The countdown is over! Number 1 goes to Tess Lawrence for this fabulous article from January. Well done, Tess.

George Pell ‘Devil Incarnate’ is dead

In what she shamelessly and deliberately calls her ‘Obitchuary’ of Cardinal George Pell, guest columnist Tess Lawrence, longtime advocate for sex abuse victims who has spent decades investigating the crimes of the Catholic Church and George Pell shares inside intelligence on ‘Big George’ that will shock you more than any of Prince Harry’s tame scribblings. She has written fearlessly about Pell and the Catholic Church, famously exposing Pell’s lie that he was exonerated by a church appointed so-called ‘independent’ Queens Counsel from sexually abusing a boy. She has worked for the Christian Brothers and advises readers to keep a sick bag at the ready and to have a cleansing shower after reading this article.

Content warning: this article discusses rape, sexual abuse and violence.
* Support phone numbers at end of this article. Reach out, please.

May he rot in the same living hell he personally facilitated and enabled for the tens of thousands of clergy child sex abuse victims in Australia alone.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to bulldust.

The earthly hell that Pell commandeered, nurtured and oversaw in his various leadership roles, was ordained by him, his cronies and perpetrators to restrain and silence powerless and vulnerable children.

The brutalism he and the church fostered, the wholesale industrial strength pedophilia, merciless cruelty, salacious, venal and carnal pursuits are so prolific in number that they surely must impact upon the collective psyche of this country alone.

Victim says Pell is ‘Devil Incarnate’

Upon hearing of Pell’s death, a dear friend of mine, a sex abuse survivor, said of Pell:

“… he was the devil incarnate…

“I can’t feel any sympathy – I’m just thinking of my schoolmates who killed themselves (because they were sexually abused by Catholic clergy), or who died from an overdose, who died a little bit, day by day.

“As far as I’m concerned it was murder. Murder by degree. Murder by stealth, a slow death, a painful death. The dicks those bastards raped my mates with, me, might as well have been a knife. Those dicks are a murder weapon.

“I’m lucky that I’m still standing; even if it is just standing at times. But I can’t promise what I might do to myself tomorrow because of those cunts and people like Pell who protected them.”

Pell died at Rome’s private Salvator Mundi International Hospital.

Writing for the Vatican’s website, journalist Salvatore Cernuzio confirmed:

“Australian Cardinal George Pell, prefect emeritus of the Secretariat for the Economy, died Tuesday evening, around 9 pm, in Rome. He was 81 years old. The Cardinal died following heart complications that arose after a long-planned hip operation. A few days ago he had concelebrated Benedict XVI’s funeral in St Peter’s Square.”

George Pell, ashes to ashes. Dust to bulldust

Injustice lurks like a malevolent bacterium wherever two or more profess to gather in His sullied name.

Many young victims of sex abuse by clergy have grown into wounded, broken and fragile adults who for decades have fought for justice. They still fight for justice.

But how can they fight God? Mammon? The Holy See? Jesus raping you? For that is what it is when a priest rapes you and you are a child.

Theirs is often a living hell of suicides, suicide attempts, self-harm and ritual mutilation, drug and alcohol addiction, crime, homelessness, fractured relationships with family and friends, an inability to sustain sexual and intimate liaisons. To feel joy. Happiness. Unable to imagine the future. Without ambition. Without aspiration. Without hope.

Victims of Pell’s church emotionally ringbarked for life

They are sometimes unable even to love. Imagine that.

Sometimes they feel unloved. Sometimes they seem unloveable, feel unworthy of love.

Sometimes they/we/us are unable to trust individuals, institutions, authority. Fearful of motives, suspicious, emotionally ringbarked throughout life, feeling diseased with stunted personal growth, sometimes they are unable to hold down jobs and feel discarded by the rest of us.

These are just some of the feelings ’they’ have told me in the many hours of conversations. But they are us. We are one. You. Me. We. Ours. They. Us.

These are just some of the feelings ’they’ have told me in the many hours of conversations. But they are us. We are one. You. Me. We. Ours. They. Us.

Victims deemed guilty

Everything is a hard slog for them. Nothing comes easy. So many obstacles are placed on the dirt path of justice. Endless paperwork. Endless questions. Few answers.

More is stacked against alleged victims than alleged perpetrators. Victims seem to be deemed guilty until proven otherwise.

Pell’s church says it has changed its ways. It hasn’t. We know this. Lawyers know this. The judiciary knows it. Governments know it. Institutions know it.

‘Big George’ Pell noted for the size of his penis

Big George was noted for his formidable presence as well as for the size of his penis.

That was the real reason for his nickname ‘big George.’ He was also known as ‘the big fella.’ Same reason.

Obviously proud of his manhood, he was a habitual exhibitionist in the shower locker/change rooms whilst a schoolboy, adolescent and trainee priest.

He was later ‘sprung’ as a grown man in a well-documented, notorious incident revealed in July 2016 on ABC television’s 7.30 program (since removed from the ABC website).

Pell exposed himself to boys at Torquay Life Saving Club – told to “piss off” by club member

Club member Les Tyack, who had kids at the club, claimed Pell exposed his genitals to a group of young boys at the Torquay Life Saving Club in the 1980s.

Tyack claims he confronted Pell:

“I said; ‘I know what you’re up to.

Get dressed and piss off, and don’t come back to the surf club.
If I see you here again, I’ll call the police.”

Of course, Pell denied Tyack’s public testimony. He has always denied any and all sexual allegations. His cock crowed more than thrice with such denials, I’ve no doubt. Even St Peter’s tally is no match. Both men betrayed Jesus.

Pell was a big boy in more ways than one and he grew into a hulking adult.

He took up a lot of room in restaurants, theatres, even first-class airline seats. In churches, cathedrals, auditoria, behind the pulpit, on the altar and in the media Big George always loomed large. He was theatrical.

Pell and his disciples held lavish supper parties. Dressed in full regalia. Called themselves ‘The Spice Girls’

He presided over lavish supper parties with his adoring disciples. They dressed up in full regalia and were commonly known as ‘The Spice Girls.’ I’m not the only one who wrote about it.

He vacuumed up space with his regal presence and aura of elite entitlement. He scared people. There was reason to be scared.

He gorged on the fear and intimidation he provoked in underlings and those who opposed his far-right ultra-conservatism. Likewise, he enjoyed the adoration and sycophancy of acolytes.

Pell was a power slut and a media whore. The latter was to prove his undoing in public fora over which he had no control.

Pell ruled with arrogance, iron will – and his fists

He ruled with an arrogance and iron will and on occasion, his fists. Stay with me.

Whether he held dominion over a team, a school, a parish, a diocese, archdiocese, cardinalate or curia, Catholic canon was replaced with Pell’s intransigent dogma.

With Pell it was his way, not the Appian Way.

He presided not only over his patch in the church of Rome but lorded over The Church of Pell. A church within a church, almost.

He was adept at poisoning the wells of human kindness and social justice. Time and again he and his propagandists and legal henchmen put the kibosh on attempts to conclude compensation settlements; squeezing stone out of blood.

His misogyny too was palpable. He loathed strong women in particular. He was frightened of us, if he couldn’t order us about. He could not tolerate being challenged in particular by women.

Pell thought vaginas were dirty

He thought vaginas were dirty and claimed he had no interest in a conjugal relationship with a woman/women. How do I know? Because I know several people who were in his inner circle. He was once heard saying one of the reasons he did not find celibacy difficult or a temptation, was because vaginas were unhygienic.

His fear and loathing of vaginas was also one of the reasons why Pell couldn’t fathom why some priests might wish to marry; women that is.

Seemingly sticking your penis in a vagina was dirty whereas sticking it in the anus of a child was presumably acceptable.

Pell had a foul mouth and temper to match.

He was intransigent when it came to homosexuality, same sex/all sex marriage, the ordination of women, married clergy and abortion rights. He was a fundamentalist, and his religious views were more akin to the Taliban than progressive Catholicism.

Listening to and watching footage of him comment about homosexuality, his sheer hypocrisy and attempts to display naivete about it, is galling and irritating. Pathetic.

As were his constant assertions that he/the church didn’t know that technically, raping children was a crime, trying to promulgate the view that sexually abusing children was regarded more as succumbing to temptations of the flesh and breaking the vow of celibacy. Why was the Catholic Church allowed to get away with such lies for so long? The church constantly lied about knowing that sexual abuse was taking place.

The Vatican was rightly proud of the beautiful voices of their Castrati, never mind that the children were sexually mutilated to achieve the higher notes of that heavenly the chorus.

Wikipedia has an excellent report on this not so ancient practice.

Pell answered to a higher authority – himself

We so often saw for ourselves during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, court appearances, parliamentary and other inquiries, how Pell often blamed others for his own failings and grew impatient and even angry when questioned.

Clearly, he was a man used to answering only to a higher authority: himself.

He courted the rich, the powerful, political leaders, diplomats and the influential. In truth some of them courted him. He was after all, religious royalty. A Prince. God’s man. A man god.

He enjoyed the good life, luxury, top shelf wines and spirits, accommodation, travel, clothes, vestments, shoes and a bespoke form of Catholicism that he tailored himself.

He presided not over the Church of Rome but lorded over The Church of Pell, a cult of his own making. In his own image and likeness.

Pell’s weekly expenditure greater than Pope Francis

His extravagance belied his vows and role as Vatican financial watchdog.

His venality and hypocrisy incurred both wrath and ridicule not only in Australia but also in Rome and elsewhere.

At one stage, his weekly expenditure was reputed to be greater than that of Pope Francis.

He fancied himself as Australia’s first Pope. So did others.

Pell: If Francis resigned he’d throw Zucchetto into ring

Vatican sources told The AIM Network that even as the late emeritus Pope Benedict XVI lay drawing his last breath the other week, Pell openly discussed the possibility that if Pope Francis did a Ratzinger and resigned because of ill health, Pell would throw his zucchetto into the ring.

When asked about his sex abuse conviction ultimately quashed by the High Court possibly being an impediment for a papal candidate, our source says Pell dismissed such a notion, claiming that the court’s decision was proof positive of his innocence and thus he was a proven “cleanskin.” Really?

From Whence did notion of Pell’s great intellect spring? From Pell himself, his acolytes and propagandists! Simples!

Said to be an intellectual heavyweight in fact his public appearances suggest otherwise. The notion is laughable. Who can forget his embarrassing infantile exchange with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on ABC television’s QandA program in April, 2012, then hosted by Tony Jones.

Here’s an excerpt from the transcript to prove the case:

TONY JONES: George Pell, can I just come back to you on this question of the existence of God. Why would God randomly decide to provide proof of his existence to a small group of Jews 2,000 years ago and not subsequently provide any proof after that?

GEORGE PELL: Well, I don’t think there’s ever been any scientific proof.

I don’t believe God does anything randomly, although he might set up, he might set up a system which works, apparently through, you know, through chance, through random, but if you want something done, you’ve got to ask somebody.

It’s no good, say, my asking everyone in the congregation will you would do something.

Normally you go to a busy person because you know they’ll do it and so for some extraordinary reason God chose the Jews. They weren’t intellectually the equal of either the Egyptians or the…

TONY JONES: Intellectually?

GEORGE PELL: Intellectually, morally…

TONY JONES: How can you know intellectually?

GEORGE PELL: Because you see the fruits of their civilisation. Egypt was the great power for thousands of years before Christianity. Persia was a great power, Caldia.

The poor – the little Jewish people – they were originally shepherds. They were stuck.

They’re still stuck between these great powers.

TONY JONES: But that’s not a reflection of your intellectual capacity, is it, whether or not you’re a shepherd?

GEORGE PELL: Well, no it’s not but it is a recognition it is a reflection of your intellectual development, be it like many, many people are very, very clever and not highly intellectual but my point is…

TONY JONES: I’m sorry, can I just interrupt? Are you including Jesus in that, who was obviously Jewish and was of that community?

GEORGE PELL: Exactly.

TONY JONES: So intellectually not up to it?

GEORGE PELL: Well, that’s a nice try, Tony.

The people, in terms of sophistication, the psalms are remarkable in terms of their buildings and that sort of thing. They don’t compare with the great powers.

But Jesus came not as a philosopher to the elite. He came to the poor and the battlers and for some reason he choose a very difficult but actually they are now an intellectually elite because over the centuries they have been pushed out of every other form of work.

They’re a – I mean Jesus, I think, is the greatest the son of God but, leaving that aside, the greatest man that ever lived so I’ve got a great admiration for the Jews but we don’t need to exaggerate their contribution in their early days.

And for your enjoyment, here is the program entire:

Sadly, the church of Pell was not recognizable to the general laity and clergy, nor a friend to justice, equity, love, humanity and humanism. Nor was it the church of the cherubim, or a church that is servant to the poor and disenfranchised, the marginalized, the sick, the hungry, the homeless.

Tony Abbott says Pell is saint and has been crucified. Pass the vomit bucket!

There is a miasma of hagiography that continues to fester around Pell’s death.

Nonsense and bilge that spills from the mouths of the likes of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott is enough to curdle the milk of human kindness if read out aloud.

Abbott preposterously describes Pell as “…a saint for our times” going so far as to ludicrously state that Pell’s incarceration was “…a modern form of crucifixion.”

Don’t forget that the spineless Abbott ensured he was out of the chamber when the votes were counted on same sex marriage.

He didn’t have the courage to display his conviction in front of the Australian people. He ran away. It’s difficult to have respect for such a political and moral coward. Why on earth would one consider the tripe he’s written about Pell?

How many Pell hagiographers have mentioned victims?

There is little, if anything other than a cursory aside, about those victims who were crucified by what was indisputably an international gang of clergy pedophiles; a catholic mafia, almost a cult, a sect, a religion of another kind founded in international rampant, systemic and endemic pedophilia.

We haven’t even touched on child pornography trafficked amongst clergy, along with the liturgy of the day. It is all too overwhelming at times. If it is thus for those of us who merely write about, how horrible and catastrophic it must be for those who have suffered it and continue to endure it all.

What is more, the sexual abuse was commonly known in Australia and internationally. For years.

Let me tell you about the other Adam

One victim I interviewed whom I shall call Adam, had been an altar boy in regional Victoria. His parents were devout Catholics and close friends with the local parish priest.

Adam told me how a consecrated host was shoved up his anus by the priest and pushed in further by the priest’s fingers – the same fingers that earlier were placing holy hosts into the unwitting mouths of the congregation receiving Holy Communion, including Adam’s parents.

Remember, that in the miraculous sacrament of the eucharistic mass, Catholics believe that the host (hostia, a circular thin wafer, that tastes a bit like the thin wrapping around nougat) and the altar wine is transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. Get that? Neither the host nor the wine are metaphors for Christ’s flesh and blood. They are the real deal.

Well, this priest shoved the holy host into this kid’s bum

The priest, who was naked from the waist down in this particular attack on Adam then “sort of sucked out broken pieces of the host using his tongue.”

In his article in The Catholic Weekly headlined Fragments of the host in Mass, Father John Flader reminds the reader that even minute particles of the host is part of the body of Jesus:

“Every particle of the host and every drop of the Precious Blood, no matter how small, is equally Jesus Christ.”

(* Remember, the criminal calumny of child sex abuse by clergy has unquestionably been enabled by the Catholic church and its ecclesiastical heirarchy, including George Pell).

The priest first anally raped Adam with his penis, then with his crucifix, the sodomy completing the blasphemy and unholy communion, leaving the boy torn and bleeding. Forever torn. Forever bleeding. Even unto this day.

For ever and ever. Amen.

This is my body. This is my blood.

Such sexual abuse has been a gross rite of anal passage, not just for Adam, but for so many boys, girls too and the vulnerable as well, who have been groomed and harvested by priests, brothers and lay people connected with the Catholic church.

The psychosexual violence implications of such behavior is surely important in the unfinished business of redress.

The rapes in Adam’s case invariably took place on the altar, sometimes in the sacristy. Sometimes elsewhere.

Adam, like so many other kids, held hostage by priest

Adam, who had to stay back after mass to ‘help’ the priest, like so many others in similar circumstances, was held hostage to the serial rapist priest.

Adam says from the first time he was “initiated” as the priest called it, he started to die a slow death. He didn’t see it then, but he sees it now.

“I could feel something inside me die that day. Mum and Dad were such good friends with the priest…after he finished with me, he used to drive me home and more often than not he would stay at our place for lunch.

“I tried to tell them (parents) quite a few times, but as soon as I mentioned his name, off they’d go, saying what a top bloke he was. They were very proud of the fact that he (the priest) used to visit our place for lunch and come around for drinks. Like, it was an honour. It made Mum and Dad feel important, like they were pillars of the community.”

Adam told Mum, who told Dad and Adam got a belting

“Finally, one day I just blurted it all out to Mum and she was just so angry and disgusted with me and told me I was a liar. She sent me to my room. When Dad got home she told him what I said and he came in and gave me a belting.

“He really knocked me about. After he’d finished he told me if I ever mentioned the subject again, he would knock the living daylights out of me. But he’d already done that.

“My Dad broke my heart that night. I reckon that hurt even more than what the priest had done to me.”

Years ago, Adam approached the Catholic Church for help – not money. “I got knocked back. They didn’t wan’t a bar of me, like me Mum and Dad. I just didn’t have it in me to fight them.

George Pell knew what the priest had done to me

“But I can tell you this, Tess, George Pell knew everything about the priest and what he’d done to me, his name, the church, everything. How do I know that? Because I phoned him and spoke with him. And after that I sent him a letter. And another letter. And another letter. I never got one back, because I didn’t have a bloody lawyer, did I? But I still have copies of those letters!”

I am certainly not the only journalist advocate who has taken such testimony.

There is a propensity for some priest abusers to deliberately defile the sanctity of the church. They get their rocks off raping kids in the House of the Lord.

For some priests, raping children on altar is like fucking Jesus

Some forensic psychologists believe that priests get heightened sexual pleasure and excitement by raping children in a church, on the altar. And using a crucifix to rape a child is certainly not unknown. For some priests, it’s like they are fucking Jesus.

Victims have told me how priests would place the host in their mouths and then force them to suck their penises or masturbate the priest so that he comes in the victim’s mouth on top of Jesus; in fact, mounting Jesus and jerking off on him. Plain and simple. Let us not beat about the burning bush.

Consider the homo erotica associated with religious statues, icons and artifacts and the perpetual violent image of the crucified near naked Christ, his bloody body pierced by a sword and nails, dripping blood from the crown of thorns.

But still today, so-called true believers in the catholic faith do not believe what they consider to be unbelievable testimony from victims, survivors, families and friends.

Child within old Adam trapped like embryo of dead twin

Adam is now a torn and broken old man who has never recovered from being repeatedly raped by this priest and other priests.

The child within his wrinkled outer shell is still trapped inside him, a kind of living corpse, like the remnants of an embryo of a never vanishing twin; a cadaver within a cadaver, mummified in a time warp whose umbilical cord is forever pegged to his horrible childhood abuse.

He crawls, literally sometimes on all fours, through a darkened tunnel of a daily hell.

There is no light at the end of Adam’s tunnel. An alcoholic addicted to hard drugs, he is resigned to dying alone and considers himself a “worthless piece of shit.”

He says no-one will lament his passing. Not his estranged children, partners nor his longtime alienated siblings. His parents have since died. But they still live in Adam’s other world. The world of the voiceless and the unbelieved. He has a series of criminal convictions and been imprisoned for them.

We meet and talk every now and again for a cuppa or a drink if he’s really edgy. Or I am.

Of course, I’ve got his blessing to write about his circumstances, without identifying him. He’s kind and compassionate. He knows about some sadness in my life.

“The buggers have made my life hell,” says Adam. “Not a hell like in the bible, I could cop that. Nah, mate, this is worse. They wouldn’t believe me. They treated me like dirt. They made my life hell. Right here on earth. I was a happy little kid, until that bloody fuckin’ bastard raped me.”

Big dick priests, big dick gods, big dick Catholic Church

Adam lives in a mortal hell, fashioned by heavenly big dick priestly creatures, preachers of the Gospels, messengers of their biggest dick God, who proclaim themselves created in His own image and likeness.

When I first met Adam, years ago, I wrote to then Archbishop Pell on his behalf.

All Adam wanted was to talk with Pell face to face. To be heard. To be treated as an equal. To have a voice. To be believed.

George Pell was a thug and a liar

Pell was a thug and a liar. Several years ago I published an article about one of Pell’s more blatant oft repeated lies.

Time and again, Pell would lie to the media and claim that he’d been “exonerated” from particular child sex abuse allegations.

It was a load of bollocks.

He was never exonerated. At a given point, I’d had a gut full of Pell dismissing sex abuse allegations against him by falsely claiming that the findings of a so-called ‘independent’ report by AJ Southwell QC had exonerated him of sex abuse allegations.

Pell said he was exonerated of particular sex abuse charges – bt he wasn’t and we have proof he was lying

There were two lies at least in Pell’s protestations. Pell and his propagandists knew it. I knew it. Firstly, Southwell was appointed by the catholic church to conduct the report, so it was an inside appointment and most certainly not independent.

Secondly, Southwell did not exonerate Pell. It now became a matter of speaking truth to power. And make no mistake, Pell was among Australia’s more powerful men.

Moreover, he was protected and feted by an elite army of praetorian guards that consisted not only of some of Australia’s rich, powerful and influential – but also their counterparts on the international stage.

For me there was no other choice but to call out Pell and his lies.

I knew only too well that Pell was a corrupt and corrupting figure who by any measure was a religious fraud, a sociopath and narcissist, drunk on power and a man who enjoyed intimidating people with his imposing presence and physique.

But I was and am able to draw strength not from the powerful and rich, but from the unadulterated courage and honesty of victims/survivors, their families, friends, supporters and advocates, legal and otherwise.

There is power in the truth. And sometimes there is justice. Especially if we band together and help and support one another.

We disgorged the truth in my exclusive article published in the brave Independent Australia on February 29, 2016 headlined, Southwell Report: The truth about the so-called ‘exoneration’ of George Pell.

Cardinal George Pell was not “exonerated” of claims of child sexual abuse, as has been claimed, by an independent investigation, writes contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence. Here, Independent Australia, republishes the Southwell Report in full.

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL WAS NOT “EXONERATED” of sex abuse allegations in the 2002 report by AJ Southwell QC.

If Pell and the Catholic Church had enough moral and legal fortitude or any sense of justice and fair play, it would immediately repost Southwell’s findings in full.

But some time ago, Southwell’s report was surreptitiously removed from various church websites.

Why?

Even the Wikipedia link to the report is dead.

Listen up, brethren.

Nowhere did Southwell’s report state that Pell had been “exonerated”.

Yet Pell himself and his 24/7 spin machine continue to force feed the media with a pate de faux gross claiming he was exonerated.

He was not.

What part of he was not exonerated, doesn’t the Pell propaganda unit and the Vatican get?

There was clearly a campaign by Pell to rid the world and internet of the Southwell Report. And here’s a shoutout to the diligent Broken Rites Australia team from the article:

“Fortunately, the support group Broken Rites Australia, known for its conscientious research and archival postings, published most of Southwell’s report and we republish that text in full to counteract the sophisticated planting of disinformation and redacting by Camp Pell’s “black ops” division and also to facilitate access to the wider community.

Southwell Report: The truth about the so-called ‘exoneration’ of George Pell, by Tess Lawrence.independentaustralia.net

Southwell Report: The truth about the so-called ‘exoneration’ of George Pell.

Cardinal George Pell was not ‘exonerated’ of claims of child sexual abuse, as has been claimed, by an independent investigation, writes Tess Lawrence.”

Is it gross to speak ill of the dead? Speaking the truth does not constitute speaking ill.

Pell is alive and thriving in the evil he has done. Pellinism is trending, even as I write. Moreover, although Pell’s corpse is still warm, my journalism portfolio will attest that I did not wait until Pell’s death to criticize him or call him out. I have called him out for years.

George Pell a thug, just ask warrior Mum, Eileen Piper

I described Pell as a thug. I was being polite. He had a foul mouth and a foul temper.

Just ask the indomitable warrior mother, Eileen Piper, who celebrates her 98th birthday this Tuesday, January 17th.

As Fate would have it, Eileen’s birthday is just two days before the 29th anniversary of the suicide of her beloved daughter Stephanie, who gassed herself in her car after years of being repeatedly raped, harassed, kidnapped and tortured, mentally and physically by Pallottine priest Father Gerard Joseph Mulvale.

Church slut-shamed Eileen’s daughter Stephanie

Throughout, the Catholic church slut-shamed Stephanie, spreading vile rumours, that she was promiscuous, begging for it, spread her legs for anyone, for drinks, for drugs – all the usual filth that those of us who have experience of the tactics of these creeps can attest.

The Pallottines Order has, I recall, the dubious distinction of being the fourth most prolific gang of sex abusers within the Catholic church in Australia.

Eileen endured full-frontal assault by Catholic Church

In her protracted fight for justice for Stephanie, Eileen found herself under a full-frontal assault by the Catholic church.

She was treated with disrespect, as if she were a stupid old woman. As if she were delusional. As if she had no rights.

Her dealings with the church were protracted and again the path to justice was littered with legal mines to delay due process and fuel their notorious obfuscation.

Church obfuscated, hoping Eileen would die in the meantime

They strung things out, hoping she would die in the meantime and thus they wouldn’t have to pay compensation.

This is a common legal tactic of course and one that the Catholic church, bulging with wealth, shamelessly adopts. There are more money men in their temples today than ever there were in the New Testament. And there is no Jesus to turf them out.

But you don’t mess with Eileen Piper. Forget about her age. Like the justice she seeks, she is ageless. She is a champion. A warrior woman. If I had a quarter of Eileen’s spunk and courage, I would lay down my pen and do something useful.

She is a mentor and a marvel. And not just to me. Luckily, in crusading lawyer Judy Courtin, Eileen found an indefatigable compatriot. Together they took on the Pallottines and the catholic mafia. And in the end they won their case.

Pell was a bully and a coward

But there is unfinished business for Eileen. And that unfinished business is George Pell. And it involves his thuggery. His bullying. And his cowardice.

Pell went to Kevin’s house whilst Eileen was there, and shoved her brother, the much loved and respected Monsignor Kevin Toomey against the wall, thumping him in the chest time and again, poking him in the chest time again until finally, Monsignor Toomey slid to the ground, defeated and hurt. Defeated physically.

Big George might as well have been a Mafia don

Big George might as well have been a mafia Don. He warned Eileen’s brother not to give evidence against the church or support Eileen in her fight against her daughter’s rapist, Father Gerard Mulvale and the Pallottines Order, to seek justice for her daughter, Stephanie.

Pell had phoned Kevin and told him he was on his way to see him. Pell phoned from (they think) a phone box to say he was minutes away. Monsignor Toomey then warned Eileen that the ‘Big fella’ was on his way.

Eileen knew what that meant. Pell barged his way uninvited into the house – there was no ringing of the doorbell.

Pell, who clearly held Eileen in utter contempt, gesticulated to her to get out of the room. Eileen retreated to the bathroom, but remained not only in earshot but importantly, had a full view of what went on. What she saw that day continues to traumatise her.

Pell attacked Eileen’s brother, Monsignor Kevin Toomy warning him not to support her in court as she fought for justice for her daughter Stephanie – his niece – who had been repeatedly raped by Fr Gerard Mulvale

It scars her to this day and she has constant flashbacks of Pell’s attack on her brother.

Kevin was a loyal Monsignor to the church but he was also a loyal brother to Eileen and was loyal to the truth. After the assault by Pell he assured Eileen he would not desert her and that he would continue to support her, in court and everywhere else.

Pell had underestimated them both.

Eileen had already intended taking out a new action against Pell and the Catholic Church over this assault and the awful legacy it left upon her and her close sibling. She discussed this with me weeks ago.

Eileen Piper to sue Catholic Church over Pell attack

Despite Pell’s death, Eileen told The AIMN she still intends taking action against the Catholic Church over the traumatic incident. Clearly.

The episode was an indicator of the lengths that Pell was prepared to go to enforce his will and protect the church and his mates.

(* Who can forget Pell supporting his former Ballarat flatmate and serial rapist Father Gerald Ridsdale to court? It is believed that Ridsdale blackmailed Pell into supporting him in public, otherwise he would reveal that Pell has witness him (Ridsdale) raping a child in his (Ridsdale’s) bedroom. For more information, please click onto The *uck stops with Cardinal George Pell.

Of course, it was an ugly unambiguous warning to Eileen. It also reflected Pell’s sense of absolute power, that he could do anything he wanted with church members and get away with it.

On April 6, 2020, I published an exclusive story in Independent Australia about Pell’s physical assault on Monsignor Toomey.

(Here, I must acknowledge the courage of Independent Australia’s founder, the then Managing Editor, David Donovan).

There was no doubt in my mind that Eileen Piper was telling the truth. I trust her and I knew Pell was both a liar and a coward. Eileen was also prepared to testify in court on my behalf to confirm the Pell assault should he serve me with a writ. She is a formidable witness.

Moreover, I had taken statements from others about Pell’s thuggery and his penchant for physical violence.

If other journalists knew of Pell’s attack upon Monsignor Toomey, they did not dare to publish details.

From my article I acknowledged that:

“Whilst an incident has been referred to in Louise Milligan’s compelling book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, there is no mention of an assault.”

Here is the pertinent extract:

“At that time, Pell was based in Mentone, about half an hour from her brother’s home, but she says he seemed to arrive very quickly at Toomey’s door. “And I saw George Pell beckon with his hand, to tell me to go out, to get out of the room.”

Eileen did what she was told.

“I sort of skittled into the bathroom, which was the adjoining room.” She was shocked by what happened next. “I heard George Pell say to my brother, ‘Don’t you dare have anything to do with your sister’s case, now that’s an order’.”

I thought it disappointing when told that Milligan asserted we could not claim an exclusive about Pell’s attack, because she’d already written about it in her book.

As you can see from her book extract that we actually published in Independent Australia to back our exclusive, she had not.

Here are more quotes from my/IA article:

PIPER SAYS PELL GRABBED HER BROTHER BY SHOULDERS, SLAMMING HIM AGAINST WALL

Piper told me that in fact, Pell had her brother Kevin against the wall, had grabbed him by the shoulders, repeatedly slamming him against the wall, thumping him and poking him in the chest, Kevin’s head banging against the wall.

She said it was a terrible sight, made her sick in the stomach and made her cry uncontrollably. It also made her feel guilty that her beloved brother, who died in 1999, was bearing the brute force and unambiguous threat manifest in Pell’s visit. Eileen had always known what she had been up against insofar as the church’s intransigence to admit liability for their crimes perpetrated upon her daughter, but Pell’s conduct shook her to the core.

PELL UNABLE TO BREAK THE BOND BETWEEN BROTHER AND SISTER

This was the Catholic church at its worst best; no less. This was the Catholic mafia at play. This was George Pell as the equivalent and more of both a bikie gang’s sergeant-at-arms and enforcer.

Pell may not have tattoos, but he bears the stigmata of a Jesus he crucified and he believes in a vengeful god, that is clear.

Earlier today, I spoke with a lifelong family friend of Eileen’s who saw her soon after the Pell attack. “She was so very distraught and upset – the church protected these bastards and just moved them on when they were found out.”

When I spoke with Eileen shortly after Pell’s death was announced, she made it clear that his demise would not deter her from seeking justice from the Catholic Church for the Pell attack.

She had always wanted a personal apology from him.

She assured me she would not give up on now getting an apology from the church for what Pell did. Not now. Not ever.

If God indeed made Woman in her own image and likeness, then her name is Eileen Piper.

Hallowed be her name.

The powerful have always had defenders.  Power seeps into the system, corrupts, controls and, ultimately, assumes an authority that does wonders to destroy an appraisal of fairness.  To be there is to assume that matters are natural, a habit. As David Hume made clear, such an instance creates the basis of error: because it has been accepted for generations and through precedent does not make it a law or an acceptable practice.

To be fair is, in a sense, to relinquish the advantages of power and accept the levelling nature of balance.  To be fair is to understand power as a danger. For the highest cleric in the Catholic Church to receive a formal conviction in terms of historical child abuse is an example of bringing a certain power to account.  “He did have in his mind,” observed the County Court’s chief judge Peter Kidd in the pre-sentence hearing, “some sense of impunity.”

The Pell conviction is also an example of defenders running to barricades in the name of protection, hoping that faith prevails over evidence, belief over the allegedly crude advances of the secular realm.  As that philosopher of revolution Frantz Fanon appositely noted, those holders of a strong core belief, when “presented with evidence that works against that belief” repel what is placed before them. Cognitive dissonance must be avoided.

The issue for some of Pell’s defenders is not one of finding justice but its impossibility for those who see a being beyond capture, and past conduct beyond censure.  Forget the victims and what the convicted person did to them. Some other ploy is at work.

Guy Rundle got heavy at Crikey, claiming that the conviction of Pell had to be a significant moment in the culture wars. “The full court press by Bolt, Henderson, Akerman, Devine et al marked them off pretty decisively from the parliamentary wing of the right (with the rule-proving exception of Craig Kelly), who were quick to ring-fence Pell from what remains of their politics.”

This has assumed fabulous contortions.  To know a man is to presume an all-conquering, wilting innocence, pushing evidentiary findings to the outer limits.  No legal system could possibly corrupt this personalised sense of he of certain cloth of Church; to have met a creature in garb, even not necessarily believing him, is to acknowledge a person as beyond guilt.

The matter must, therefore, be far more fundamental, a big picture plot as to why Pell must suffer.  It might be the vengeful in search of a sacrificial lamb, the Cardinal’s conviction as a rite for purification.  It might be the Church in search of a cleansing alibi. It is not possible to claim that Pell is guilty, shouts reactionary columnist Miranda Devine because no jury could possibly claim to be unbiased.  Would that problem be alleviated by a jury of other peers, priests, maybe?

Devine, herself a Catholic, has never been shy to suggest a conspiracy.  There is always something else at work. In 2017, she claimed in an off-the-edge tweet that Victoria’s Police Chief Graham Ashton was “desperate or a distraction from the crime epidemic he’s incapable of stopping”. Catholics, she suggested in the language of sectarian fear, were being hunted.

Andrew Bolt, who holds court at Sky News and The Herald Sun, similarly cannot fathom what has been done to the fallen cleric and assumes that self-opinion can become canonical.  “Declaration: I have met Pell perhaps five times in my life and I like him,” admitted the one-dimensional polemicist. “I am not Catholic or even a Christian.  He is a scapegoat, not a child abuser. In my opinion.”

The opinion caveat is important for Bolt.  Having landed in hot water previously for not clarifying that his opinion as just that, the Federal Court gave him a good wrapping over the knuckles for what was, at its core, shoddy journalism on “White Aboriginals”.  But on this occasion, the self-proclaimed rabble-rouser felt he was on to something. “Cardinal George Pell has been falsely convicted of sexually abusing two boys in their early teens. That’s my opinion, based on the overwhelming evidence.” 

Not that Bolt actually saw the evidence or was exposed to it, but he is nonetheless content suggesting that the victims’ reluctance to initially report the abuse (has he any understanding of Church history?), and the business of the room where the abuse was said to have taken place, suggested innocence.  Furthermore, “the man I know seems not just incapable of such abuse, but so intelligent and cautious that he would never risk his brilliant career and good name on such a mad assault in such a public place.” Bolt, ever the purveyor of the shallow view and ignorant formulation of human nature. Perhaps he suggests that the cleric was simply too intelligent to have been genuinely caught?

A dangerous twilight zone has developed.  The critics have shown, in searing fashion, that they do not believe that guilt could ever be associated with certain figures of office.  In this sense, they betray a posh-boy, aristocratic perversion: people of a certain class can never wrong; people of some groups (African migrants, for instance) always do.  Kill, maim, rape and maul, yes, but never assume that any code, criminal or otherwise, applies to certain members.

This is entertaining if teasing idiocy.  The very people who believe in necessary rules assume that these should be selectively applied.  There have always been pleasant, decent murderers, but thinking otherwise changes it. There are entertaining child abusers of high standing, and thinking them charming and ambitious makes abuse improbable.  There are bon vivant genocidal maniacs, dressed well and hoping for a historical kill, and thinking them good company turns them into miraculous innocents.

Such conduct, including messages of support from former Australian Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, brings to mind the good character references, and beliefs, of the recently canonised Mother Teresa (now St. Teresa of Calcutta), who kept good company with the dictatorial likes of Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti, and swindling millionaires such as Charles Keating. The latter, an anti-pornographic crusader of frothing fanaticism, liked talking about God and family values even as he perpetrated financial fraud with sociopathic enthusiasm.  The Saint simply believed they were incapable of crime. For some, that is all that matters, and laws should be best forgotten.

The process will have to run its course and the cardinal’s run of the legal system is far from over.  Pell’s defence team will no doubt be reassessing the evidence with forensic aptitude, and point out errors or doubts.  But that does not discredit a verdict arrived at through formal processes in the presence of a jury and a well summing up by the judge. The danger in such doubting circumstances is that those good souls who are duly selected to serve on a panel of peers are deemed, if not expendable, then dangerous to the health of the defendant.