Archbishop convicted

[Paidiske]

What I struggle with also is how people will moralize against people like Pauline Hanson for speaking her mind (she may well indeed have a particularly unfortunate way of expressing herself); and then the same people will feign surprise that as families go back and forth on low cost flights to countries such as the Philippines and elsewhere it transpires that their culture is different and may involve unhealthy practices such as an age of consent at 12; and their reaction may be: "Surely the clergy must have known! let's criminalize the clergy!"

That has absolutely nothing to do with this, though.

I suggest you read the report and documents from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Final report | Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

 

[faroukfarouk]

That has absolutely nothing to do with this, though.

I suggest you read the report and documents from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Final report | Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

I'm sure there are some very good ideas in the report, indeed.

The RCC is a worldwide organization, and clergy go back and forth frequently. It's hard to think that such a report - however desirable maybe - will be implemented in countries where the age of consent is 12.

 

[Paidiske]

But it's an Australian report, with recommendations for Australia. The point here is that the report uncovers the dynamics of abuse cover-up within institutions, and looks for ways to disrupt those dynamics.

 

[faroukfarouk]

But it's an Australian report, with recommendations for Australia. The point here is that the report uncovers the dynamics of abuse cover-up within institutions, and looks for ways to disrupt those dynamics.

I guess it begs bigger questions also such as: Are such discoveries and proposals universally objective? and is secular humanism supposedly the model for religious institutions worldwide? and is secular humanism expected suddenly to "work" worldwide?

 

[Paidiske]

Are such discoveries and proposals universally objective? and is secular humanism supposedly the model for religious institutions worldwide? and is secular humanism expected suddenly to "work" worldwide?

I think each culture and society needs to work out what works in their particular context.

I don't see this as secular humanism, though. Seeking to protect children is hardly something on which secularists have a monopoly.

 

[Zoii]

There are so many aspects to such questions. And so much is deplorable.

What I struggle with also is how people will moralize against people like Pauline Hanson for speaking her mind (she may well indeed have a particularly unfortunate way of expressing herself); and then the same people will feign surprise that as families go back and forth on low cost flights to countries such as the Philippines and elsewhere it transpires that their culture is different and may involve unhealthy practices such as an age of consent at 12; and their reaction may be: "Surely the clergy must have known! let's criminalize the clergy!"

I do indeed sympathize with the efforts of those who try to protect young people from exploitation and abuse. It is in fact a very big picture.

You're going terribly off topic but in order to curtail the red-herrings allow me to round things:

• Australia's work permit and immigration policies are incredibly tight. Suggesting it brings in cheap labour so that Australians can take a "siesta" is based on zero evidence ie false.
• The cultural practices of some countries have no bearing in this topic. You obey the law of the country in which you reside.
• This topic is about a high ranking religious official, who knew the extent of child molestation occurring by his subordinate ministers, and wilfully covered up the abuses, hid evidence, failed to report to police, and chose to not only inadequately support victims, but frequently took an oppositional approach to them leaving them further damaged.

 

[faroukfarouk]

You're going terribly off topic but in order to curtail the red-herrings allow me to round things:

• Australia's work permit and immigration policies are incredibly tight. Suggesting it brings in cheap labour so that Australians can take a "siesta" is based on zero evidence ie false.
• The cultural practices of some countries have no bearing in this topic. You obey the law of the country in which you reside.
• This topic is about a high ranking religious official, who knew the extent of child molestation occurring by his subordinate ministers, and wilfully covered up the abuses, hid evidence, failed to report to police, and chose to not only inadequately support victims, but frequently took an oppositional approach to them leaving them further damaged.

There are all sorts of issues here. (I don't disagree with a lot of what you say.)

I don't think you are open to admit the comparable reality of the relationship between North and Latin America and between Europe and its migrants if you don't admit to the reality of the convenience of cheap labour.

Yes, one should obey the law. Some groups are international and their adherents are coming and going frequently; and it does beg the question of whether provisions in one country are truly more objective than in other countries.

No country has a monopoly on moralizing. What may seem compelling in one jurisdiction suddenly becomes more nuanced in another; example: the age 12 of consent in the Philippines (which I find deplorable, but it's part of the reality; and perhaps in other ways the Philippines can moralize more convincingly than Australia...)

 

[Paidiske]

The relationship between North and Latin America, and Australia and the Philippines, is not at all comparable.

At the last census, Filipinos made up 1% of Australia's resident population. Google tells me that Latin Americans make up about 17% of the resident population of the USA.

 

[Zoii]

There are all sorts of issues here. (I don't disagree with a lot of what you say.)

I don't think you are open to admit the comparable reality of the relationship between North and Latin America and between Europe and its migrants if you don't admit to the reality of the convenience of cheap labour.

Yes, one should obey the law. Some groups are international and their adherents are coming and going frequently; and it does beg the question of whether provisions in one country are truly more objective than in other countries.

No country has a monopoly on moralizing. What may seem compelling in one jurisdiction suddenly becomes more nuanced in another; example: the age 12 of consent in the Philippines (which I find deplorable, but it's part of the reality; and perhaps in other ways the Philippines can moralize more convincingly than Australia...)

Each country is free to determine their own laws. The context here is Australia so discussing recruitment of cheap labour in Nth America and Europe is not of relevance to the Australian discussion on the topic of covering up paedophile crime.

I do find your arguments on the age of consent appalling as some means of justification or mitigation in this event. Paedophiles by their actions are not dealing with consent. The act is against a minor and without consent. The acts we are talking about are essentially rape of minors by Catholic Priests. No human, let alone christian, should be attempting to mitigate such an act.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Each country is free to determine their own laws. The context here is Australia so discussing recruitment of cheap labour in Nth America and Europe is not of relevance to the Australian discussion on the topic of covering up paedophile crime.

I do find your arguments on the age of consent appalling as some means of justification or mitigation in this event. Paedophiles by their actions are not dealing with consent. The act is against a minor and without consent. The acts we are talking about are essentially rape of minors by Catholic Priests. No human, let alone christian, should be attempting to mitigate such an act.

You've misunderstood, especially since from the start I said it was appalling.

 

[Zoii]

You've misunderstood, especially since from the start I said it was appalling.

Oh I'm glad I misunderstood in that you agree - I couldn't understand then the purpose of your points that in some countries consent is at age 12. Why is that an issue in this discussion?

 

[Bob Crowley]

As an Australian Catholic convert, the whole business of paedophile priests is discouraging. But it's not new.

I used to be Presbyterian, and my old pastor then thought that I'd become Catholic. He had a bit more to say on it, but he died himself in 1992. Yet even before he died, he said to me "I think there'll be a real scandal about child abuse (in the RCC). From what I've heard around and about there's been a lot of them!" So he knew about it circa 1990. Which meant that while it's been discouraging, I wasn't surprised when it started to hit to fan. I'd been forewarned.

Mind you the RCC weren't the only culprits. At one time I shared digs with a chap who spent his school years in the Enoggera Boys Home, which was Anglican run, and it was named as part of this enquiry.

As far as this legal case goes, I'll let the lawyers, jury and judge handle it. If a bunch of highly overpaid QC's can't get to the bottom of it, my opinion isn't going to make much difference.

As for having Alzheimer's making him unfit to be Archbishop, "an orthopaedic surgeon confirmed in 2001 that Pope John Paul II was suffering from Parkinson's disease" (from Wikipedia), and that had been suspected well before that. It depends on the state of the disease.

As for Archbishop's not being always saints, there was a court case some time ago about an Anglican Archbishop who was accused of raping a woman many years ago. The charge was dismissed, but when i asked my old pastor about it, and if he thought the Archbishop had raped her, he responded "I think he did." And he was usually pretty accurate in his opinions. But then it was only his opinion.

I responded, "If that's the case, how did he become Archbishop?" He just sort of looked at me and shrugged. In this sinful world, anything's possible.

Thomas a'Beckett is lauded as a saint. But in his early years he was anything but. As the old pastor put it ... "When Henry (King Henry II) and Thomas came to visit you hid your wine in the cellar and threw away the key. They lived life in the fast lane - they really did!".

To give some idea of his favoured position with the King ...The Baldwin Project: Tales from Canterbury Cathedral by Mrs. Frewen Lord

It was while he was with the archbishop that Becket first came to know King Henry II. The King, like every one else, at once took such a fancy to him that he made him his chancellor and Keeper of the King's Seal. He was also made guardian of the Tower of London and of the Castle of Eye at Berkhampstead. He lived now in a magnificent way—more like a great noble than a great Churchman. Henry soon became very fond of him—so fond that when he wished to arrange a marriage for his son with the daughter of the King of France, Becket was sent to see and talk to Louis VII. He went in great state, attended by many nobles, and the King himself could hardly have been treated with greater honour.

But then he became an Archbishop. As the pastor put it, "He actually read the Bible. I mean, if you're going to be Archbishop that's always a good idea..."

He became a saint, assassinated by knights sent by his erstwhile youthful playmate, King Henry II, who realised Thomas had changed, and not the in the way he'd hoped he would.

That's why, as a former Protestant turned Catholic, I don't get too hung up on church dignitaries, not even the Pope. The problem is that they're just as fallen and fallible as I am. Had I been in the same position as Archbishop Wilson, I might have made exactly the same mistake. I've made more than a few blunders in my time.