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George Pell

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭John Hutton


    smacl wrote: »
    I disagree. Pell was in a position of authority where his subordinates were involved in sexual abuse of children, he was likely aware that this abuse was taking place and he didn't act to stop it or expose it where he had opportunity to do so. I think it is entirely reasonable to refer to that as a cover up. That Pell was likely aware of the abuse is made clear in the report here;



    I think if it had been a single incident of abuse his excuses might hold up. What we're talking about though are multiple instances of abuse with many abusers over an extended period of time so this is not the case.



    Not quite sure what I've failed to address here. Speculating whether or not the trial would have gone ahead if Pell had been a teacher rather than a Catholic Cardinal is no more than speculation. I imagine if he had been a senior teacher in an institute where some of his subordinates had a history of child abuse that he may have been involved in covering up, then yes, I think it would have gone to trial.
    Define what you take "cover up" to mean.


    This attitude of yours in your final paragraph has all the hallmarks of bigotry. Justice is supposed to be blind. I agree that Pell did wrong, but that doesnt mean he is a paedophile or that he should be treated differently when it comes to justice. You even said yourself he was set up as a "whipping boy". This was wrong, and was a manifestation of misplaced righteous anger and bigotry towards Catholics. "Two wrongs" and all that.


    So any accusation against a person like Pell should always go to trial?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Define what you take "cover up" to mean.

    From Merriam-Webster
    Definition of cover-up
    1a: a device or stratagem for masking or concealing
    his garrulousness is a cover-up for insecurity
    b: a usually concerted effort to keep an illegal or unethical act or situation from being made public

    From my previous post
    Monsignor Connors told us that that he believed ‘nearly all’ other members of the Curia knew by December 1993 that Father Pickering was a sexual offender.

    The members of Curia were acting in concert, they were aware of illegal activity which they knowingly kept from the public eye. That's a cover up, plain and simple.
    This attitude of yours in your final paragraph has all the hallmarks of bigotry. Justice is supposed to be blind. I agree that Pell did wrong, but that doesnt mean he is a paedophile or that he should be treated differently when it comes to justice. You even said yourself he was set up as a "whipping boy". This was wrong, and was a manifestation of misplaced righteous anger and bigotry towards Catholics. "Two wrongs" and all that.

    Firstly, this isn't about Catholicism so much as institutional abuse. That the institute in question happens to be the Catholic church in this instance is not the issue. Secondly, I didn't suggest that Pell is a paedophile. I said that the public prosecutor was justified in bringing Pell to trial given the circumstances. I find it rather odd that you consider this bigoted on my part.
    So any accusation against a person like Pell should always go to trial?

    As per my previous post, any accusation of sexual abuse of a minor should be treated with all seriousness. More so if the accused has been linked to others who have committed such acts. Whether the evidence justifies a trial is a matter for the prosecutor. They thought there was in this case and given the initial conviction, this seems to have been reasonable.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,174 ✭✭✭Thinkingaboutit


    It seems odd that Cardinal Pell was selected from all the many careless local ordinaries to be charged, to be the scapegoat. He wasn't charged for that, but for an extraordinarily weak case, which looks all the more like powerful Australians, plus others in the Vatican like Becciu who stole 800,000 to fund the efforts against Pell, wanted Pell in prison, evidence be damned. For the Australians it meant looked up a Catholic bishop, for Becciu it meant punishing a man who tried take away their pot of gold (another recent case involves the Substitute Vatican Secretary of State, one Edgar Robinson Peña Parra selling a building already owned by the Vatican to the Vatican).


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    It seems odd that Cardinal Pell was selected from all the many careless local ordinaries to be charged, to be the scapegoat. He wasn't charged for that, but for an extraordinarily weak case, which looks all the more like powerful Australians, plus others in the Vatican like Becciu who stole 800,000 to fund the efforts against Pell, wanted Pell in prison, evidence be damned. For the Australians it meant looked up a Catholic bishop, for Becciu it meant punishing a man who tried take away their pot of gold (another recent case involves the Substitute Vatican Secretary of State, one Edgar Robinson Peña Parra selling a building already owned by the Vatican to the Vatican).

    You might want to define 'careless' in this context. Does it involve covering up child sex abuse or perhaps even extend to carrying out such abuse? I'd suggest there's rather more afoot here than carelessness.

    It would certainly be interesting to see if there's a follow up between money changing hands between senior officials in the Vatican with others in the Australian government, and where that money ended up. Until such time as there is evidence of this however, it remains speculation. It will also be interesting to see if there are any formal charges made on the back of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse report? If not, one would gave to ask why?


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,906 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    It would certainly be interesting to see if there's a follow up between money changing hands between senior officials in the Vatican with others in the Australian government, and where that money ended up. Until such time as there is evidence of this however, it remains speculation.
    Correction: SFAIK there has been no suggestion or allegation that Australian government officials were involved in any money that might have changed hands. The suggestion/innuendo is that prosecution witnesses may have been paid, but not that the prosecuting authorities were involved in or aware of that.
    smacl wrote: »
    It will also be interesting to see if there are any formal charges made on the back of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse report? If not, one would gave to ask why?
    Because that wasn't really the focus of the Commission. Many of the specific instances they investigated had already been the subject of criminal investigation, and some had already been the subject of charges. So far as criminal law is concerned, the recommendations of the Commission were more directed towards changes that needed to be made so that the criminal justice system could address the issue of institutional responses to child abuse more effectively than it had done in the past - changed police practices regarding investigation, principles for charging decisions, new criminal offences that needed to be created, changes to court procedures and rules of evidence, etc. And there was a separate set of recommendations dealing with the issue of civil liablity for the institutions concerned.

    (Note that this was a Commission into institutional responses to child abuse, and this would rarely focus on the criminal law, since the criminal law isn't an especially effective mechanism for dealing with institutions - you can't put an institution in prison, and very often control/responsibility is diffused in institutions in ways that makes it hard to identify individuals within the institution whose conduct can be said to amount to a crime. Which is not to say that you don't prosecute crimes where you find them, but you don't make the threat of criminal prosecution the centrepiece of your attempts to address the problem. If you do, your attempts will probably not be very effective.)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,174 ✭✭✭Thinkingaboutit


    smacl wrote: »
    You might want to define 'careless' in this context. Does it involve covering up child sex abuse or perhaps even extend to carrying out such abuse? I'd suggest there's rather more afoot here than carelessness.

    It would certainly be interesting to see if there's a follow up between money changing hands between senior officials in the Vatican with others in the Australian government, and where that money ended up. Until such time as there is evidence of this however, it remains speculation. It will also be interesting to see if there are any formal charges made on the back of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse report? If not, one would gave to ask why?

    Cardinal Pell was not charged for that. If bishops were put in the clink for that, Francis would be imprisoned for his interference in the trial of Julio César Grassi, commissioning as head of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, a three volume work attacking the witnesses, victims and case.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭John Hutton


    Interesting recent interview with Cardinal Pell, with an Irish dimension.



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