why give you any information when you have shown time and time again that you make up your own truth along with the Chinese and other regressives.

Issy, on that altar boy thing. I do recall, it was in about 1964 when I was in the 'Sixth' and the final year of primary school with the lovely "nuns", and again the following year, 'First' year of high school with the fantastic "brothers". There were rumours of funny goings on with "Father" and the altar boys. Again in high school with another "Father" there were once more rumours of thing not being as they should be between the altar boys and the old parish priest. In both cases the church was attached to the school. I avoided being an altar boy for obvious reasons.

Paul,

"... I avoided being an altar boy for obvious reasons".

but did you avoid being an "alter" boy?

We have obviously had different experiences, all of the priests that I knew as a boy were great people as were the nuns also the Marist Brothers, with the one notable exception (as I have mentioned) and he was more of a nuisance than a threat.

There was only one thing that we had to avoid with our parish priest, we had strict instructions to always approach him from the front as his nerves were not the best, he had been a Chaplin and had served in Europe, in the worst of it, in WWI.
When he died the local schools, Catholic, Public and Private closed and the students along with their elders lined the route to the Cemetary.
He was held in very high regard by all, particularly for his work during the Depression.

Watched the final instalment of 'REVALUATION' on the ABC last night. It certainly threw the spotlight on George Pell, along with his rise to fame in the Catholic Church, it exposed the dark secret of how Pell sexually abused boys at Ballarat during the 1970's. Claims of child sexual abuse at the Catholic orphanage in Ballarat, run by the Sisters of Nazareth were shocking. Pell was exposed as one of those who along with Bishop Mulkearns, who himself was most likely a paedophile in the diocese of Ballarat covered up the crimes of the notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale among others.

Many, including myself, would like to see the Catholic Church in Australia, just like other organised crime gangs, declared a criminal organisation, assets seized. That other infamous paedophile mob in the Catholic Church the order of bastards, St John of God, was given a special commendation by Pope Francis himself. Disgusting!