5 ms·

George Pell: cardinal found guilty of child sexual assault

41 points by xiaodai 8y ago

joshschreuder 8y ago
If you feel like you've heard this already in December and are unsure why it's in the news again, there was a media suppression order that prevented it from being reported in Australia, due to a second court case involving Pell that was due to start in April. That case was dropped today due to insufficient evidence and the supression order is no longer in place, so the Australian media can now report freely.
senectus1 8y ago
Bill Marr being appropriately brutal.
- thomasfoster96 8y ago
  The article is by David Marr.
  - wp381640 8y ago
    who wrote The Prince: Faith, Abuse and George Pell a seminal biography of the now-convicted cardinal[0] Also one of Australia's best journalists [0] https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/david-marr/2013/09/18/1379486457/prince-george-pell https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/david-marr/2013/09/18/137...
  - senectus1 8y ago
    lol. htf did i get his name wrong facepalm
xlii 8y ago
What I find most interesting in recent findings is how millenias of beaurocratic development are completelly defenceless against current stage of technology. For past couple centuries, Church created notion of "we are judge of ourselves" which most often either meant delegating case to far away place, which no interested party could visit, or by reloacting to another region with unlikely connection (and this connection was very unlikely, since Catholic Church keeps their own births, deaths and movement metrics, so those were far from random). Right now, since everything is transparent and just few taps away, this method no longer works and Church is totally lost in how to deal with it. Senior members refute all responsibility either through long-hardened loyalty or - in some cases - to protect their own wrongdoings from coming out. That makes the matter even worse. Elderly age and resulting lack of will to change doesn’t help the case either. I think of it as a David vs Goliath fight, where Goliath is more than 2000 years of institutional experience and David is a kid with a camera in his smartphone.
- tomhoward 8y ago
  This case is about an alleged incident around 23 years ago - 10-15 years before smartphones or IP security cameras were widespread.
  - xlii 8y ago
    And yet it closed only in December. My point is not about victims recording acts of violence, but about church not being able to defer ad infinitum and making illusionary ammends.
trhway 8y ago
>His authority came from Rome, where he sat on a number of councils policing church doctrine. These were the years the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith worked up fresh hard teachings to revile homosexuals. "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" is the renamed Inquisition : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition "With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1908 it was renamed the "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office". In 1965 it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
mnm1 8y ago
This is part of a much larger issue that seems to have no boundaries and exist pretty mouth everywhere: that authorities are uninterested in processing rape cases and bringing the perpetrators to justice. Time and time again they let the perpetrators' institutions handle this. The church. The university. The corporation. Why don't authorities subpoena records instead of letting these institutions destroy them? This is their whole reason for existence, after all. Is it because so often the victims are women and children who are thought of as less than by the police and other authorities? It's despicable that each case is not investigated. Most times even rape kits are not tested, let alone any other kind of investigation. We have given these authorities the power to investigate these crimes and yet they do nothing. It seems to be a worldwide problem too. Are children and women that worthless to the men in power that their rape doesn't deserve investigation, that they do not deserve justice?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
- cpr 8y ago
  Yes, it's pretty clear he was set up in order to get him off the Vatican bank reform effort. I'm a Catholic and my stomach turns at the level of corruption in the Vatican.
  - tacticus 8y ago
    The fuck? The guy has had rumours around his actions for decades. He set up a "compensation" scheme that was designed to prevent criminal charges or publication of offenses. He belittled and degraded abuse survivors whenever he could. And you fucks think this is about an already corrupt bank being reformed by someone who is skilled at concealing and papering over issues.
    - deleted 8y ago

41 points by xiaodai 8y ago

If you feel like you've heard this already in December and are unsure why it's in the news again, there was a media suppression order that prevented it from being reported in Australia, due to a second court case involving Pell that was due to start in April. That case was dropped today due to insufficient evidence and the supression order is no longer in place, so the Australian media can now report freely.

senectus1 8y ago

Bill Marr being appropriately brutal.

thomasfoster96 8y ago
The article is by David Marr.
- wp381640 8y ago
  who wrote The Prince: Faith, Abuse and George Pell a seminal biography of the now-convicted cardinal[0] Also one of Australia's best journalists [0] https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/david-marr/2013/09/18/1379486457/prince-george-pell https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/david-marr/2013/09/18/137...
- senectus1 8y ago
  lol. htf did i get his name wrong facepalm

xlii 8y ago

What I find most interesting in recent findings is how millenias of beaurocratic development are completelly defenceless against current stage of technology. For past couple centuries, Church created notion of "we are judge of ourselves" which most often either meant delegating case to far away place, which no interested party could visit, or by reloacting to another region with unlikely connection (and this connection was very unlikely, since Catholic Church keeps their own births, deaths and movement metrics, so those were far from random). Right now, since everything is transparent and just few taps away, this method no longer works and Church is totally lost in how to deal with it. Senior members refute all responsibility either through long-hardened loyalty or - in some cases - to protect their own wrongdoings from coming out. That makes the matter even worse. Elderly age and resulting lack of will to change doesn’t help the case either. I think of it as a David vs Goliath fight, where Goliath is more than 2000 years of institutional experience and David is a kid with a camera in his smartphone.

tomhoward 8y ago
This case is about an alleged incident around 23 years ago - 10-15 years before smartphones or IP security cameras were widespread.
- xlii 8y ago
  And yet it closed only in December. My point is not about victims recording acts of violence, but about church not being able to defer ad infinitum and making illusionary ammends.

trhway 8y ago

>His authority came from Rome, where he sat on a number of councils policing church doctrine. These were the years the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith worked up fresh hard teachings to revile homosexuals. "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" is the renamed Inquisition : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition "With the exception of the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1908 it was renamed the "Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office". In 1965 it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

mnm1 8y ago

This is part of a much larger issue that seems to have no boundaries and exist pretty mouth everywhere: that authorities are uninterested in processing rape cases and bringing the perpetrators to justice. Time and time again they let the perpetrators' institutions handle this. The church. The university. The corporation. Why don't authorities subpoena records instead of letting these institutions destroy them? This is their whole reason for existence, after all. Is it because so often the victims are women and children who are thought of as less than by the police and other authorities? It's despicable that each case is not investigated. Most times even rape kits are not tested, let alone any other kind of investigation. We have given these authorities the power to investigate these crimes and yet they do nothing. It seems to be a worldwide problem too. Are children and women that worthless to the men in power that their rape doesn't deserve investigation, that they do not deserve justice?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cpr 8y ago
Yes, it's pretty clear he was set up in order to get him off the Vatican bank reform effort. I'm a Catholic and my stomach turns at the level of corruption in the Vatican.
- tacticus 8y ago
  The fuck? The guy has had rumours around his actions for decades. He set up a "compensation" scheme that was designed to prevent criminal charges or publication of offenses. He belittled and degraded abuse survivors whenever he could. And you fucks think this is about an already corrupt bank being reformed by someone who is skilled at concealing and papering over issues.
  - deleted 8y ago