Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school

ebia · May 22, 2015

LoAmmi said:
I know how you feel when it comes to defending what you believe. It's really hard to see outsiders attack it.

When I read these types of cases, I don't think about how evil priests are or how often they must prey on the children. I think of the institution covering up the activities and making it so those men do not come to justice. That's the tragedy and if history has shown us anything it's that the cover up is usually worse than the crime happening itself. There have been rabbis who have abused children but I've never seen allegations that the Orthodox Union engaged in moving those rabbis to other synagogues in order to cover it up. That's the problem and that's what this probe seems to be looking into. I hope that the kind of cover ups we're seeing in this thread, which cover more than just the Catholic Church, are stopped. I would prefer for those who participated in the cover ups to spend some time staring at metal bars, but that's unlikely.

Sorry to disappoint...
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/y...on-on-child-sexual-abuse-20141125-11te2v.html

LoAmmi · May 22, 2015

ebia said:
Sorry to disappoint...
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/y...on-on-child-sexual-abuse-20141125-11te2v.html

Thanks for sharing. Though unlikely to happen, I prefer they also stare at some metal bars for a while. There should be no tolerance for that.

ebia · May 22, 2015

LoAmmi said:
Thanks for sharing. Though unlikely to happen, I prefer they also stare at some metal bars for a while. There should be no tolerance for that.

What was shocking about that one was the level to which victims have been ostasized by the their whole orthodox community, including their own families, for speaking out about what was done to them.

LoAmmi · May 22, 2015

ebia said:
What was shocking about that one was the level to which victims have been ostasized by the their whole orthodox community, including their own families, for speaking out about what was done to them.

I've always said some Orthodox are trouble. Got idiots in Israel that throw rocks at cars on Shabbat and then this kind of stuff.

LoAmmi · May 22, 2015

tz620q said:
It does seem strange that such a widespread and deplorable thing would take over thirty years to come to justice.

From what I know, the time it takes for people to come forward has to do with the time it takes for them to even tell their closest relatives what happened to them. Abusers of children are usually able to convince the child that it is the child's fault this is happening. Children are so vulnerable that they believe it. This is across the board, not just about these scandals.

Catherineanne · May 22, 2015

ebia said:
Most Popular: Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school: inquiry
http://ab.co/1Ahlaik

"Father Dennehy told the Catholic Church's insurance investigator that he thought every male child between the ages of 10 years and 16 years, who were at the school, had been molested by Ridsdale," she said.

Lord have mercy on us all. : (

ebia · May 22, 2015

tz620q said:
Ebia is not one to criticize the Catholic Church out of hand, though. I have seen him defend our beliefs, sometimes against a pack of people that did have an ax to grind and were looking for a neck to chop. I think his attitude about this more one of concern. An analogy that I would make is that if you have a beautiful rug and someone spills on it and stains it, wouldn't you want to clean the rug and restore it to its pure and natural condition. Instead it seems that the Church there had put a plant on top of the stain and tried to ignore it.

Ebia,
The only defense (and it is a poor one) is that the Catholic Church has been shell shocked with all the civil suits that it has had to fight and hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid in legal fees. This has led to closing churches in many of the affected areas (the diocese is often the defendant, not the church as a whole). The result of this (however you feel about whether it is justified by the offense) is that people no longer have a parish that they often were baptized in, grew up in, and had hoped to belong to when they died. These innocents are made further victims of the pedophile's perversity. Often, because of the extreme length of time between abuse and the filing of the case, the priest or brother is long gone and there is nothing really left to do as punishment to the offender. In cases like this, though, I agree with the other Catholics here that it seems neither isolated nor unknown to the public. It does seem strange that such a widespread and deplorable thing would take over thirty years to come to justice.

The Catholic Church here has largely escaped paying victims significant compensation, through fighting very nasty legal battles, and through the Ellis Defence. This has largely saved the church's coffers, at the expense of futher victimising victims and futher damage to the church's reputation. Parishes have closed, but through lack of priests, not lack of money. Though Archbishops Pell and Fisher have now conceded this was wrong and promised that compensation will be reviewed where victims want it renewed.

The Church cannot worry about defending itself and be the Church at the same time. It was trying to defend itself (from scandal) that caused it to get into the mess in the first place.

Catherineanne · May 22, 2015

ebia said:
The Church cannot worry about defending itself and be the Church at the same time. It was trying to defend itself (from scandal) that caused it to get into the mess in the first place.

In a very different context I am having the same problem with the Church of England. It cannot condone a certain situation by complicity and denial, and remain the Church. But it is having a jolly good try.

ebia · May 22, 2015

Rhamiel said:
well yes, no other institution in Australia can do that, because no other institution has its own country, that is just a fact of the matter in a practical sense these are the realities that we have, in a historic sense, the Catholic Church has always been seen as a counter to secular power, because as you say, for good or for ill, "NO OTHER ORGANISATION CAN DO THAT"

...and then maybe we can see more clearly what Institution should have oversight over the other

I wanted to come back to these two points.

There is, in fact, another instance where an institution will escape scrutiny in a partially like manner.

It is now very likely that the Royal Commision will examine the Department of Immigration's response to child abuse allogations in its detention centres. However, it is unlikely it will be able to examine the most recent of those because they happened on, and most of the witnesses and victims are on, Nauru. Even though the detention centre is funded by the Australian government, filled with asylum seekers sent there by Australia, staffed by contractors hired by Australia, and run by the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection, they will hide behind the legal technicality of it being a Nauran facility on Nauruan soil. In this case we are talking about current situations, abuse over the last year and a half, immediate stuff that needs tackling now.

This is an instance where the church ought to be calling the government to account. Whether it will try remains to be seen, but it's voice is unlikely to be heard as anything but hypocritical if it does.

dzheremi · May 22, 2015

This is just horrific. Those poor children. How heartbreaking that it happened, and how evil that it was allowed to happen and continue for so long. It sounds as though many people ought to be facing jail time for this.

I feel so bad for my Roman Catholic friends, too. I met so many good, kind, and humble people in my years as a Roman Catholic. I just know they are anguished whenever situations like this are brought to their attention.

Lord have mercy, and deliver justice to the innocent.

As to all this other stuff about the RCCs deep internal problems...I don't imagine this would be the right forum for a non-Catholic to discuss them, but I will say people like my sweet grandmother, who was still very Catholic when I was a young child (being a Mexican immigrant and all from long before the time that other religions had much of a presence in that country, or among Mexicans in general), had asked that she not be given a church funeral when she passed away (this was some years after the initial sex scandals came to light), and that no donations be made to the church in her name. She was cremated instead, and her ashes buried next to those of her husband on a property my family doesn't even own anymore. It's very sad.

I hope that those ultimately responsible for the cover-ups, in addition to being jailed, also get the message: You're hurting so many people. Your own people are deserting you, and not without reason. And moreover you are hurting the cause of Christ and the very message of the gospel. Jesus told the demons that he had cast out not to speak of his being the Christ, because the truth is profaned by unclean lips. The RCC, as the largest church in all of Christendom, casts a large shadow over all of us, so what it does or fails to do is hardly limited to whatever internal effect it might have (though that is bad enough). I do so wish that the trope of "priest as child molester" didn't exist, but not half as much as I wish that it weren't patterned on these things that actually do happen. It casts an evil pallor upon the divinely-instituted priesthood and confession, even for those far outside of Rome.

All replies regarding the RCC as the Church established by God and commanding obedience on that account are fine enough, so long as this does not become a defense mechanism invoked to continue overlooking very real problems. We believe the same about the Godly origin of the Coptic Orthodox Church (and all our churches), yet in my church, priests, monks, bishops, and yes, occasionally even Popes are forcibly removed, for the health of the Church (the last being Pope Yusab II in 1956, who due to his advanced age was unfit to govern, and had been essentially sidelined by cadres who assumed his powers and practiced simony and other evil in direct contradiction to our canons; he was retired to a monastery in the desert, where it is said that he prayed each prayer asking God for forgiveness and in deep regret that he had ever been elevated to the Papacy). Perhaps it is time that the RCC exercise this power, too, in order to make a true no-tolerance policy have some teeth. If the criminals in clerical collars know that they are more likely to be shuffled around for years than forcibly laicized and turned over to the police, then what motivation do they have to stop? Clearly, their own consciences are not enough, sadly.

Clean up your house, Catholic leaders. We live an increasingly secularizing world, and so it would be wrong to expect some kind of privilege to be given in perpetuity when it comes to dealing with criminals in your midst, particularly when you show the secular authorities that you're really negligent in doing so. The secular world being as it is, I could foresee a time when the seal of confession is no longer respected, and perhaps all priests and bishops are put under a heavy (secular) burden as the result of these kinds of crimes. I don't think it should get that far (because I don't trust the government of any country to be able to distinguish between problem priests/dioceses/bishops/people and everybody else who happens to share that same religion), but if it does, who can say that there isn't reason for it?

In the Coptic Orthodox Church, just by the way, we were told by the ruling government during the Nasser era that the political in-fighting between this or that group regarding the election of the Pope needs to stop for the good of the country, and this very problem led to the drafting of the current election bylaws in the 1950s (approved by the congress and all that; an odd situation in a predominantly-Muslim country, for sure), which everyone admits are terribly outdated and clearly the result of government manipulation, but probably as good as we can hope for in the face of the government's "fix this yourselves or we'll fix it for you, and you won't like it" sort of warning. And certainly successive governments after Nasser have not been more friendly to the Church than he was, so they remain in place to this day. So don't kid yourselves in to thinking that this cannot happen to you, too. It takes very little to turn a country or a government against its established Church, as events in Ireland and elsewhere should show Catholics everywhere (and things like these scandals are certainly not very little).

Lord have mercy.

FlaviusAetius · May 23, 2015

I'm beyond depressed at this point. In another thread I mentioned that Catholics need to remain faithful even in the face of scandal, but this stuff just saps any feelings that there is anything divine about the Roman Catholic Church or Christianity or even anything ever created by mankind.

Makes me feel like just giving up on it like I have everything else in this world, let the secularizing world slowly strangle the life out of this self-serving institution and stop trying to pretend godlessness won't overtake the Earth in a few decades. It's already at the point that asking any secular person and they'll say with full confidence "Priest = Pedophile"

If that was the point of this thread, congrats thinking of Catholicism leaves me dead inside.

David4223 · May 23, 2015

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classicalhero · May 25, 2015

ebia said:
Most Popular: Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school: inquiry
http://ab.co/1Ahlaik

"Father Dennehy told the Catholic Church's insurance investigator that he thought every male child between the ages of 10 years and 16 years, who were at the school, had been molested by Ridsdale," she said.

Ms Furness said Ridsdale was a "prolific offender" during his time at Mortlake.

"There will be evidence that his behaviour around boys was no secret," she said.

She also told the inquiry Cardinal George Pell - who later became Archbishop of Sydney and now oversees the Vatican's finances - was one of seven present at a meeting in September 1982 where Bishop Ronald Mulkearns discussed the need to remove Ridsdale from the school.

For some reason the media is treating this as new news, when this particular priest what under suspicion and was arrested in the early 90's for his child abuse. This particular incident is a beat up because when the police found out it was prosecuted as soon as they got the evidence in order. But even a former student, now a political reporter was part of the school and he didn't know about the abuse while he was ther during that time.

ebia · May 25, 2015

classicalhero said:
For some reason the media is treating this as new news, when this particular priest what under suspicion and was arrested in the early 90's for his child abuse. This particular incident is a beat up because when the police found out it was prosecuted as soon as they got the evidence in order. But even a former student, now a political reporter was part of the school and he didn't know about the abuse while he was ther during that time.

It is news, because it's current before the Royal Commission. The focus is not one priest or even one school but the disaster that is the whole diocese of ballarat in the 70s and how the church failed to respond appropriately, and to some extent still is.

ebia · May 26, 2015

Top Stories: Priest admits giving character reference for serial paedophile was 'preposterous'
http://ab.co/1HHDtNA

Rhamiel · May 26, 2015

thank you for showing us the results of letting homosexuals work with children
I hope this will inspire people to take the thread more seriously

classicalhero · May 26, 2015

ebia said:
It is news, because it's current before the Royal Commission. The focus is not one priest or even one school but the disaster that is the whole diocese of ballarat in the 70s and how the church failed to respond appropriately, and to some extent still is.

But this instance it is not really news worthy because the perpetrator got what came to him in the 90's. He ws investigated and sent to prison for his crimes. There was no cover-up about this and really this ort thing unfortunately happened in many places. George Pell should be congratulated for stopping this sort of bhaviour in it's tracks.

Tallguy88 · May 26, 2015

Rhamiel said:
thank you for showing us the results of letting homosexuals work with children
I hope this will inspire people to take the thread more seriously

Maybe I'm missing it, but who brought up homosexuality? It's not the same thing as pedophilia or pedastry.

LoAmmi · May 26, 2015

Rhamiel said:
thank you for showing us the results of letting homosexuals work with children
I hope this will inspire people to take the thread more seriously

I think that's a bit unfair. Having an attraction to children and having a same-sex attraction are two different things. A person could have both, obviously, but suggesting that a homosexual is bound to be attracted to children is pretty close to flaming any of those who visit here that have same sex attraction.

Rhamiel · May 26, 2015

Tallguy88 said:
Maybe I'm missing it, but who brought up homosexuality? It's not the same thing as pedophilia or pedastry.

well some of these instances were pedophilia, pre-pubescent children

but the reports said that a lot of the victims were also 14, 15, 16
so while that is abuse, sexual imposition, statutory rape, maybe even just rape
it is no longer pedophilia
so when that form of abuse is between two men, that would be homosexuality

while there have been a regrettable number of young women and pre-pubescent boys who have been abused in such a way
the vast majority of these cases seem to be between homosexual men and teen boys, so that would be a case of rampant homosexual abuse, not true pedophilia

Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school

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