Will Pell be defrocked?

[Atreju]

I dont think you know what a strawman is. That would require me to misrepresent your argument, but I didn’t even represent your argument aside from quoting your post, I just added that “his attorneys are appealing” is not a particularly important point since virtually all attorneys appeal in such cases.

 

[adgloriam]

a unanimous verdict of guilty by a jury

We could start here. In European countries following Roman jurisprudence there is no jury.

 

[CTBcin]

I’m genuinely curious. What would it take for all you who think Pell is innocent / falsely accused / etc. change your minds? Apparently guilty verdicts are worthless. So what, then? Or do you take the position that nothing can ever be “proven” to your satisfaction?

Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that he actually committed the crimes alleged, which the accuser could not provide. In fact, the evidence was circumstancial and sometimes contradictory, but he was convicted anyway.

 

[CTBcin]

That makes one human just like the rest of us. Let the guys marry. At least in the priestly ranks. Give that steam a place to licitly blow-off…

I see this sentiment all the time and I find it really troubling. It implies that men who don’t get married/have sex will ultimately turn into horrible sexual deviants. And it implies that women are meant to be an outlet to serve men’s pleasures, without which, men will not maintain basic self-control. It’s disrespectful to both men and women.

And that doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that most abuse occurs in the family, by married men.

But that’s a subject for another thread.

 

[prayerrider]

Nor do they engage in sexual activity with other, consenting adult homosexual men because they cannot marry.
Such men are not fit to be in the priesthood. Neither is any priest who agitates to normalize homosexual activity or same sex “marriage” in the Church, fit for the priesthood. Give them one chance to repent of and recant such views and if they won’t, defrock them.

 

[prayerrider]

Yep. Any man who won’t consider the priesthood unless he can have conjugal relations too doesn’t belong in the priesthood.

 

[Greenfields]

Why can’t you accept this? Can you make your case that this is unjust and the legal system of a civilized western country is the one to be denounced here?
I mean this is getting rather odd.

He isn’t innocent. He is a CONVICTED pedophile. Can you say it in your head? It isn’t that you are saying he is innocent. (You are) It is that you are saying wait and see. the time for that phrase is BEFORE a trial. The presumption of innocence does not extend past a guilty verdict. Even with appeals.

I believe he’s innocent.Australia is Very anti Catholic .
I will also say wait and see.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

That makes one human just like the rest of us. Let the guys marry. At least in the priestly ranks. Give that steam a place to licitly blow-off…

I see this sentiment all the time and I find it really troubling. It implies that men who don’t get married/have sex will ultimately turn into horrible sexual deviants.

@prayerrider
It doesn’t mean they will turn into sexual deviants. Just that you crank up the probability.

Has to do with the drive for sex and intimacy. Please grasp the nuance, there.

And given the guide from the 7th century on punishing priests guilty of pedophilia, it seems to be a valid, standing concern that may endure with assistance from blind eyes.

And it implies that women are meant to be an outlet to serve men’s pleasures, without which, men will not maintain basic self-control. It’s disrespectful to both men and women.

Not solely, but partially? Yes. Again, where Christ discusses celibacy in Matthew and Paul in Corinthians, both issue qualifications that imply making celibacy a norm is not a tenable position.

And that doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that most abuse occurs in the family, by married men.

Which has nothing to do with the pedophilia problem in the Catholic Church.

 

[Vonsalza]

I believe he’s innocent.Australia is Very anti Catholic .
I will also say wait and see.

Really? I had the idea that Australia is very secular in general, but among the religious it seemed to me that Catholicism was popular.

 

[Emeraldlady]

I posted this in the other thread, but this article provides the arguments made by the prosecution and defense and it does make the verdict seem questionable. Who knows.

https://abcnews.go.com/Internationa...s-cardinal-pells-prosecution-defense-61313280

It is telling that abcnews, which is not known for either conservatism or defending the Catholic Church, writes such a sympathetic defense. But even more interesting is that the buzz among Magistrates many of who sat in the public gallery for the trial, were shocked by the verdict considering the evidence.

In 2015, Pell faced charges of ignoring a reported incidence of abuse in Ballarat in 1969. The complainant was adamant until the moment Cardinal Pell was able to produce passports from the time putting him overseas for all of 1969.

There is an uncomfortable feeling of a travesty of justice, simmering in too many quarters that are normally unsympathetic to the Church, to make this verdict a forgone conclusion.

 

[Vouthon]

Not solely, but partially? Yes. Again, where Christ discusses celibacy in Matthew and Paul in Corinthians, both issue qualifications that imply making celibacy a norm is not a tenable position.

I agree with you here.

Jesus pointedly refused to make celibacy mandatory, which is why the enforcement of this for clergy is still only a ‘discipline’ and not ‘doctrinal’. Indeed, when his disciples stated that, ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry’ in response to his denunciation of divorce, Our Lord replied with a live and let live ethic on celibacy: “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can” (Matthew 19:10-12).

There is not the slightest hint of compulsion here or grounds for thinking that making it a norm for apostleship or discipleship (i.e. episcopacy and priesthood) would be advisable.

Likewise St. Paul dealt with the exact same attitude and responded in a similar way:

“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time” (1 Corinthians 7:1-5)

This is good commonsense pragmatism.

 

[LateranBasilica]

@Bradskii

He has just been sacked as treasurer by the Vatican.

https://www.9news.com.au/2019/02/27/08/44/george-pell-guilty-vatican-reaction-sacked-as-treasurer

We now await a statement from His Holiness Pope Francis.
The Ballarat and Melbourne Bishops have released statements I will link up later from non subscriber sites.
St Patrick’s Ballarat has removed his name from the School yesterday. Other places are in the process.
The mood is stunned acceptance, joy justice is being done and the cleanup is reaching into the darkest recesses.

Once the appeal is done, and if upheld, his boss, Pope Francis, will do what is necessary.

Another archbishop in Australia is under the hammer for coverup today. He was in Melbourne seminary, the same one Pell cleaned out, in the same era. He was at the recent vatican meeting. A woman has come forward saying he did not do the right thing with her case, she has gone to relevant authorities.
I will post about that later.

This is, I suspect, only the start.

 

[Bradskii]

Greenfields:

I believe he’s innocent.Australia is Very anti Catholic .
I will also say wait and see.

Really? I had the idea that Australia is very secular in general, but among the religious it seemed to me that Catholicism was popular.

It is indeed. Twenty percent of Australian kids go to Catholic schools for example (and that included both of mine).

 

[Greenfields]

It is however,very encouraging for me when I go to mass in the larger cities and see full congregations of many new Australians (immigrants) and priests from overseas …vibrant new churches in new suburbs It’s more the media and secular society that are loud and try and drown out Catholicism.
We have many ,many new priests coming from overseas.

 

[Greenfields]

We have our washed out versions of 'Catholic 'schools ,and our fair dinkim catholic schools .I wish I’d sent mine to the later.

 

[Bradskii]

From the Sydney Morning Herald today:

'Criminal barristers told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that the decision to avoid putting Pell before a jury to provide testimony and face cross-examination could work against them on appeal.

“It’s widely accepted that the job of challenging a conviction is much harder when the accused chooses not to contest a prosecution case and submit themselves to cross-examination,” a former QC said.’

 

[Vouthon]

And given the guide from the 7th century on punishing priests guilty of pedophilia

Indeed, this crime of child molestation, in particular concerning boys and adolescent males, has been condemned and dealt with from the first century church onwards, when predatory pederasty was an actual social institution in ancient Greco-Roman civilisation that a majority of elite Roman males engaged in (with male slaves)- as horrifying as that may be for us now to contemplate.

The references to homosexual acts in the New Testament epistles should predominantly be understood against this cultural backdrop (whereas the condemnation of gay sex in the Old Testament, for instance Deuteronomy, had male temple prostitutes of the Canaanite pagans in mind). It is for this reason that in his recent translation of the New Testament, the Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart translates 1 Timothy 1:10 as condemning, “men who couple with catamites” (meaning abuse of young male slaves) while Luther’s German Bible actually renders it as referring to ‘paedophiles’.

The Didache, the first century document attributed to the Twelve Apostles that served as the early church’s first catechism (for which reason it is used as an authority, witnessing to sacred tradition, in the modern Catechism), contained an explicit condemnation of sex between adult males and young males (and this is the only form of homosexual activity that it mentions because as Professor Hart explains, “in the first century the most common and readily available form of male homoerotic sexual activity was a master’s or patron’s abuse of young male slaves”):

http://bswett.com/1998-01Didache.html

2:1 And this is the second commandment of the teaching.
2:2 You shall do no murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not seduce boys, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not deal in magic, you shall do no sorcery, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born, you shall not covet your neighbor’s goods, you shall not perjure yourself, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall not cherish a grudge, you shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued;

The first legislation proscribing pederasty was passed by a group of bishops at the Synod of Elvira in southern Spain in 309 AD, which launched an assault against the Greco-Roman world’s obsession with this depraved sexual abuse.

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

It was also a huge problem among the Desert Father monastics of the fourth and fifth centuries, given the fact that most of them had been reared with a Roman education in which pederasty was promoted:

https://www.patristics.co/sayings/

Abba John the Dwarf also said, ‘He who gorges himself and talks with a boy has already in his thought committed fornication with him.’

A famous instruction about children in monasteries reads: “Do not bring young boys here. Four churches in Scetis are deserted because of boys.” Taken from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, this apophthegm exposes the presence of homoeroticism and anxieties about the homoerotic, especially erotic encounters with children, in early Christian ascetic communities.

As Thomas P. Doyle, a Dominican priest of the Catholic University of America, writes with regards to the middle ages:

http://www.aqpv.ca/images/stories/docs/Doyle_mars2011.pdf

The historical evidence shows that most disciplinary legislation was directed at sexual contact between clerics or monks and young boys. There is also historical evidence of numerous attempts to eliminate sexual encounters with women, especially concubinage. The Church did not succeed in eliminating the problem; yet things did change…

There is also historical evidence that the bishops collaborated with secular authorities in the prosecution and punishment of offending clerics. The cleric was tried in an ecclesiastical court and if convicted, he was dismissed from the clerical state or “defrocked” and then turned over to secular authorities who re-tried him and if convicted, imposed punishment which in some cases was death (cf. Sheer, 1991).

In ye olden times, the church harshly punished paedophile clerics - pederastic abuse of boys was regarded as the most heinous sexual offence.

In more recent times, however, the tendency has been to cover-up and deny.

 

[Emeraldlady]

I’m genuinely curious. What would it take for all you who think Pell is innocent / falsely accused / etc. change your minds? Apparently guilty verdicts are worthless. So what, then? Or do you take the position that nothing can ever be “proven” to your satisfaction?

It would take legitimate credible evidence that has always been associated with priestly pedophilia/pederasty. Pell has been convicted only on the evidence of one person who made no mention to a single other person about this abuse until nearly 20 years afterwards in 2014.

When the current accusation was made, it was at a time when Pell was being accused of ignoring a report of abuse as a young Priest in Ballarat. What was needed to ‘get him’ was what’s called in legalese ‘propensity evidence’. That is some sign of his propensity to abuse or cover up abuse. That was when this claimant made his accusation of being abused in St Pat’s Melbourne. He alleged the incident happened when he and a friend had snuck into the Sacristy after Mass ended and were swigging altar wine. Problem is that the friend denied the abuse and the court heard from his parents that when they’d asked him if he was abused, the friend said no. The friend died of an overdose in 2014 clearing the way for the claimant to go ahead unchallenged.

Needing again some ‘propensity evidence’, 2 more men were found who claimed that Pell had abused them at the Ballarat pool in the 70’s. The problem with these two was credibility. Both were career criminals who’ve been in and out of jail. One has also already attempted to get compensation from a female teacher who he accused of beating him class. Their case has been dropped this week meaning no need to keep the suppression order.

The fact that even the community of victims in Ballarat were surprised to hear that George Pell had been accused, is telling. Paul Tatchell who was a former mayor in the district and a survivor of one of the notorious pedophile Priests of the area and had been an advocate for some 60 other victims… expressed surprise on hearing about it. He claims that there had never been a hint or any dirt on Cardinal Pell which would be unusual when there was a climate of openness among Ballarat victims. George Pell at the Ballarat pool: 'Everything he did was done with a grandeur'

The constant theme of Priestly pedophiles so far convicted is their long history of abuse of victims. It makes Pell unique that there is only 1 single accuser over his 77 year old history. (apart from the non credible ‘propensity evidence’ pool accusers who popped up suddenly at a most ‘convenient’ time.)

So for me, I’d like to see some more victims come forward while Pell is still alive, with credible accounts of abuse.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Believe based on what? Are you charging the Jury members with destroying an innocent man’s life? Australia is 23 percent Catholic as of the 2016 census. America is 24 percent Catholic… Personally I’d say with some recent events that America is far more antiCatholic especially when you factor in the Bible Belt south. And though historically many Catholics are Irish, I’d say Ireland and England are two of the most anti Catholic countries in the west. Yet we know that the trials of accused in America and Ireland are pretty dependable. We also have the mistakes made by the Church leadership in Chile and the Pope himself. I’m inclined to extend the virtue of Charity to the country of Australia and certainly to innocent jurors over a Church that is caught up in cover up and bias.You can assert positively his innocence if you wish. But it sounds odd right? I believe convicted pedophile Pell is innocent even though I have less info than the Jury…