Michael Cohen kept me from other things yesterday, so now: Cardinal Pell found guilty.
Of what?
Raping children.
Cardinal George Pell, once the third most powerful man in the Vatican and Australia’s most senior Catholic, has been found guilty of child sexual abuse after a trial in Melbourne.
…
Pell, who is on leave from his role in Rome as Vatican treasurer, was found guilty of sexually penetrating a child under the age of 16 as well as four charges of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16. The offences occurred in December 1996 and early 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, months after Pell was inaugurated as archbishop of Melbourne.
…
Pope Francis, who has previously praised Pell for his honesty and response to child sexual abuse, has yet to publicly react, but just two days after the unreported verdict in December the Vatican announced that Pell and two other cardinals had been removed from the pontiff’s council of advisers.
Pell’s conviction and likely imprisonment will cause shockwaves through a global Catholic congregation and is a blow to Francis’s efforts to get a grip on sexual abuse.
It comes just days after an unprecedented summit of cardinals and senior bishops in the presence of the pope at the Vatican, intended to signal a turning point on the issue that has gravely damaged the church and imperilled Francis’s papacy.
Well, if they will insist on claiming to be representatives of Mister God, raping children isn’t a good look on them.
H/t Rob
Comments
7 responses to “Francis’s efforts to get a grip on sexual abuse”
I wish someone would do a good study of the Catholic schools, too. I suspect there are other abuses that are not rape related, but are also evil nasty things to do to kids.
I’ve posted a lot about the Irish ones in the past.
Yes, I remember those. The schools are awful, and apparently the ones in the American south are also awful. I haven’t heard much about other areas of this country, but I suspect we’re not seeing great, wonderful schools that help educate happy, healthy kids.
Tangentially related (Misc. Room 2 is closed to comments); an eleven-year-old Argentinian girl has given birth by caesarian section at 23 weeks pregnant, the pregnancy a result of being raped by her grandmother’s sixty-five-year-old partner. She attempted suicide twice and pleaded for an abortion, but the authorities said ‘No’, despite pregnancy after a rape being exempt from the country’s abortion ban. It took a court order to stop the delaying tactics meant to ensure the pregnancy continued beyond the 24th week, when abortion would have been off the cards completely. Those tactics were openly praised by the right-wing media, including this doozy.
What Bastards!
The girl was in her grandmother’s care at the time of her rape, because her two older sisters had reportedly been abused by their mother’s partner
The girl’s name was kept from the public by use of a pseudonym for reporting purposes. Well, it was, until the release of a recorded message by Tucumán’s archbishop, Carlos Sánchez, in which he revealed her real name. Because of course he did.
The whole thing is a fucking horror story.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/feb/28/girl-11-gives-birth-to-rapists-child-after-argentina-refuses-abortion
Talking about the 11 year old girl of course. No? Oh well.
Pell’s defense was that he was not acting as an arch bishop/cardinal at the time of the rapes so it was totes OK.
Sure, he was dressed as one and had just performed mass for his victims, and was introduced to them as cardinal (or whatever) but he was not acting in that capacity. Therefore there was no abuse of power, coercion or rape, really, when you come to think about it.
Fortunately, the judge was having exactly none of that.
Another Good church family.