Spikey,
As you might remember, my mention of "frustrations and grievances" was in response to your post bringing up educational malpractices in Catholic institutions of times bygone, not to the crimes of sexual abuse of minors by clergy, a very different topic that probably the Pope himself will bring up, as he did during his USA visit, though certainly not in a manner to make these young people feel co-responsible or something.

Otherwise, I agree that we have very different ideas about how to say welcome to young visitors - over one hundred thousand of them visiting Australia for the first time - who carry no guilt or responsibility for either of these two injustices.

In spite of what you think should be done, I still believe that at the end Sydney and Australia will turn out to be as hospitable and polite (if you do not like the term civilised) towards these young visitors and their faith, as did Cologne three years ago, despite the fact that in Cologne the Church and the Cardinal are probably even less popular than in Sydney .

Pell if he is not forced too leave will be proof the Catholic church is not ready to change.
My earlier post about saying sorry and not repeating these crimes looks to be a dream.
Even with world youth day at any cost, Pell should have stood aside.
Right now today some in the church are covering up his wrongs.

Belly,

"Pell if he is not forced too leave ...the Catholic church is not ready to change.
My earlier post about saying sorry and not repeating these crimes looks to be a dream..."

What are you talking about? The Pope has apparently already indicated he will apologise. Why should Pell stand aside? His letter? The program he introduced to address clergy abuse has been lauded by a victim organisation as superior to other programs. His track record is good.

Yep the journos hate him for being anti-abortion etc. and will try on the letter nonsense but can you look into your heart and say he should resign because he failed to properly turn his mind to the characteristics of his letter recipient when choosing wording? He was dealing with an upsetting paedophile matter at the time.

George,

I suspect that people who might get confused by the language of anti-Catholic bigotry need some definitions. Please let me know what you think of the first two:

Paedophilia = any abuse of anyone at any age
supporting victims = lieing about a Catholic official to make them look bad if you form the view they aren't the best person to act in victims interests

BTW Did the lynch mob mentality of not caring whether an allegation is right or wrong as long as the recipient gets punished influential on you moving to Germany or was it other reasons?

Spikey,

"Your right. Lots of us think that if Cardinal Pell won't take any notice and won't respond then why not take the opportunity of calling his hand when the Pope's visit is on."

Considering his track record there is no basis. It is already indicated that Pell won't have the opportunity to speak to the Pope about this until later so that is unlikely to explain his prompt action. If the "lots" of you are confident in your beliefs then why wasn't it tried a year ago to find out. The motivation isn't to taint world youth day because you hate Catholicism is it?

First let me say I am not a Roman Catholic but respect peoples rights to find solace in the faith of their choice.

Whilst the following could be viewed as anti-religious, it is not. It can be equally applied to secular organisation who cover up corruption, such as various police forces and child welfare agencies and even federal government.

Every one of us make choices.

As individuals those choices may effect both ourselves and others but they will reflect on the quality of the person who exercises the choice..

When a person is, however, in a position to make choices as leader or representative for an organisation, any organisation, the quality or wisdom of the choices he or she makes reflect back on that organisation.

Not one of the religious organisations has a leadership which has made an effective attempt to rout out the evil of paedophilia from within its ranks.

Every religious organisation has sought to cover it up.

My only conclusion is the “leadership” who make these choices are frail, feeble, scared and weak people.

There is no shame in any organisation publicly admitting its failings. Appointment of paedophiles among them.

There is no difference between a corrupt cleric and a corrupt policeman (except the colour of their uniform). Both need to be excised from the body of the organisation to ensure the health of the organisation.

We have been through any number of public castigations of the police, rightly so and the police have growing stronger through it.

The churches would do well to view what they should have done, instead of performing the apologists’ coverup as demonstrated by a few years back by Hollingwirth and now, apparently by Pells.

This is one of the reasons I support no organised religion of any kind.

There are many double standards at play.

Everyone calls for tolerance unless it is tolerance of Catholic/Christian belief.

Everyone calls for fairness unless Catholic clergy is involved. If he uses the wrong words extremely tenuous attributions are made. Anyone else and the media wouldn't bother.

The mental health profession face no backlash for finding paedophiles cured. If members of the clergy accept their advice they are covering up. (I note that this raises other issues as I discussed earlier but I won't overcomplicate here - see my earlier posts)

If lawyers don't dob in their clients it is okay. If a priest confesses to a Bishop and the Bishop doesn't dob him in the Bishop is a criminal.

Prior to Dennis Fergusson, paedophile priest (and general sexual abuse labelled paedophile priest) cases got the lion's share of media attention and all public cries are for the Catholic Church to take some action as if it is the main source of the problem. However, in just one Australian state there can be 6486 child molestation charges between July 2005 and June 2007 but in a country with the population of the US of A, using an extremely broad definition of sexual abuse, there are only 4,392 allegations of abuse by priests of people up to age 18 between 1950-2002.

The flavour of the “paedophile crisis” can be found in an example. Historian Philip Jenkins who (from memory) examined 20 years of records observed the following.: “Of the fifty-seven accused priests examined in the Chicago survey...the commonest complaint involved boys of fifteen or sixteen.... There was only one founded case of pedophilia, involving a priest-uncle with two six-year¬ old nieces.” Without this one sad individual, the "pedophile crisis" in Chicago would have conspicuously lacked pedophiles."

I fully support a papal apology for the tragic wrongs that have occurred in the Catholic Church and the fact that it has done better than comparable institutions provides little comfort. I condemn Bishops who have failed their flock. But something more than genuine concern about paedophilia must be involved here.

mjpb,

"The program he [Pell] introduced to address clergy abuse has been lauded by a victim organisation as superior to other programs. His track record is good."

Funny! I could have sworn that organisation is on very recent record as having slammed both the program and Pell. Moreover, other organisations totally disagree and you may have seen footage of Broken Rites' and other groups' demonstrations over the weekend.

Your sarcastic definitions of 'Paedophilia' and 'supporting victims' are grossly insensitive cynically designed to shift the focus away from Pell's and the Church's ineptitude and lack of Christian charity. Won't work, I'm afraid. Your words tell us a great deal more about you than about the real issues.

Your defence of Cardinal Pell: "Considering his track record there is no basis" is spot on - there is no basis for a proper defence of this failed leader.

To your ad hominen and rhetorical question: "The motivation isn't to taint world youth day because you hate Catholicism is it?" the answer is a resounding NO.

There are many intelligent and compassionate Catholics out there who are appalled at the Church's track record on this matter. The motivation is to bring justice to the victims of Church sexual abuse and exploitation and to ensure accountability for breaches of the law and violations of human decency using the name of God as pretext.