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THE CHURCH SHOULD not be made the scapegoat in an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse, the country’s most senior Catholic cleric said Tuesday as victims welcomed the paedophilia probe.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard ended more than a decade of growing pressure by ordering a royal commission to investigate the responses of all religious organisations, schools and state care to allegations of abuse.
Sydney Archbishop George Pell said he welcomed the inquiry, which will also examine the responses of not-for-profit organisations and the police, as an opportunity to help victims, “clear the air” and “separate fact from fiction”.
“We are not interested in denying the extent of misdoing in the Catholic Church,” he told a press conference. ”We object to it being exaggerated, we object to being described as the only cab on the rank. I don’t think we should be scapegoated.”
The Victorian and New South Wales state governments are investigating allegations of sex abuse by the clergy, including that the Catholic Church in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney covered up abuse.
Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, the senior police officer whose public comments about the Hunter Valley intensified pressure for a national inquiry, has said he was ordered off the case involving alleged paedophile priests.
“I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up, silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders, destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the church,” Fox said last week.
Pell said he regretted such allegations because “that’s not the case”.
“There is an obligation (on the Church) to inform police of allegations,” he said, adding that the Church had long made strenuous efforts to stamp out abuse.
The cardinal welcomed the fact that the royal commission would not focus exclusively on Catholics, but admitted the Church had struggled to turn around a perception that it was not seriously addressing the problem.
His comments came after a Catholic Brother and a former teacher at a Catholic school, both aged in their late fifties, were arrested Monday by New South Wales police and charged with abuse of children dating back to the late 1980s.
Pell said there was a “persistent press campaign against the Catholic Church’s adequacies and inadequacies in this area” but this did not mean its clergy were “largely the principal culprits”.
Victims’ groups and their families hailed the inquiry which is expected to run for years.
“We’re elated that it’s happened. We now need to see good, solid results coming out of it,” said Anthony Foster, whose two daughters were raped by their Catholic parish priest for years, starting when they were young children.
“It’s really, really important now that it moves forward very quickly, that it’s well-resourced, that we don’t see it dragging on forever,” he told state broadcaster ABC.
Gillard refused to put a deadline on the royal commission, but said the government had already taken the first steps towards shaping the terms of reference for the inquiry.
“It’s not the right approach to say let’s do it quickly and not do it thoroughly,” she said told reporters in Perth.
“It’s also not the right approach to be hypothetically war-gaming how long it could take.”
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The Roman Catholic organisation is completely infested with Pedophiles. Surely it’s time to close it down for good.
The power dominance of the Roman Catholic Church,its days are numbered. No one to blame for that but themselves. A vilest organization.We won’t miss it when it finally collapses into the gutter, where it belongs.
Who or what will replace it ?
Bet it will be an organisation that does not tolerate whistle blowers , will charge them with Blasphamy and silence them .
Surely they are not a ‘scapegoat’ if they actually did it!? A scapegoat is a metaphoric goat laden with the sins of others. The Catholic Church is guilty of so many sins of its own that there isn’t space for anyone else’s on its goat!!!!
As its mainly just little boys getting molested wouldn’t it make sense to just remove the gay priests who are the main culprits and the ones obviously dragging the church down?
Julia – what a vile comment. Shameful.
Julie, read the article – one of those guys DAUGHTERS were raped by their parish priest for years.
Pedophiles are not gay. They are pedophiles. They like children, not adults of the same sex. They do not care which sex, they like children, do you get it?
Here’s an idea. Perhaps clergy – from any religion, should not be allowed to interact with children at all. Allow them to preach to adults who chose of their own volition and informed choice to join that religion rather than brainwashing kids – because that just lends them extra power over their victims.
It’s unbelievable! These are the same people that claim to give moral guidance?
Surely it’s time to tear the Vatican down and force them to acknowledge the horrible crimes they’ve committed?
Century after century, ever since its beginning the Vatican has been an obstacle to human kinds well being!
Police on a global level should carry out major criminal investigations of all church bodies including the Vatican itself to uncover the full extent of the cover up and knowledge of those in authority.
I’m sure they are not all bad, assuming 10% of priests are bad and in 2010 there were 412,236 priests that’s only 41,223 bad priests! Problem is another 50% cover for the bad 10% while 25% believe it is all media lies and there is nothing wrong.
So guess that leaves 15% good priests!
Research the Vatican, that’s where you will find the head of the problem.
There are probably a majority of decent people in it..but the institution is rotten and using them as a shield.
Otherwise Ratzo would ask that individual priests not be scapegoated. He defends the institution yet again.
There is much good work done by priests and religious personnel all over the world. Often in life threatening and difficult circumstances. The problem here is a management failure at mid and senior level to deal with the bad apples ( a minority ).
Church management who are found to have hidden, ignored, failed to properly investigate abuse cases should stand trial beside those who perpetrated the heinous acts.
Pat, problem is we have people in Ireland that have been shown to have been part of the cover up and even been involved in interviews of young kids but yet they are still in positions of power….Cardinal Seán Brady still has his position.
I guess he was only following orders.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0503/victim-of-brendan-smyth-calls-on-brady-to-resign.html
Sean Brady is a disgrace. What he did, making those poor children sign oaths of silence, and not telling their parents what had happen to them was nothing short of evil. It was the 1970s; so this guff about people not knowing what we know now (that child rape is wrong and should be reported to the police) should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
The church welcomed the inquiry to separate fact from fiction. Great! Facts like the church facilitated endemic child abuse for decades and still refused to acknowledge the depth of its involvement. Fiction like virgin births and zombie bread. Now we’re getting somewhere.
If the Catholic Church were any other business would we allow them to keep trading? If this abuse had occured across branches of a supermarket chain their premises would be burnt to the ground and they’d be run out of the country.
try again..if you think it corrupt and dangerous call a cult a cult, not a church.
And its priests are operatives, bishops managers cardinals the boardroom up to CEO Joe Ratzinger.
Demystify this corporation, or it will persist and prevail to stalk again smells, bells and liturgical spells.
Cue the vitriolic, bigoted anti religious comments.
Hey Cian,
They started it
Problem is Cian the hatred of the catholic church is due to its actions, its abuse, its coverups all the way from the top, Its moving around of priests who abused and its failure to pay and compensate its thousands of victims.
The catholic church hates people because of the way they were born as they hate gays and lesbians,
I doubt you’ll find many anti-religious comments here. What you will find are comments against an organisation which for decades has aided and abetted the rape and torture of children while at the same time preaching to everyone on morality. If the Catholic Church wants to gain back any respect it must tear down its hierarchy and genuinely repent for its horrendous sins. Or it can do what you’ve done and bury its head in the sand and pretend the deserved criticism only comes from anti-religious bigots and watch its influence disappear.
Calling for that organisation to be closed down is neither anti religious or bigoted Ciarn. That organisation is completely evil, yet I still watch brainwashed parents bring their children to that evil organisations churches every Sunday.
I am unashamedly anti religious.Religion is an evil,manipulative,form of brainwashing and deserves to exposed as such.Anybody in this day age that still believes these cock and bull stories are either,very say,completely devoid of logical or reason or just thick as a shit.The human race would be in a far better position if it wasn’t for religion.(Religion has absolutely nothing to do with having a relationship with god)
Glad to hear your enthusiasm Ru Ni Digs. People preach tolerance, but I think they overlook the sheer absurdity other human beings accept as literal facts. There’s less talking animals in Farthing Wood. Not to mention the offensive “morality” it extols. If your moral guidance advises you to smash babies heads off rocks and that the punishment for shaving your beard is death by stoning then you should probably be put away for the good of society.
Barry you do realise that most pedophile Priests, those who molested boys, were/are in fact Homosexuals .(Gays) they infiltrated the Church and orphanages to take advantage of their vulnerable prey. their same sex desires should have excluded them from the Priesthood, but they never mentioned this at the time or they simply would not have been accepted .
John that is vastly untrue. A huge number of abusing priests have abused both sexes, gender didn’t enter into it, power did and fear, the tools the church has used for centuries. The church has had major sexual issues within itself, of an oppressive nature, for all those centuries, the church has instilled those fears into many of its followers, fears of normal sexual expression and normal sexual urges, like masturbation.
A question for you John, ‘Is the rape of children a sin, if so is it a venial sin or a mortal sin? Please use your faith as a guide in answering this question. Cian can answer the question if he’s brave enough.
John, I’m going to say the same thing to you as I did to Julie above..
READ THE ARTICLE.
There was a man quoted who’s DAUGHTERS were raped for years by their parish priest.
Pedophiles are not gay, they are completely different. They do not care about the sex of the child, they care that it *is* a child, most frequently it is pre-pubescent children, but some prefer the early adolescence. Homosexuals are attracted to the same sex, but would have the same age preferences as a non pedophile heterosexual person, as in, most frequently a similar age grouping to themselves.
It’s quite apparent that your understanding on the matter is poorly researched. May I suggest you learn more about it before you comment on it in future lest you come off as sounding like an ignoramus..
Don’t feed the troll.
FACT: If a person is ‘Same-Sex-Attracted’
then, that person is ‘gay’
The Gay community are leading the Ani-Catholic charge but do not accept that simple fact.
A same sex attracted pedophile is a Gay pedophile.
John.
Typing FACT in big letters does not make it so.
Pedophiles do not have a gender preference, that’s the point. They are attracted to the innocence and purity of children, they don’t care whether its a boy or a girl. As I pointed out in this article reference was made to a presumably male priest (as the Catholic Church does not permit female priests) raping girls. Does that mean that all straight men are pedophiles too? There’s no such thing as a gay pedophile and a straight pedophile. They are just pedophiles.
I’ll tell you one thing that is a demonstrable fact, you know absolutely nothing about the subject and are attempting to pass off your poorly formed assumptions as knowledge. I sincerely hope no one was dim witted enough to think what you said made any sense at all.
Oh so sorry Santi Om, my mistake, you are right , there were some infiltrators attracted to both sexes , they are known as “Bi Sexual’s .
So claim to have such vast knowledge on the subject. Me thinks you are quasi expert, pushing your own propaganda
Barry, very true, I agree whole heartedly.
@Julie you live in another dimension! one without sense & reasoning & decency some of your comments on the journal are a combination of ignorance & delusion.
On a separate note: Royal Commission?! think it’s time the ozzies ditched the British monarch and grew up! Time to be fully independent and sovereign Australia! How’s about a president and a nice new flag, minus the Jack.
Maybe if they stopped aiding an abetting this sort of behaviour the scapegoating would stop
have your say