cont

The vast majority of paedophile Catholic clergy have not spent a minute in jail. The vast majority will never be brought to justice, and the vast majority of victims will never receive justice. The legal system is inadequate in dealing with what are very personal matters for some. You could not attend a Catholic boys school in the 1960's and early 70's, and not be "touched" by paedophilia in some way, physically or mentally. It was not paedophilia that drove me from the Church, although it didn't bind me to it, it was more the absurdity and brutality of the institution itself, and some of those within. Has the Church, "seen the light" and attempted to reform itself, in my view no it has not. It has become clever at protecting itself, to much has been exposed for the Church to simply hide it all away, as it did for decades. Although I suspect little has changed in the Catholic third world, in places like the Philippines, South America, etc, places where paedophilia by clergy is ignored or simply hidden away. Institutionally the Church machinery for selecting and producing its clergy has not changed, is it reasonable to expect that some miraculous transformation has taken place in regards to paedophilia abundance within the Church, I think not!

Paul unfortunately you are uninformed of what Churches have done to compensate victims. This has included all denominations. They have agreed to establish a fund to pay out victims that have lodged claims against the Church. You cannot now enter an area of children without a Working with Children clearance, this is a police check. This fund does not cover the person who committed the crime, they must face the justice of the court.

It is a compensation fund that is payable to persons abused by members of staff or leaders. It does not cover abuse by a member [not staff or leaders] of a Church in situations not organised by the Church. That is a private matter for which the person is responsible.

It is unfortunate that a percentage of single Priests are homosexual that is why being celebrate has some appeal. This leaves them exposed to vulnerable boys while in close contact.

When Mr. O is asked to explain one of his wild statements, he is stumped. For a person claiming to be highly educated, he is pretty thick. Another one to scroll past because he has nothing of interest or importance to say.

ttbn,

It's self-explanatory - you're Catholic, aren't you? So aren't you trying to protect what it is to be Catholic in the light of the behaviour of the Catholic clergy?

Josephus, unfortunately you are the one who is uniformed, to say "what Churches have done to compensate victims", that is the limited use of money in an attempt to redress a problem that is still evident. True recompense by the Catholic Church would be to correct their fundamentally flawed system of recruitment. As for the police 'working with children' its nothing more that a clearance showing the person does not have a past history, it's no proof that person in not a paedophile. BTW what is the situation in the bulk of Catholic countries, I dare say absolutely nothing has changed, church paedophile is not exclusively an illness afflicting rich developed countries like Australia. The great savour of children in developed countries has been the substantial decline in enrolments for all branches of the Catholic clergy.

You say "a percentage of single Priests are homosexual" not all Catholic clergy that bugger boys are necessarily homosexual. Most paedophiles in the Church, admitted to making use of pornographic material for their own pleasure, magazines and videos mostly. Even though they were engaging in homosexual acts with boys, their pornographic material was almost excursively heterosexual, they also rarely admitted engaging in homosexual acts with other adult males, other paedophiles at hand, other clergy. Leading one to believe it was opportunity rather than sexual orientation that motivated them in most instances.

The Pope pontificating to his band of little green men, was useless. It was nothing more that an exercise in being seen to be doing something. Most likely many of the little green men sitting, listening, to the Pontiff were paedophiles themselves.

Someone posted a figure of 3% of (Australian) Catholic clergy being paedophiles, the Church itself put the figure at 7%, which included female clergy. Remove the female component, look at the historical evidence, and the true figure is most likely 20% of priests and brothers etc were/are paedophiles

Dear Banjo Paterson,

Thank You.
As always, I look forward to reading your comments.

Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli said he
hoped people would consider the High Court judgement
and see the decision in its legal context.

The witness J - in Pell's case has stated that he
respects the High Court decision and that he understood
" Why criminal cases must be proven beyond all
reasonable doubt."

"No one wants to live in a society where people can be
imprisoned without due and proper process. This is a
basic civil liberty. But the price we pay for weighting
the system in favour of the accused is that many sexual
offences against children go unpunished."

Archbishop Commensoli added that he expects people will
keep their original positions about the cardinal.

Certainly we can expect that victims and survivors and
their families will find it hard to change their
positions and Catholics have to face the fact that
there were people who moved predators across parishes.
The Church cover-ups, the protection of abusive clergy and
the refusal to admit egregious mistakes are
unjustified.

What's next remains unclear. The Church will require
genuine leadership and a willingness to confront both
the difficulties and opportunities that it now faces.
Will anything change? It's past record is not good.

As for Cardinal Pell?

Pell's position as Vatical Treasurer was filled in his
absence, putting him effectively in retirement.
What happens next is up to the Vatican to decide.