Dear HenryL and Is Mise,

Sections 290–294C of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 reads in part;

“The evidence of the complainant must be held in camera unless otherwise directed by the court (s 291(1)), even if the evidence is being given via CCTV or any of the other alternative means of giving evidence in person: s 291(2). Such evidence is only to be given in open court if requested by a party, and it is either in the “special interests of justice” or the complainant consents: s 291(3). Finding the “special interests of justice” involves a limited exercise of discretion because s 291(4) specifically provides that the principle that proceedings should generally be in open or in public and/or that justice should be seen to be done etc, does not constitute the “special interests of justice” in determining whether or not the complainant should give evidence in open court. There are no decided cases yet defining the extent of this discretion.”

So I'm not sure your staunch defence of Pell, nor that of many rightwing pundits who are clamouring to protest the innocence of a convicted child abuser, nor the wide community interest in the case should mean are proper grounds to evoke the “special interests of justice” clause and have the victim's testimony exposed to the wider public.

You obviously think otherwise but are yet to make your case.

And while I dispute your claim that “word on word” use to always mean acquittal it certainly meant given the nature of the crime, convictions of abusing clergy were far more difficult that they should have been in order to have them brought to justice and for young Australia kids to be protected.

The law needed to be changed and it was through an act of parliament voted on by our elected representatives.

Steele,

Not just the law, but the way that children are accessed - any teacher knows never to be alone with a child in a classroom, certainly not with a closed door - in fact, not to get between a child and the door. Surely procedures can be devised where adults necessarily have access to children, but whereby no adult is fully alone with a child to whom he is not related, certainly not with closed doors. Any decent bloke would be aware of this, surely ?

A chaperone-type system might work, women taking it upon themselves to watch for any potentially dangerous situation ? Different change-rooms for male adults and children, at swimming pools and in spaces like cloisters and sacristies, etc. Change procedures, minimise potentially dangerous situations.

And for God's sake, let priests marry.

For all that, and all that, I'm uneasy with the notion that someone can be found guilty on someone else's assertion. That sounds like a step on the path to totalitarianism, where the word of a Stasi- or Nazi-type informer can have someone shot. And their entire family shot or jailed. [Hmmm, a bit over the top.] But surely the presumption of innocence surely has to be observed ?

Cheers,

Joe

Joe,

Marriage doesn't seem to make any difference, ref Anglican and other married clergy who have also offended.

Note that not all Catholic priests are unmarried.

"During his La Repubblica interview Pope Francis said that 2% of priests are paedophiles. I have to admit that yes, about two in every 100 priests I have known or reported on have later been exposed as abusers of children, especially adolescent boys. Psychiatrists who specialise in this field estimate its prevalence at about 4% of the general population. One of the most simplistic claims about abusers in the Catholic church is that their acts are directly linked to celibacy, as if these any celibate male has repressed urges that burst out if there’s an altar boy handy. But that doesn’t account for Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris, or the social workers, teachers, Anglican vicars, and fathers and uncles who have all assaulted young people. As Esther Rantzen, founder of Childline, once said to me, people who want to abuse children find ways to access them. Becoming a Catholic priest was one way of gaining a position of trust and authority in the parish, in the school and in the confessional.

Yet that figure of 2%, compared to the 4% norm, remains troubling. The most convincing explanation I have ever read for this frequency among Catholic clergy is that of the German professor Klaus M Beier of the Institute of Sexology at the Berlin Charité hospital, whose research shows that people with desires for children and adolescents have known for a long time of their fantasies and impulses, and they seek out ways to control them. Celibacy ordered by a religious institution is attractive because it is imposed on them, says Beier, but that imposition makes it bound to fail, as they are not willing themselves to deal with their problem. It seems to me, then, that a paedophile is akin to an alcoholic, or any other addict. Abstinence imposed by external rules, not really wanted by yourself, will fail."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/15/priests-marry-catholic-church-paedophile-pope-francis

Dear Is Mise;

You wrote;

“Yet that figure of 2%, compared to the 4% norm, remains troubling.”

Absolute utter bulldust!

What on earth are you taking about? We have just gone through a traumatic Royal Commission in this country trying to get to the truth of the extent of the abuse and this is what they found;

“Counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said 1880 alleged perpetrators were identified in claims of child sexual abuse. Of the 1880, 32 per cent were religious brothers, 30 per cent were priests, 29 per cent were lay people and 5 per cent were sisters.”

“Of religious orders with only religious brother members, the highest proportion of alleged perpetrators were members of St John of God (40.4 per cent), the Christian Brothers (22 per cent), the Salesians of Don Bosco (21.9 per cent), Marist Brothers (20.4 per cent) and the De La Salle Brothers (13.4 per cent).”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/almost-4500-claimed-abuse-in-catholic-institutions-over-35-years-royal-commission-told-20170206-gu65mq.html

Those figures you just trotted out are an absolute affront to all those who came forward to relive deeply traumatic experiences to shine a light on how evil and predatory the clerical class have been in this country. They are many times more likely to be committing crimes against our kids than the norm and to be intimating otherwise is despicable.

Steele,

Don't confuse Australian percentages with World percentages (and there are no really reliable world percentages), anyhow the purpose of the quotation was to shew that marriage makes no difference and that some Catholic priests are married although no married Catholic priest is known to be among the offenders (but it's early days yet),

Hi Steele,

I don't know what it is with the forums Usual Suspects, mostly a group of crusty old conservative male geriatrics, that they want to put themselves up as paedophile apologists. Flawed attempts at mitigation, one claimed it was a way of turning boys into men, and all the perpetrator was doing was "getting his rocks off", how nice is that. One fruitcake claimed it was punishment for the sins of a previous life. Now its some dodgy stats trying to paint paedophile clergy as being a small minority, less than societies average.

I watched in disgust as the Papal P in Rome lectured to his band of old aged henchmen about paedophilia, no doubt several were in the audience. For all what has been exposed in a handful of developed countries, like Australia, paedophilia in the big Catholic countries of the third world goes on unabated. The primary objective of the Catholic Church, despite all their pontificating, is still, to try and keep a lid on the problem wherever possible through damage control.