, up to and including the Prime Minister. It's pretty much the most independent, incorruptible sort of inquiry you can form. 

[M&M]

3 hours ago, Thomas Walker said:

 

The RC is the Australian Equivalent of the Special Prosecutor. They have the authority to subpoena anyone, up to and including the Prime Minister. It's pretty much the most independent, incorruptible sort of inquiry you can form. 

Thank you Thomas Walker. So then they are legit and non-biased, yes? (As much non-biased as we can expect in this corrupt world anyway I supposed)

 

6 hours ago, RichardPNZ said:

Royal Commission is a major public inquiry  that is not used very often, once started they can not be stopped the only limits are the terms of reference.

Thank you RIchard.

[Thesauron]

Many clergy started out as alter boys, and merely stayed with the organization they were already apart of. If they were abused as children (which is very likely in that environment), statistically they are much more likely to continue the cycle of abuse when they get older. In effect, the Catholic church has been proliferating pedophiles like some kind of factory. Once it has produced these pedophiles, whether it makes them abstain from marriage or not, they are still the same spoiled fruitage of the Catholic church.

No, this type of abuse does not necessarily create a circle like that, according to studies, you might be thinking of physical abuse. Other things pressure people into these things, such as making people believe that normal relations are bad and sinful. (In some secular areas, an over-sexualised environment has created somewhat similar issues.)


Johan

[harmania]

Why is it that many homosexuals by choice or difference in brain are drawn into being priests? 

[Thesauron]

Why is it that many homosexuals by choice or difference in brain are drawn into being priests? 

Got any statistics on this?


Johan

[M&M]

12 minutes ago, Thesauron said:

Got any statistics on this?


Johan

I just did a 10 sceond search and didn't come up with statistics myself. Wonder if there is any valid statistics, wouldn't think so since the Pope seems to be against having actively gay priest? I did find this article that appears to be from a gay site:

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/04/20/how_the_catholic_priesthood_became_a_haven_for_many_gay_men.html

So how many gay priests actually exist? While there’s a glut of homoerotic writings from priests going back to the Middle Ages, obtaining an accurate count is tough. But most surveys (which, due to the sensitivity of the subject, admiittedly suffer from limited samples and other design issues) find between 15 percent and 50 percent of U.S. priests are gay, which is much greater than the 3.8 percent of people who identify as LGBTQ in the general population.

In the last half century there’s also been an increased “gaying of the priesthood” in the West. Throughout the 1970s, several hundred men left the priesthood each year, many of them for marriage. As straight priests left the church for domestic bliss, the proportion of remaining priests who were gay grew. In a survey of several thousand priests in the U.S., the Los Angeles Times found that 28 percent of priests between the ages of 46 and 55 reported that they were gay. This statistic was higher than the percentages found in other age brackets and reflected the outflow of straight priests throughout the 1970s and ’80s.

The high number of gay priests also became evident in the 1980s, when the priesthood was hit hard by the AIDS crisis that was afflicting the gay community. The Kansas City Star estimated that at least 300 U.S. priestssuffered AIDS-related deaths between the mid-1980s and 1999. The Star concluded that priests were about twice as likely as other adult men to die from AIDS.

[Raven]

9 hours ago, Thesauron said:

No, this type of abuse does not necessarily create a circle like that, according to studies, you might be thinking of physical abuse. Other things pressure people into these things, such as making people believe that normal relations are bad and sinful. (In some secular areas, an over-sexualised environment has created somewhat similar issues.)


Johan

40-80% of juvenile sex offenders have themselves been victims of sexual abuse (Advances in Clinical Child Psychology, page 19).

[Thesauron]

40-80% of juvenile sex offenders have themselves been victims of sexual abuse (Advances in Clinical Child Psychology, page 19).

Apples and pears, though. You do not become a pedophile because you have been abused yourself, that is a misunderstanding. You are talking about juvenile sex offenders, but for adults the same figure lands at about 6.2%, and that figure is no larger than for adults who do not commit sexual offences.


Johan

[Thomas Walker]

Look, this is an ugly subject, and most of what I know about the greater scandal comes from watching the movie 'Spotlight' more than once. But what I do know suggests that the victims aren't chosen by gender; but by opportunity. 

 

Church programs involving kids? More of them involving boys. I don't have stats to back it up, but what I've heard is that it's less about these monster's orientation, and more about the opportunity. What is the female equivalent of an altar boy?

[GeordieGirl]

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/special-fund-set-up-to-pay-for-cardinal-george-pells-legal-fees/news-story/febbed62ed2353028d55650bd9cc7232?utm_source=emarsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PerthNow+AM+update+2%2F7%2F17

 

A SPECIAL fund has been set up for Australian Catholics to donate to Cardinal George Pell’s legal fees after it emerged the Vatican will not pay for his defence.

 

Mr Roskam, a Catholic, said he had obtained an account number and BSB from “people assisting the Cardinal” and had passed on those details to Catholics who were keen to donate to the 76-year-old’s legal defence.

 

Mr Roskam said he had received inquiries from around the nation, including WA, about helping Cardinal Pell.

“Every indication I have had from talking to people is that he stands for family values and is a leader in our community and a leader for Australia,” he said.

And the next sentence said this: 

Victorian police this week charged Cardinal Pell with multiple historical sexual offences, the most senior member of the Vatican ever to face such charges.

 

Then the woman invites the beast in for a wine:

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce flew into Rome late Saturday for trade talks, and was due to meet the Vatican’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, for talks.

It is expected that Cardinal Parolin will raise Vatican concerns with Mr Joyce about ensuring Cardinal Pell receives a fair trial.

[Raven]

22 minutes ago, GeordieGirl said:

...the most senior member of the Vatican ever to face such charges.

They should investigate the Bishop of Rome. This would go right to the top.

[hatcheckgirl]

2 hours ago, GeordieGirl said:

Then the woman invites the beast in for a wine

[hatcheckgirl]

And who are paying for the cardinals defence?

 

A SPECIAL fund has been set up for Australian Catholics to donate to Cardinal George Pell’s legal fees after it emerged the Vatican will not pay for his defence.... With a legal team headed by prominent QC Robert Richter, the bill is likely to run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/special-fund-set-up-to-pay-for-cardinal-george-pells-legal-fees/news-story/febbed62ed2353028d55650bd9cc7232