Ok, this what George Pell said:
“I didn’t know whether it was common knowledge or whether it wasn’t. It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me.”
He followed this by responding to a question from the Royal Commission with: “The suffering, of course, was real and I very much regret that but I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evil that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”
Now Andrew Bolt has been complaining about the witch hunt seeking to burn George at the stake, and …
Oh, even Andrew couldn’t support that one! Although he did suggest that it may have just been an unfortunate choice of words …
Well, I guess I shouldn’t refer to him as “George Pell”. After all, he is a cardinal, but I feel a bit silly referring to him as “Cardinal Pell” when clear he’s only ever succeeded in the organisation by being the sort of patsy who gets promoted for not asking too many questions.
Let’s take what Georgie boy has told us and take it at face value.
When he was a young gun, he was kept in the dark because his superiors knew that he was the sort of person who wouldn’t allow that sort of abuse to continue. Ok, when he was told by a boy in the 1970’s about abuse occuring, he did nothing beyond contacting the school chaplain. After all the boy never asked him to do anything, so he didn’t really see that he needed to do anything. I wonder if the boy had told him that one of the altar boys was pilfering from the collection plate, whether he’d have thought he needed to be asked before investigating further, but I guess that’s different.
So how these people knew this is unclear but I guess it must have been something about his demeanour. He would have been more concerned with the victims than the reputation of the Church, hence, he was not told.
Later, when he was more powerful, people kept things from him because they knew – based on his history of knowing nothing and never reporting any priest for misdeeds – he would would have taken action if he’d ever known anything.
Of course, we’re now hearing from some of Pell’s supporters in Parliament – people like Tony Abbott – that one of the concerns about the Safe Schools programs is that it’s sexualising children too early. If you want to be a comedian, timing is everything! However, the strange thing is that they don’t understand why some people want to mock them and laugh at what they say…
Yep, I thought that Pell’s story was about the most incredible thing I was going to hear all week until I heard about the BIS Shrapnel report.
Now, I don’t want to bore you with a lot of economic concepts because, well, I suspect that like Tony Abbott you don’t really have an interest in economics, but it does strike me as strange that one can argue that house prices will fall and at the same time rents will rise. While I realise that such a thing can happen in the short term, in the long term, surely the market will correct any anomaly.
While I’m not a believer in laissez-faire economics … And not just because it’s a French word that I can’t spell! I do know a thing or two about the real world. So let’s take a real world example and consider how this would play out.
Boris and Petunia are a happily married couple earning a reasonable income. They are renting a house worth a million dollars. It cost them $40,000 a year. Property prices drop by ten percent; rents rise by ten percent. At current interest rates, they are now paying more to rent than it would cost them to buy. Let’s say they decide not to buy and the same thing happens the next year… You can see that at some point, they’d be foolish not to buy.
Ok, you say, what about the people who can’t afford to buy? Well, as rents increase, they too can’t afford to not buy and if the bank won’t lend to them, then we have an increase in homelessness and landlords will keep putting up the rent even though they have no tenants … Hang on, doesn’t Economics 101 suggest that if there’s a reduction in demand then prices will fall?
Perhaps, I’m missing something. It’s easy to do!
Just ask Georgie Pell!
Listening for George for three days straight, has driven me to drink. Listening to this pathetic attempt at a Government over nearly three years, has also driven me to drink. I need a break.
Ah, Jaq, they’re counting on an alcohol led recovery…
The Pope will have to ask George Pell for his resignation, Pell’s defence that he knew nothing was all lies , the positions he held made it impossible for him not to know. The Pope has no choice otherwise he will be seen to be an accomplice.
Morrison is drowning in his own bullshit, at the moment he would believe an asylum seeker if they published a similar report as BIS Shrapnel.
I bet if the 14 year old told Pell the person had an adult boyfriend Pell would have acted.
I had dealings with a priest who was in charge my son when he went off the rails in the 1980’s. That priest is now serving long jail sentence. Not for abusing my son but his mates that shared the same dorm. Still recall the contempt that arrogant man treated me. Was brought home to me when some of evidence read out, where the accused priest told the mother not to bring her bastards back to the school. Same contempt.
My mother died when I was young, leaving behind a 7 year old brother. My father found it hard to keep him in line. he sent him the Kincumber Orphanage where he pay for him to board for three wonderful years.
He was to go to Westmead, which I found stupid as it was within a mile of where we lived. Instead he came home. Within weeks he and three other friends went off the rails. He attend a nearby Catholic college, Downhill from then on. That school and nearby Westmead Boys Home is where some of the worse abuse outside Ballarat occurred. He denies anything happened. I don’t believe him.
To top things off I spent 13 of hell in a marriage which finally ended when it was revealed, my eldest daughter had been abused from an early age. including being pregnant at 12. This on top of years DV.
I am in my 70’s and thought I had dealt with all that. Went back to university at 40, mainly to find answers. Work the last years of my life in child protection.
I really thought there wasn’t much left to surprise me.
Sadly this week, listening to Pell given evidence has given me a complete new insight.
One I don’t like at all.
Pell is as he said, a Ballarat boy. There is no way he could have went back there as Priest then Bishop without knowing. He was a part of the community not an outsider.
Many of the kids abused would have been children of his school mates and family.
The likes of Pell throughout these hearings seem to have no concept of what they did wrong. None at all. It is not what Pell did 30 years ago that worries one. One can make some allowances there. It is what he is still saying today that is hard to forgive or condone.
Someone said it is not about Pell. They are right. he is no longer of any relevance.
It is time for the laity to take control of their church. Forget about Rome, they are incapable of bringing about change. Deal them out.
Always my option of walking away altogether from any religion.
PS. I still find it hard to believe in spite of a wonderful upbringing I manage to experience so much trauma.
Thoughtful comment from The Conversation:https://theconversation.com/for-whom-the-pell-tolls-what-did-we-learn-from-george-pells-royal-commission-appearance-51184
In a sense Pell represents all of us. The issue is a tap on the shoulder for our society and a nod in the direction of substantial soul searching.
then if only one third are only buying new homes , prices will go up . that must be economics 101 too ross . more like where are we going to put all this money now, from our inside trading . join the church and win a little boy
georgie pell, straight to hell
Unlike you flo, I am one of them but luckily unabused and ungoded.
Still all my family life shows the laity, like pell, do not believe priests were guilty because ‘evil’ is the province of the devil. The priests had the sanctity of confession, the power of absolution and the truth of millennia on their side.
Unless a critical mass of women and men can extract themselves from their indoctrination to force their way back into the hierarchy(this pope hinted at making women cardinals) in the three bible based religions, equality is impossible.
I guess the quote of the week for me was when Pell was talking about accompanying Risdale to court and he said that Risdale had done a lot of harm to the CHURCH! Even after all this, he seems to be more concerned with the Church’s reputation than the damage done to the individuals. It’s as though he hasn’t quite grasped that it’s been this concern for the reputation of the organisation about all that was a big reason for the lack of any effective action against these criminals.
Of course, he added that Risdale had also done a lot of good including “burying the dead and celebrating sacraments”.
Mm, I’m trying to put that in another context… Like even though this teacher was a convicted serial killer, he also did good things like marking papers and turning up to class. Or while it’s true that this warder was smuggling drugs into the jail, he did also good things like locking the cells at night.
Thank you, Rossleigh.
Florence, thanks for sharing your story, so important. I work in the current child protection sector and it would be interesting to compare notes.
Deanna, it is nearly 2 decades since I have left the scenes. Funny fellow workmates didn’t want to take on board experiences of those who worked with them. Said it led them to seeing me as a I client. That I could never understand. They seemed more at ease with perpetrators than fellow workmates. Went along way towards loading victims with guilt.
What is important to keep in mind, the damage to the family lasts a lifetime. There needs to be more work and research done into this fact.
What I still find difficult, I have no idea of the extent of what was done to my daughter. Same goes for my brother back in the 1950s. I suspected at the time something was wrong. Even visiting the nuns who cared for my brother didn’t give me answers. In fact what they said then didn’t make sense until the going on of the 2 schools become public knowledge. I am sure the nuns knew and cared but felt their hands were tied in telling me.
I am happy for you to have access to my email address.