Fair enough Foxy.

Let’s hope that this will be followed by significant action.

Ludwig,

Further to the points Foxy made and which I agree with I note a news item today I heard on the radio whereby it said that the Pope later had a private meeting with victim groups and victims to talk to them personally on his last day.

George,

Your comparison with prejudice (my description not yours) against Islam was well made and the Pell article was very informative. Lateline does have the advantage of being able to investigate in depth yet they missed an awful lot of stuff. I wonder if Lateline's gross mishandling in the circumstances risks any kind of professional liability? The suggestion in your article that Pell should have lawyers sign off on all his correspondence to avoid facing this situation again certainly raised my eyebrow considering the extreme but ubiquitous suggestion that lawyers should not be involved at all. Pell was even criticised for using lawyers after the other guy's family got an apology and a compensation and counselling offer but chose to take the Church to court.

I previously stated: "1990s plus attitudes and norms are used to judge 1960s procedures". On the weekend I stumbled upon a neat quote that expresses something similar made by Peter Steinfels in a September, 2002 article in the magazine The Tablet. Although quite critical of the "morally culpable" bishops the author stated:

"...It is quite another matter, however, implicitly to measure bishops' decisions, as has been frequently done, as though the bishops possessed - and deliberately and perversely ignored - knowledge and attitudes that were decades later in coming."

George,

Thanks for your perspectives.

The idea posited is not to catch the Church out somuch, but like the police to recognize that, there is, being unable to avoid an unfortunate pun, a "brotherhood". As with police, it would wrong to say most are corrupt, yet it would be an understatement to say there is only the occassional rotten apple.

Both organizations, by there very nature, attrack these problems. There is sufficient smoke to suggest some skew towards wrong in both instances.

When doctor performs a cholestral test [Royal Commission], he or she will be looking for good and bad cholesteral. The aim being to trusmute the body [Church/Police Service] towards its optimum [charter].

It is good that the Church does compensate victims and it is excellent that the Pope has apologized. But, the fundamental problem stays in place, to surface, again & again.

I do not advocate the Church being "caught", rather the perpetrators and the cover-up agents being "caught". The Church is not a criminal but individuals that maintain and protect a cone of silence are a conduit to civil liberitarianes [suggest myself, small just institutions] to others wanting deliberate harm.

Criminals must not be insulated by the Church. If the Bishops wont do this, the secular authorities need to identify the criminals, because they are criminals, and, dangerous to the public good.

From a Roman Catholic perspective, I guess, there is the "sterotype" of the man of god [or for the secularist the man of good] with regards the clergy. Herin, one can be inclined to build the premisses backwards from the conclusion in this situation. We have the opposite pole to the witch-hunt.

Cheers

George,

[Alleged*] Deviants: Handed-over. Given-over to the police.

As you will have heard the Pope Visit to Australia went well.

O.

*Juries determine, not Bishops.

Oliver,

"Criminals must not be insulated by the Church. If the Bishops wont do this, the secular authorities need to identify the criminals, because they are criminals, and, dangerous to the public good."

While the spotlight is so firmly on the Church I'd expect it to be the last place that would dare do any insulating. Look how much sophistry was levelled at trying to create the appearance of a cover up by Pell in the absurd situation that he would be open about paedophilia but hide homosexuality. With such enthusiasm clearly if the media could find something of substance they would.

As regards identifying criminals the centralised organisational aspect and extremely pedantic record keeping of the Catholic Church assists greatly. In the bad old days when the Church was less open about such things when a baddy was located prosecutors would scour the personnel records and locate any others.

In this day and age you have little to worry about. In many protestant churches the decentralized nature confines prosecutors to the records of variable quality kept by individual churches. Prosecutors would love the Catholic Church.

mjpb,

Some interesting points, upon which, I shall reflect. Thank you.

Were I, a secularist; to assume the guise of a believer; I would still remain very concerned that familial-style piety towards a church acting to protect the institution against its best interests. Were that church a company, I would advise to go back to core values and prune the deadwood. Herein, within a belief structure, familial-style piety may have a place, regarding conformance to righteous dogma. But the idea of a church seeing itself as some sort of Middle Kingdom between Man and a god, is problematic; because it lends itself independent determinations aside from valid society dimensions.

Perhaps, Cardinal Pell is a good man, who has just been in te cross-hairs of the press, lately. Yet, even so, he must act fast to clean-up shop and set a good example. Corrections shall require abandoning many langyne attachments and old behaviours.

Were I a believer, I would be looking for a moral compass inside a church, rather than seeing churches need to find said compasses.