JP Morgan & The Vatican = Transparency?

JP Morgan of Milan is closing its Vatican account on 30 March 2012 because, according to media reports, it ‘failed to provide sufficient information on money transfers’. So the Vatican bank, also known as Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) [Institute For Works Of Religion]  lacks ‘transparency’ in its transactions, according to JP Morgan?  I’m not saying JP Morgan is laundering money, but its claims are a bit like the pot calling the kettle black!  The timing of JP Morgan’s action seems to coincide with the Tax Police in Italy scrutinising tax avoidance by not-for-profit organisations.

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The Vatican Bank

The Secretive Vatican

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A Good Partnership?

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IOR was founded in 1942 by Pope Pius Xl “to provide for the safekeeping and administration of movable and immovable property transferred or entrusted to it by physical or juridical persons and intended for works of religion or charity”. It is located inside Vatican City and is run by a professional bank CEO who reports to the Pope through a committee of cardinals. Last year, the Vatican was forced to adapt internal laws to comply with international standards on financial crime, in order to secure a place in the ‘White List’ of states. We are informed that the 110-acre ‘sovereign state’ in the heart of Rome, now complies with the rules of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF)

But the closing of its JP Morgan account is a major blow to the Vatican’s chances of being included in that List. The Vatican Hierarchy’s attempt to clear the air of corruption that has surrounded the Vatican for decades has been thwarted. To add to its woes, there is growing doubt among some international law experts that Vatican City actually qualifies as a sovereign state, established in 1929 by the then Prime Minister, Benito Mussolini.

See More: ‘The Case of the Pope’ by Geoffrey Robertson QC.

Barbie Latza Nadeau writes that the Vatican & the Holy See face serious allegations that their curious accounting practices are really a cover for money-laundering schemes and other crimes.

JPMorgan Chase sent a letter to the Vatican on Feb. 15 to notify them of the impending closure after Vatican bankers were “unable to respond” to a series of requests about questionable money transfers from the account. The account was a “sweeping facility” that was zeroed out at the end of each business day. The Vatican account, opened in 2009, and had processed some $1.5 billion of funds to other Vatican accounts, mostly in Germany, according to financial documents published in Italy’s leading financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

Sweeping facilities are not illegal, but Vatican bankers refused to reveal the reasons for moving so much money in such a short period of time. The notification of the account’s closure was the culmination of an ongoing investigation into the Vatican’s alleged creative accounting. It began in September 2010 when tax police in Rome froze $33 million in Vatican assets after a covert investigation into the way the Catholic Church moves its millions around. The assets were eventually released in June 2011, but the investigation is ongoing.

The revelations above came about through the media release of a letter written to the Pope. Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò was the writer of the leaked letter. The public image of the Vatican bank has been harmed by the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal, in which highly sensitive documents, including letters to Pope Benedict, were published in Italian media.

The Cardinal was hastily transferred to Washington, D.C., to head the Holy See embassy there earlier this year, after the letter came to light in the media. Rampant corruption within the Holy See was referred to in the letter and sent ripples around Rome. In the letter, on Vatican letterhead and sealed with an official stamp, Cardinal Vigano pleaded for the pope to allow him to stay in Rome to continue his anti-fraud work. “Holy Father, my transfer at this time would provoke much disorientation and discouragement in those who have believed it was possible to clean up so many situations of corruption and abuse of power that have been rooted in the management of so many departments.”

The leaked letter scandal was quickly dubbed “Vatileaks” by the Vatican’s own spokesman. Some of the leaked documents appear to show a conflict among top Vatican officials about just how transparent the bank should be about dealings that took place before it enacted its new laws. The Holy See did not deny the authenticity of the documents. Instead it opened an internal investigation into potential moles. So far, no one has been named as a source for the breach.

The Vatican has a long history of avoiding scrutiny and hiding its ill-gotten gains. People are still trying to sue the Vatican over the Nazi loot that went in through the front door of the Vatican and vanished out the back door.

Despite efforts to prove otherwise, the damage to the church’s financial reputation has already been done. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department named the Holy See on a list of its own, as a “jurisdiction of concern” for money-laundering practices in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, alongside countries like Honduras and Syria. The Vatican shrugged off the State Department’s concerns electing that a “jurisdiction of concern” was far better than one of a “primary concern.” But Reuters’ financial columnist Pierre Briançon disagrees. “The best way for the Vatican to come clean would of course be to close the bank: it’s hard to see why it’s needed other than to shroud the Church’s financial dealings in a veil of obsessive secrecy,” he wrote in a recent blog post.

This is not the first time the Vatican bank has been embroiled in immoral activities. Three decades ago, the Holy See faced its first battle against allegations of money laundering and corruption. It was named in the mysterious death of Roberto Calvi, known then as “God’s Banker.” Calvi was president of Banco Amborsiano despite being a Freemason with alleged mafia ties. The bank collapsed amid allegations of sinister activities, and Calvi was found hanging from a rope with bricks in his pockets under the Blackfriars Bridge in London.  Ms Nadeau writes that the ‘Vatican was able to redeem its reputation back then, at least temporarily. Whether it will be able to save face this time may depend on divine intervention, or at least a better accountant’.

Reuters: Money laundering, is usually connected with drugs and other illegal activity. Sounds like the old days in England, when the church had its hands in all manner of things.

Since the resignation of  ‘Bunga Bunga’ Prime Minister Berlusconi, Italy has formed a more credible government, headed by Mario Monti as Prime Minister, as well as Minister of Economy and Finance. Mr Monti previously served as European Commissioner 1995 -2004.  He has brought in strict new tax regimes which includes deeper scrutiny of non-profit organisations, the biggest of which is the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church, through the Vatican, has an Italy-wide network of assets such as extensive property holdings, schools, hospitals, clinics, hostels, apartments, on whose profits the Catholic Church has paid minimal taxes, if any, until now.

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More:  The Corrupt Vatican

Jesus’ famous quote taken from the Gospel “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” has never been more relevant to Italy than it is today.

Sources used:

Philip Pullella & Lisa Jucca for Reuters

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Huff Post

 

Aatifa: One of Many Child Brides

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Source: Associated Press

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Aatifa set herself alight because she could not endure her life a minute longer.

Aatifa's Agony

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Aatifa, and thousands of teenage girls like her are forced into marriages in Afghanistan, usually with much older men. This cannot be called anything other than the sexual abuse of minors. Hundreds of girls and women die every year after they self immolate because their lives have become intolerable.  If they report their beatings and other abuse to authorities, their husbands’ abusive behaviour is supported by the authorities. Despite the decade’s long war in Afghanistan, I don’t believe anything has really changed. Any changes made are superficial and lauded by warmongers in the West, but brutal Islamic culture is entrenched and will take hundreds of years to change; to embrace freedom and equality for females,  Arab Spring or no Arab Spring.  Islamic culture is stronger than ever and to my mind shows no signs of abating in the Arab World or beyond.

Aatifa, forced into marriage as a fourteen-year-old, doused herself in gasoline, then lit a match;  she believed  it would be better to die than to continue to suffer at the hands of her husband and his family.  The fire engulfed two-thirds of her tiny body. If this is was a choice for Aatifa, then one can only imagine what evils she had been subjected to.

Aatifa’s cries of pain and “Allah” resound through the hospital where she is being treated. Not that Islam has ever been, or will be, a comfort to this young girl. Her future, if she recovers, will not be a bright one. She will be ‘tainted goods’, spurned by women and men alike. It’s possible even her own father and brothers will now abuse her for the sake of their ‘honour’.

Now 16 years old, Aatifa’s big blue eyes alternate between flashes of anger and floods of tears. She explains that she was also beaten because her mother visited her too often.  She complained to authorities who berated her for ‘trying to cause trouble’. Later, her husband told her he hated her and was going to marry another woman. Aatifa descended into depression, seeing no future for herself.

Aatifa was lucky (perhaps a moot point)  that her brother (one of nine siblings) found her and smothered the flames with his clothing. Although she lives in the sophisticated city of Herat, like the rest of Islamic Afghanistan, females there have no independent rights.  In the past year alone, doctors at a burns unit  in the city hospital have seen 83 cases of self-immolation, with nearly two-thirds proving fatal.  Given what these women and girls endure, one can be forgiven for wondering if the lucky ones are those who have died from their self-inflicted injuries.

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Change In Arab  World?

But it is not just Afghanistan’s men who abuse their child wives. Mothers-in-law can be just as brutal to the teens. Another young girl forced into marriage was abused by her husband and his mother because she did not do the housework to their satisfaction. The young mother has been prevented from seeing or holding her 10 month old daughter because of her lack of housekeeping skills. Although this is the reason she has been given, it is not unknown for girl babies born in Afghanistan to be left to die (against their mothers’ wishes), simply because they are girls. Many a young mother has been viciously beaten for having given birth to one daughter or more. Sons are and always have been, prized possessions in Afghanistan.  Girls and women are devalued.

More: To Give  Birth to Girls in Afghanistan

Islam, Sexual Abuse, & Porn

 

To Give Birth To A Girl In Afghanistan…

Source: Associated Press:

In Afghanistan, a woman has been strangled to death, apparently by her husband, who was upset that she had given birth to a second daughter, rather than the son he wanted, police reported.

The woman’s husband, Sher Mohammad, fled the Khanabad district in Kunduz province last week, about the time a neighbor found his 22-year-old wife dead in their house, said District Police Chief Sufi Habibullah. Medical officers who examined the body, said she had been strangled. The woman, named Estorai, had warned family members that her husband had repeatedly abused her for giving birth to their first daughter, and had threatened to kill her if it happened again.  Estorai gave birth to her second daughter between two and three months ago.

Imagine if you will, the fear that must have gripped that young mother; not only did she suffer the life-threatening process of childbirth in such a backward country, but also the knowledge that giving birth to a daughter, could end her life.  And the thought that if she was killed by her husband, her daughters’ lives would also be at risk.  My heart goes out to those two little motherless girls. What future do they have in such a misogynist country?

Police took the man’s mother into custody because she appears to have collaborated in a plot to kill her daughter-in-law.  She swears that Estorai committed suicide by hanging, although Police said they found no rope and no evidence of hanging.

It was the latest in a series of grisly examples of subjugation of women which have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months.  We will never know how many infant girls are murdered at birth, but you can be sure it’s happening. Nothing changes, and hasn’t for thousands of years.

Really, what has ten years of war achieved for women and girls in Afghanistan? I can’t see how anything will change for the better until women have the same freedoms as men and until girls can go to school. But that could take many more decades. In the meantime, America has protected it’s access to oil, thousands of people have died, and women are still being oppressed!

These events beg the question: What will happen to the push for women’s rights in Afghanistan as the international presence there shrinks along with the military drawdown. NATO forces are scheduled to pull out by the end of 2014?

During 10 years of war, since Taliban rulers have been ousted, it’s true that some progress has been made for women’s rights in Afghanistan, with many attending school, working in offices and even sometimes marching in protests. But the abuse and repression of women is still common, particularly in rural areas where women are forbidden to set foot outside of the house without a burqa robe that covers them from head to toe.

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Invisible Women

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To Be A Woman In Afghanistan Is Perilous

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MORE:   Shariah Law Not Wanted Here

Mercy Orphanages, St Dominic’s College, St Joseph’s Cathedral: Lebanese Citadel

Catholic orphanage, schools & boarding college complex in Adelaide Road South Dunedin which also included the Sisters of Mercy convent, as described in Anne Frandi-Coory’s book:

‘Whatever Happened To Ishtar?’ ;

A Passionate Quest to Find Answers For Generations of Defeated Mothers

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Rear view of St Philomena's Dormitory (for older girls) shortly before it was demolished. Anne lived here for a short time before being sent to St Dominic's Boarding College at 9 years. (Photo: afcoory)

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The long remembered narrow sashes and fire escapes. (Photo:afcoory)

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Carmody sisters: Sister Christopher, right (Anne Frandi-Coory's 'foster mother' & nursery supervisor ), with her three biological sisters. (Photo: Sister Joanna)

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St Patrick's Primary School and Chapel in the Mercy Orphanage complex where Anne & Kevin began their first year at school. (Photo: Sister Joanna)

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Anne (3rd row from front, 2nd left), in St Patrick's School group photo; most were day pupils. (Photo: Joseph Coory)

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St Agnes' Nursery where Kevin, Anne, Anthony, were placed as infants. (Photo: afcoory)

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St Vincent's building which housed the orphanage kitchen & dining room. On the left, the same tree in which Anne saw the never forgotten black mother cat & kittens, while she lived at the orphanage. (Photo:afcoory)

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Catholic Boys’ Home Otago Peninsula

Front entrance to St Joseph's Orphanage for boys at Waverley, Otago Peninsula; home to Kevin & Anthony at various times. (Photo: afcoory)

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St Dominic’s Boarding College, surrounded by St Joseph’s Cathedral, St Joseph’s Primary School and Christian Brothers’ establishment.

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Imposing view of St Dominic's Boarding College at the top of Rattray Street, Dunedin. (This concrete building was one of the first in the Southern Hemisphere. Photo: afcoory)

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Another view of the Dominican complex & St Joseph's Cathedral

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Side view of St Dom's dormitories. (Photo: afcoory)

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St Dom's entrance to the boarding college kitchen and dining room; day pupils could also have their lunch there if their parents paid.(Photo: afcoory)

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Dunedin Lebanese Citadel viewed from Rattray Street: St Joseph's Cathedral & St Dominic's Boarding College (Photo: afcoory)

How Christianity Became a State Religion; The Closing of the Western Mind

The Closing of the Western Mind; The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason

By Charles Freeman, published 2002

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The Closing of the Western Mind

For anyone who is interested in the roots of Christianity, how it developed, and eventually swept the Western world, this book is the book to read. Greek philosophical tradition and paganism, were the losers.

To me personally, the most interesting chapters in the book, were those which dealt with the way in which a particular sect of Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire; Roman Catholicism.  It was largely because of political expediency; more power and control over the masses, by Roman emperors. I was fascinated by  the fierce in-fighting surrounding the  ‘correct’ early  interpretation and establishment of Christian dogma, as early as the 4th Century ACE.  It largely centred around the ‘Godhead’ of Christianity: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and whether or not all three were as ‘one’ or of three levels, (to put it very simply).  Part of the problem was that early Christian dogma was formulated from several different sources: scriptures, gospels, old testament, Greek philosophy, Hebrew, Latin and Greek translations.  Also  taken into account was the life and status of Jesus, and in this case, there were so many disputed ‘facts’ about who he was and how he lived, that it appears the Jesus we know, could have been a ‘collage’ of several different prophets or holy men who lived around the same time.

In the book, Freeman writes about Emperor Julian (who ruled from 361) – Dismayed by the vicious infighting he saw around him…Experience had taught him that no wild beasts are so dangerous to man as Christians are to one another.  Ammianus Marcellinus further suggests that  Emperor Julian believed that the Christians left to themselves would simply tear each other apart. Julian was well aware of the brutality of Christian generals and emperors.

One review of many:

“One of the best books to date on the development of Christianity…beautifully written and impressively annotated, this is an indispensible read for anyone interested in the roots of Christianity and its implications for our modern world view….Essential.”

-Choice

My Mother Was A Catholic Nun

This page, including text and photographs,  is © to the author Anne Frandi-Coory and must not be copied in any shape or form.

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Letter from Anne Albert, Doreen Frandi’s youngest sister, to Doreen’s daughter, Anne Frandi-Coory

Excerpt from:

‘Whatever Happened To Ishtar?; A Passionate Quest To Find Answers For Generations of Defeated Mothers

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Anne Albert, Doreen Frandi's youngest sister

written c. 1996: To my niece, Anne Frandi-Coory

Doreen was such a beautiful child that on the ship which brought her, her brother and parents to New Zealand, a genuine childless couple offered her parents money to allow them to adopt her.  Doreen had a cloud of bright red curls that framed her pretty face.  How different Doreen’s life would have been had the adoption gone ahead.  Life within the Alfredo Frandi family was an uneasy one, so inclined was he to uncontrollable bouts of violent rage, during which he would throw furniture around the room and punch holes in doors.  Often it was his wife, Maria, a pale and nervous woman,  who felt the force of his fists.  Maria was in a perpetual state of acute anxiety and her concern about their lack of money exacerbated this state.  Alfredo was a labourer and work was hard to come by.  They had four children they could barely feed and clothe so any subsequent  pregnancies were aborted  with a knitting needle.  Unfortunately, as the oldest daughter, Doreen was needed to assist with the cleaning up after these procedures.  Maria had no conception of the trauma this was causing her daughter, and which was to haunt Doreen for the rest of her life.

When Doreen was sixteen years old, I was born, but I have never quite known why I was not aborted.  I can only suppose that my mother may have been experiencing symptoms of the menopause and may have been unaware of the pregnancy in  time.  So unexpected was my birth, that an apple crate was all that my parents had to lay me in.  Doreen was thrilled about the new baby and set about lining the crate with material and making it look pretty for me.  This was the beginning of Doreen’s devotion to me which was to last all her life.

Doreen was a very gentle girl and she was a help to her mother in caring for  the younger children, but she loathed house work of any kind.  She was adept at shopping for bargains and was a very good sewer.  Catholicism began to influence her life early on, as it brought her a peace and beauty so missing from her home environment.  Significantly, the nuns at the convent school she attended, recognized her potential for a vocation and one nun, Sister Anne, encouraged Doreen all she could to think about entering the convent.  As Doreen approached womanhood she exhibited no interest in boys or other worldly things, so firmly were her sights set of becoming a Catholic nun.  Alfredo was dead against his eldest daughter becoming a nun and turned the house upside down to show how much he detested the very idea.  This turmoil only made her more determined, and after a short time working in a department store and following her debut at the annual charity ball, for which she made her own stunning gown,  Doreen entered the convent.

Initially Doreen loved her life as a nun, but after almost a year of doing nothing but housework, she asked if she could train as a nurse.  Her wish was to care for severely handicapped children.  However, her request was greeted with profound disapproval because to actually ask to be able to do what one wanted, was against the very  strict rules of the convent  as well as a denial of the vow of absolute obedience.  Doreen was severely reprimanded and as a result sunk into a deep depression.  The nuns could not understand Doreen’s depression;  they believed that if you had a true vocation faith was enough to protect you from such things.  They then put pressure on Doreen constantly questioning her commitment to her vocation.  Doreen became hysterical which appalled the nuns, and they subsequently demanded that her mother remove her from the convent.  They could not know that bi polar disorder was manifesting itself in Doreen and would consequently ruin her life.

Doreen recovered very slowly from her first breakdown but she was devastated that her vocation was at an end and that she had broken her vow to God.  Doreen did  finally find acceptance and there followed a succession of jobs, which began a pattern set for the rest of her life;  employment interspersed with breakdowns.  In the 1940’s not much was known about bi polar disorder nor were there any satisfactory drugs available at the time.  Doreen was then subjected to countless ECT treatments without anaesthetic which really amounted to torture.  Around this time Doreen’s Aunt Italia, Alfredo’s only sister who was then 70 years of age, decided to take more of an interest in her niece. Italia  regaled Doreen with stories of the privileged   life the Frandi family lived in Italy before they arrived in New Zealand [Italia was born in Pisa, Italy in 1869]. Aristodemo, Italia’s father, had to flee Italy because he was a political agitator alongside Garibaldi, and Italia showed Doreen the fine silver and linen they had brought over with them.  Italia also dazzled Doreen with stories about the family riding in a grand carriage and people bowed with respect for them. Whenever  Doreen  was in the manic phase of her illness, she had illusions of grandeur, and would repeat all that her aunt had told her about their previous  life in Italy.  In these early stages of her illness, Doreen would spend money she did not have and would charge up accounts to her Aunt Italia and sometimes even stay in expensive hotels, all charged against her aunt’s name.  Following these episodes Doreen would then sink into the depths of depression. 

Shortly before the end of the war Doreen joined the Air Force.  It was while she was in  the Force that Doreen met the father of her first child, Kevin. Phillip Coory  neglected  to mention that he was already married with a young  son, Vas, until Doreen informed him  that she was pregnant.  Phillip Coory  believed at the time that that was the end of the matter and he had rid himself of her, but then his brother Joseph came on the scene.  Joseph was a kind and simple man, who did his best to make Doreen happy.  Sadly, his family conspired  against Doreen from the outset; perhaps they did not approve of her good looks or the way the marriage came about.  The marriage ended in disaster;  Joseph was not her intellectual equal and her illness would have been extremely difficult to live with. About three years after their marriage Anne was born and eighteen months later, came Anthony.  Following a severe bout of  bi polar disorder, the children were taken from her and placed in an Orphanage for the Poor in South Dunedin.

The permanent loss of  her children caused Doreen great anguish from which she never really recovered.  In later years she had contact with her daughter Anne, but Doreen was never able to accept that the child did not blame her mother for her abandonment.  Years later, her youngest son, Anthony moved to Wellington to live, but that feeling of guilt never left her and obviously prevented her from having an emotional relationship with her son, although he did make a futile attempt at it.  Doreen and Kevin lived a life of great hardship and near poverty, with Doreen frequently suffering nervous breakdowns, which culminated in her being  admitted to Porirua Psychiatric Hospital.  Kevin had to learn to deal with his mother’s extreme mood swings from a very early age which made his young life intolerable at times.  I have no idea how she coped during those years but I am sure that sometimes  she must have prayed for death, yet through it all her faith in God  never wavered and carried her through until the day she died.

At the peak of her loneliness, Doreen met a man, Edward Stringer, and spent a night with him.  Of course, given her luck, or lack thereof, it ended in pregnancy.  During the weeks after the birth of her daughter, Florence, and suffering from depression, Doreen signed adoption papers for her daughter.  Sometime later, Edward and Doreen met up again, and with the sole intention of getting her daughter back, she married Edward.  Heartbreakingly for Doreen, it was much too late; the adoption was quite legal and binding. Once again life had defeated Doreen and during a severe bout of mania, Edward left, unable to cope with his new wife’s disorder.  From this, there followed a period of dreariness, when Doreen and Kevin lived in a state house at 56 Hewer Crescent Naenae, Lower Hutt in Wellington, and she obtained a reasonably stable job in a factory close by.  At least the disorder left Doreen in peace for an extended period, in which Doreen developed a love of cats, and she had up to six at one time or another.

Kevin started up a very successful restaurant, Bacchus, in Courtney Place in Wellington.  Doreen was employed by Kevin in the kitchen of the restaurant, and she appeared to enjoy her time there.  Sadly her mother died on 10 March 1980, which caused Doreen to have another nervous breakdown.  Following her recovery, Doreen retired from work and moved into a council flat in Daniell Street, Newtown in Wellington.  During this time, she appeared to me to be doing no more than going through the motions of living.  My heart ached to see her like that, with no apparent interest in anything.  Kevin’s bankruptcy and his consequent  permanent move to Sydney, took the utmost toll on her spiritual well being.  Doreen then lapsed into a serious bout of her  disorder, suffering yet another complete nervous breakdown, and she was admitted once again to Porirua Hospital for a considerable time.

I have no doubt whatsoever, that it was not only Doreen’s manic depressive illness that had such a destructive effect on her life.  I sincerely believe that she carried guilt feelings from her experiences as a young girl,  witnessing  her mother’s self inflicted abortions, made worse by Doreen’s Catholic beliefs.       I realized this to be true, with great clarity, when I visited her at the hospital during her final stay there in 1995. She led me out into the hospital gardens, and pointed to a bed of purple pansies in bloom.  “There you see” she told me with infinite sadness, “there are all the little babies”.

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Doreen at her debut-she made her own dress

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DOREEN’S CHILDREN…

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Kevin

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Anne and Anthony

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Vincent (adopted out)

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Florence (adopted out)

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For more about this story see posts:

 Why I’m an Atheist;  My Brother’s Story 

&  Italian Family Trees & Photos

Hypocrisy & The Catholic Church; A Boy’s Story

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Standing in the centre of the Wellington railway station foyer she stood searching the faces of people rushing by. Like a solitary rock in a fast flowing river, unnoticed by the torrent of human turmoil that buffeted around her. The boy sitting on a bench to the side of the foyer watched forlornly as his mother screened each face that passed by, hoping to glimpse someone she knew.

After an hour or so she gave up and made her way to the train platform. The boy followed a few paces behind. Boarding the carriage she crumpled into a seat and rested her head against the window. The boy did the same in a seat across the aisle two seats behind her. The train filled with passengers and began its journey. The boy watched as the guard shuffled from seat to seat clicking tickets in the swaying carriage edging ever closer to the listless woman. The guard reached out expecting to be handed a ticket, clippers at the ready.

‘Tickets please. Tickets please,’ he repeated, annoyed.

The woman lifted her head and stared at the guard for what seemed like an endless time.

‘I don’t have a ticket, or the money to pay for one,’ she said, glaring at the guard, arms folded in defiance. ‘Nor does my son,’ she said, pointing behind her to the boy.

The boy closed his eyes blocking out the silent travellers craning to hear but pretending to show no interest. The clack­ing of the train wheels became deafening in the silence.

‘Well you’d better give me your name and address,’ he said, policeman-like, pulling a pencil and pad from his pocket.

At Petone mother and son alighted from the train, the boy acutely aware of the incredulous stares that followed their departure as they slowly made their way along the platform to the street. A cold blustery wind blew in from the harbour as the pair, the boy a few paces behind, wearily began the long walk to Days Bay in the falling dusk.

She stood for a long moment outside the church in Jackson Street, her shoulders bent under the weight of the long and exhausting day. Her auburn hair shone brightly between the beret pulled down over her head and the wide collar of her coat in stark contrast to the haggard face and pasty complexion. She moved with a shrug to continue the journey then glanced over her shoulder to the boy. He was staring at the ground, unmoving, oblivious to her concern. His coat, much too large for him, hung in folds belted around the waist, one sock up, one down, cap askew atop the mop of untidy hair. He hadn’t spoken since meeting her after school at the station. He had just followed her without complaint or question, isolated in a cocoon of silence.

Pushing the loose fringe under her beret, she straightened her shoulders as much as the aching would allow and strode towards the building beside the church. The housekeeper finally opened the door after repeated knocking by the woman.

‘Can I help?’

‘I want to see the priest please.’

‘He’s just going to have dinner, is it urgent, could you not come back tomorrow when it’s a little more convenient?’

‘Not really, I have to see him now. Please ask him to see me. Please.’

‘Well alright, come and wait in here,’ she said, pointing towards a small room off the passage. ‘Whom shall I say is calling?’

The waiting room of the Presbytery was sparse and devoid of smells, except for the faint odour of incense. A picture of the ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus’ hung on the wall; a candle glowed softly on a small altar beneath the frame. The boy dragging his school bag shuffled to the wooden pew beside the altar and slumped onto the seat. Closing his eyes, his chin fell to his chest. Fatigue engulfed his body in a blanket of exhausted sleep. Through a numb haze he began to comprehend murmurings in the room.

‘You’ll have to go to your own Parish and ask for help, I can’t give you money,’ said a gravelly embarrassed voice.

‘But it is too far away and I have no way of getting there, I only need 10 shillings till I get paid tomorrow so I can feed the boy, he hasn’t eaten today. I don’t have food in the house and we still have to get home,’ pleaded the woman.

The boy struggled to open his eyes, the lids were stuck closed. The light burned into his pupils as the lids slowly prised themselves apart watering the vision of the two figures standing in the centre of the room. The priest dressed in a black suit had his hands thrust deep inside the jacket pockets, the buttons tearing at the fabric that stretched around the girth of his fat belly. The boy noticed his shiny bald head and thick rimless glasses that pressed into a puffy red nose. His pudgy face glowed crimson at the audacity of the unkempt woman.

‘But I don’t know you, are you a Catholic?’

His mother renewed her request, without emotion it seemed, her voice a monotone, not a plea, just a statement of fact.

‘I was a novitiate at the Home of Compassion before I had a breakdown and was forced to leave, I’ve never asked for money before, but surely in the name of Jesus you can—’

‘No!’ He interrupted, agitated, his face glowing. ‘I don’t know you; the church just can’t give out money to anyone who comes to the door. You should go to your family for help!’

The housekeeper in an apron wiping her hands on a tea towel strode into the room and in an impatient tone, said, ‘Father, your dinner is getting cold.’

She glanced momentarily towards the woman, then to the priest and then finally to the boy. Within that imperceptible time her demeanour had changed from anger at this bedraggled woman, to confusion at the flustered priest, to sympathy at the obvious distress of the child. Her tone changed.

‘I am sorry Father,’ she said, ‘when you’re ready, I’ll … whatever.’ She left.

A silent whimper only noticed by the boy escaped the resolve of the woman as she stared at the floor. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she turned towards the door. The look of despair in his mother’s eyes embedded itself into his memory. It was the look of dispassionate despair when the emotions have exhausted the gauntlet of feelings and the ability of the senses to register pain. All that is left is robotic numbness.

In the late hours of the night they reached the old house embedded into the side of a hill overlooking Days Bay. It was overhung with trees which blocked out the sunlight. The ground surrounding the house was continually wet and muddy from the water that leached from the clay bank. There was no electricity in the house except for one naked light in the sitting room. In one corner a sewing machine sat on a table cluttered with dirty dishes, unfinished dressmaking and newspapers. The wooden floor was an untidy mess of unpacked boxes, unwashed clothes and bits of furniture. In the centre of the room a tattered armchair sat close to an old kerosene heater that doubled as a stove to cook on. An ash­tray overflowing with ash and cigarette butts perched on one side of the chair, on the other, bits of notepaper and letters.

The woman slumped into the chair and pulled her coat around her shoulders. The boy sat shivering on the floor hugging his knees to his chest to keep warm. She picked up a box of matches from the floor and leaning forward tried to light the heater. Again and again she struck a match putting the flame to the dry wick till she had used all the matches. He knew there was no kerosene in the heater. The useless attempt to create warmth just seemed to epitomise her hopeless­ness. She folded her arms and rested her elbows on her knees and rocked slowly back and forth staring blankly at the cold lifeless heater. The boy watched his mother sink into depression, the silence the only dialogue between them. After a while he rose quietly and felt his way along the dark passage to his bedroom. The room had a dank odour from the moss growing on the walls. He crawled under the damp blankets without taking off his clothes, and curling up into the foetal position pulled the covers over his head to block out the smell of rotting wallpaper. When he woke in the morning his mother had gone. He wasn’t worried; he knew she was walking to work in Wellington.

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Phillip Coory, with his wife Flo and their son Vas.

Note:

Kevin’s mother, Doreen Frandi,  met Phillip Coory around the time the above photo was taken.

Phillip Coory was Kevin’s biological father, although Phillip never acknowledged this.  Joseph Coory, Phillip’s older brother,  adopted Kevin following his marriage to Doreen Frandi.  Eventually, Joseph also abandoned Kevin.

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Doreen and Joseph Coory on their wedding day

Cardinal Pell:Do The Decent Thing

An Inquiry into the sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church is long overdue in Australia.

The stress and heartbreak that the victims of sexual abuse, and their families, go through is horrendous. I do not believe that the Catholic Church even comes close to understanding this. If it did, would the Vatican have allowed this abuse to go on for centuries? Perhaps it’s not a question of understanding and empathy. It’s most likely all about power, wealth and status. I believe that the number of reported abuses is just the tip of the iceberg, because research has shown that is the tendency with all forms of sexual abuse. It can take half of a victim’s lifetime, or more, to just gain the strength to talk about the abuse. To quote Chrissie Foster: “It takes 40 or 50 years for children to talk about what has happened to them, and it just never stops”.

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Chrissie & Anthony Foster

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It one such case, two of Chrissie and Anthony Fosters’ daughters were raped by a Catholic Priest. In an article about the Fosters in Catholica, March 2011, the writer refers to the abuser as “A Holy Roman Catholic Priest”.  I think this is indicative of the mentality of the Catholic hierarchy, in that they choose this highly inflated title to describe a paedophile. It sends a message that this rapist continues to be treated with respect by his peers and the Vatican!

Chrissie and Anthony Foster are the parents of three daughters, two of whom were raped as little girls by a paedophile priest, Kevin O’Donnell. One of the daughters eventually took her own life in despair after a long period of self harm. The second daughter who was raped, after a similarly long period of self harm, walked in front of a speeding car while intoxicated and today requires round the clock nursing care that will continue for the rest of her life.

Mrs Foster has written a book ‘Hell on the Way to Heaven‘ in which she cites six bishops who failed to take decisive action following several parents’ complaints regarding Kevin O’Donnell. It is difficult to comprehend why Cardinal Pell is still in Office given what has been presented in Mrs Foster’s book. “Cardinal Pell has more front than Myers Department Store and it will probably wash over him like water off a duck’s back”.  Read Mrs Foster’s book and judge for yourself, the failure of these six bishops to protect children from sexual abuse by Kevin O’Donnell.  Cardinal Pell appears to bury his head in the sand over this issue, and still there has been no effective inquiry.

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The Fosters are driving the push for an inquiry into sexual abuse by clergy in Victoria.  As quoted in the Waverley Leader September 13, “Two signatures stand between an inquiry into the alleged sexual abuse of two Oakleigh girls, and other alleged victims by Victorian clergy”.  Labour MP, Anne Barker handed the proposed terms of reference for an inquiry to Attorney-General Robert Clark, recently. If Mr Clark and Premier Ted Baillieu, sign  the four page document, a Royal Commission of Inquiry will be launched.  The Terms of Reference state that: “Since 1993, more than 65 clergy who have served in Victoria, have been convicted of abuse”. These figures are staggering. But the Catholic hierarchy have stipulated that they will not deviate from its ‘Melbourne Response Programme’ which was implemented 15 years ago. However, going on past experience of the way the Catholic Church has protected its paedophile priests, we must have nothing less than a Royal Commission of Inquiry, which would be  totally outside the influence of the Vatican. Mr Foster believes A  Royal Commission is the only way to expose the secretive behaviour of the Church, and bring it under full scrutiny. A decision is pending. Let’s hope that in the event of a Royal Commission of Inquiry in Victoria, other states will follow suit.

See  previous posts:  Clerical Paedophilia         /    Irish PM Blasts Vatican

Fred Nile & The Ethical Dilemma

The Drum’s Dominic Knight writes:

With compulsory ethics classes, some religious topics could still be covered in the classroom, and the learning process would benefit enormously from all the kids studying together. Those who believed could share their perspectives, which might inspire others to find out more about their religions. Wouldn’t that be a better preparation for living in a society where not everybody shares the same beliefs, and yet we have to work through complex moral issues together in order to co-exist harmoniously?

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Reverend Fred Nile

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In my experience of life with religious zealots, hypocrisy is a pit that they often fall into. It is very difficult to live life on earth as a saint, the Blessed Virgin or Christ himself did. These are role models very few of us mere mortals can emulate.  Yet Christian teachings urge us to do so.

I know as a small child, being told to love Jesus more than my father, really made me feel like a sinner, because try as I might, I just couldn’t do it. No matter which way you look at it, a pastor is a pastor.  He has been trained to preach and guide people in Godliness. That is his job!

That’s why I agree wholeheartedly with Dominic Knight’s statement above. If we wish to have a truly democratic, multicultural society, then we need to encompass and tolerate all religious beliefs. However, secular schools are not the place for religious instruction.  Christians and muslims can promote their particular beliefs in their respective churches and mosques. I don’t think religious specific schools are a good idea either, because those children who attend never have the chance to mix with other children; Muslim, Christian or atheist, and so form biased opinions of them. This only serves to perpetuate prejudice and stereotype.

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The Duomo Florence

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Koutoubiya mosque in Morocco

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Elaborate and grandiose buildings were designed to display the wealth, power and domination of a particular religion. Religion is not just about faith and charity,  it’s also about politics and controlling the masses.  It is obvious that still today, there is competition between Christianity and Islam. Each see a threat to their numbers worldwide. Muslims especially are brutally opposed to their own congregations converting to other religions. Death is often the end result. That’s how serious it is. These days,  Christians do not suffer the same fate if they choose to become atheists or believe in another God. But history reveals that in the past the Holy Office of the Inquisition could be just as brutal to those who strayed from “the only true faith”.

I hope that most NSW residents would agree that Reverend Fred Nile is not the best person to decide ‘objectively’ whether ethics or religion should be part of the state school curriculum. He claims that Jesus is “history’s greatest teacher of ethics”, but I dispute that. Jesus belonged to a break-away political, more liberal group, which disputed the religious teachings of strict Judaism at that time. In other words, he had another agenda behind his preaching and good works.  And anyway, Fred Nile is not a man with a track record of loving his neighbours if they happen to be gay or Muslim. He is narrow minded and has not progressed with the times.

Parents must, and should have, the right to decide whether  their children are taught religion in schools. Parents and their children have a wealth of information at their fingertips today and are generally very well informed. It is not as easy to force religious views onto them as it once was.  Most parents I know are happy to let their children make their own decisions about what or who they believe in. Especially now that there are many and varied faiths existing in Australia,  why should Christianity be singled out as the only religion to be taught in state schools.

Reverend Nile has  proposed an ethics repeal bill.. He’s arguing for the cancellation of Ethics classes in NSW schools by claiming that they have been shown to bring about Nazism and, simultaneously, communism. The alarming thing is he seems to have the approval of the Premier, Barry O’Farrell. It seems like the NSW government is going backwards in time. Even the Anglican Church admits that it has lost half of its religious instruction classes since Ethics became a subject of choice in schools.   Apart from anything else, Ethics is so much more interesting. You can talk about the great philosophers and sociologists who actually existed and left scripts that they wrote themselves, rather than someone else writing them hundreds of years later as in the case of Christianity’s Jesus.

Pastors and chaplains are not formerly trained teachers, whereas Ethics teachers have to be.  Those children who currently do not want to attend religious instruction, (ridiculous interruptions in my sons’ school) have to sit idling in the corridor or school yard, unable to take in any other classes lest the religiously motivated are left behind. What a ludicrous situation in 2011!  The government is paying millions to ministries to hold these classes while state school principals are having to hold fetes and ask for parental contributions towards all manner of things the government should be paying for.

The Australian constitution mandates separation of church and state, so why is the government hell-bent (excuse the pun) on employing groups like Access Ministries at great cost to instruct such small numbers of interested pupils. It doesn’t make any sense.  One has to wonder what power is exerting so much pressure on the government to act outside the mandate of the constitution. Is the Extreme Right so powerful in Australia?  The other worrying aspect is: What happens when taxpayers of other religious affiliations demand that their children be granted the same rights as Christian children in the classroom? If the government doesn’t comply could that be considered discrimination against other faiths?

People with no formal educational training have no place in our public schools.  They take up precious time in our classrooms indoctrinating children in religious dogma which is at best outdated and losing credibility amidst the general population. If parents want their children to receive instruction in their own faith and culture, then they can organise this in their homes or at their various places of worship. Dominic Knight talks sense, when he says that public schools are a good place for children to learn and mix with others of different faiths. At the very least it will promote tolerance and understanding of each others’ different cultures and beliefs. Children will learn that really, when all is said and done, most children have similar aspirations and needs.

Perhaps some of the myths, stereotypes and prejudices they have learned at home will be dispelled by the friendships they form at multicultural public schools undivided by religion.

For more, see previous posts on religion in schools:

Access Ministries Gain Access to children’s Minds

Religion vs Ethics in Schools

God in the Classroom?

Need Religious Schools?

Clerical Paedophilia; Centuries Old Timebomb

DYSFUNCTIONAL. Disconnected. Elitist. Narcissistic. The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church downplayed the torture and rape of children or ”managed” it to uphold the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and reputation.

The above damning indictment of the culture at the heart of the Vatican came not from a communist demagogue or a firebrand ayatollah but from Enda Kenny, the Prime Minister of Ireland, one of the most Catholic countries in the world. This Irish PM is a true hero. As the saying goes, it only takes one good man…

The Irish government has also warned the Church it can no longer even consider the seal of the confessional to be sacrosanct, promising to impose a five-year jail sentence for anyone found guilty of not passing information on child sexual abuse to state authorities.

Source-Douglas Dalby, a Dublin based journalist.

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See previous post:    Irish Prime Minister Blasts Vatican

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People world-wide must be growing weary by now of the endless cases of child sex abuse which is endemic within the Catholic Church. No other organisation has been so infiltrated by the sheer numbers of clerical paedophiles.  It’s no wonder that the Vatican has been labelled ‘the gay men’s club’. The abuse has been going on for hundreds of years because the great power and wealth of this establishment has been able to cover it up.  It has blatantly ignored the damage done to children to protect its image of Godliness and purity. I would love to know what numbers of the congregation have left the church because of the ongoing revelations. I believe that it is not merely a case of an organisation of celibates attracting paedophiles, as some would have us believe.  There appears to be a deep psychological flaw in the Church’s teachings and if you read enough about convicted priests, there is this view that it is ‘ok’ to rape little boys and fallen women, as long as you leave the ‘sacred image of Mary’  alone ie in the form of ‘saintly’ mothers here on earth. These paedophiles show little remorse and their colleagues pity them their “sins of affliction” as though they are the sole victims.

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How corrupt is the Vatican?

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Two other major reports published since 2005 also breached the iron walls of Vatican silence, but the Cloyne Report is different because it found systematic sexual abuse of children was still a reality as recently as 2008 and the church had been paying lip service to its own 1996 guidelines on child protection, which include the mandatory reporting of suspected abuse to state authorities. However, it was implicit that the ‘mandatory reporting’ was at the discretion of  local Bishops. In fact. Bishops reported abuse cases to the Vatican heirarchy which enabled  it to cover up the abuse and to move  the paedophile elsewhere. The Vatican effectively encouraged bishops to ignore its own guidelines by dismissing them as “merely a discussion document”. PM Kenny’s confrontational address to the Irish parliament last month reflected the collective mood and tapped the raw pain and sense of betrayal felt by people across Ireland after the recent publication of the Cloyne Report.  The state-funded independent report detailed numerous allegations of abuse by priests and a failure to report them in the rural diocese of Cloyne from 1996 to 2009. Pointedly, the local Catholic bishops didn’t rate a mention in PM Kenny’s speech; he saved his ire for their bosses in Rome. PM Kenny’s speech revealed that the Cloyne Report brought the government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an “unprecedented juncture”. The Cloyne Report exposed a more serious issue than previous reports. Because for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse proved an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago.

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Formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger-Currently Pope Benedict XVl

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See post   ‘The Case of the Pope’  by Geoffrey Robertson, in which he examines,  from a legal perspective, the Vatican as a sovereign state and its handling of paedophile priests and their victims

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The tide appears to be changing in Ireland. Most people still profess faith in God but church doctrine no longer governs personal spirituality. Indeed, there are now calls to remove Catholicism  from every aspect of public life. Some Catholic parents are even doing the unthinkable and choosing not to baptise their children. While they may still regard themselves as Catholic, albeit with a small ”c”, contrary to stereotypes, this is no priest-ridden, theocratic backwater. The Catholic Church may continue to supervise the education system and control many hospitals, but for the most part, this is a cosmopolitan, urbanised, and secular, society. Increasingly, people in Ireland confine their church attendance to life changing events – christenings, weddings and funerals. Indeed, churches are more like mausoleums to past glories, with pews mostly empty or dotted with a few pensioners. The drift away from Catholicism has been gathering pace for some time, but revelations of the devious deceit and persistent cover-up of child abuse detailed since 2005 in the Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports have transformed passive indifference into white-hot rage.

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In many ways the Catholic Church in Ireland is being devastated by a catastrophe of its own making. Its abuse of power also extends back  to its role in the so-called industrial schools and Magdalene laundries, places of institutionalised slavery where children and young women were routinely, physically, sexually, and emotionally assaulted. The Magdalene laundries, which operated before the formation of the state in 1922 until 1996, were effectively church businesses where women and girls were imprisoned and forced to work in appalling conditions for little or no pay. Many of them suffered a lifetime of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of the nuns in charge. In many cases their ”crime” was to be a single mother. Only now are their stories being widely circulated and their campaign for redress gathering pace.

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See post  Banished Babies

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So far, 18 religious orders have agreed to pay €600 million ($A783 million) in compensation to industrial school victims. The state has agreed to pay €1.3 billion for effectively allowing the church to run riot with its most vulnerable citizens.  American Catholic Churches have already paid compensation in the millions of dollars and incidents of the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests are still being currently exposed.

Source: Douglas Dalby, Dublin Journalist. _______________________________________________  

Riccardo Seppia on the left

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Christopher Jarvis: Child Protection Chief for the Catholic Church

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One wonders if the Catholic Church can sink any lower.

Christopher Jarvis is headed to jail for a long stint,  following his conviction for making, possessing, and distributing, child pornography, of which images were found on his home computer and work laptop.  The laptop in question was provided to him to aid in his duties as a Catholic Church Child Protection Chief. The Catholic Church is the largest employer of sex offenders and pedophiles on the planet.

The Child Protection Chief’s  job was to monitor church groups to ensure paedophiles did not gain access to children in the Church’s congregations.  But Jarvis was caught by police in March with more than 4,000 child porn images on both his personal and work computers. He admitted 12 counts of making, ­possessing and distributing indecent ­images when he appeared before ­magistrates in Plymouth and is likely to face jail when he returns to court for sentencing next month. Jarvis worked the Diocese of ­Plymouth for nine years.

A Vatican spokesperson claims that the church removed him from his position as soon as his sex predator status was discerned. Who can possibly believe any statements issued by the  Vatican in light of its record to date. 

In yet another shocking case:  Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. Seppia makes his request to the drug dealer clear: “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues”.  Now, priests would know all about families with problem children, wouldn’t they?

According to investigators, Seppia told his friend, a former seminarian and barman who is currently under investigation himself, that the town’s malls were the best places to entice minors. In tapped phone conversations the two cursed and swore against God. The priest is charged with having attempted to kiss and touch an underage altar boy and of having exchanged cocaine for sexual intercourse with boys over 18. Seppia’s defense lawyers are expected to argue that the monitored conversations,  “were just words, sex games that were played by adults”. It was just a game even when he claimed to have “kissed on the mouth” a 15-year-old altar boy, according to the defense.  The altar boy in question confirmed that the kisses did in fact happen. These are games played by supposedly celibate priests? It beggars belief! Seppia also served as Pope Benedict’s official advisor on pedophilia; a child-raping pedophile himself?

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In Australia it seems, the Catholic Church hierarchy is no more keen on investigating sex abuse by priests, than anywhere else:

AN inquiry into suicides among victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and brothers in Victoria would achieve little, a Catholic bishop says.

Australian police investigating the case of convicted pedophile Christian Brother Robert Best, believe at least 26 victims of sexual abuse at schools in which he taught have committed suicide. One of the investigating officers wants a parliamentary inquiry to investigate the deaths.

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Christian Brother Robert Best

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“If it helps the victims I’d be more than happy for it to go ahead,” Bishop of Ballarat Peter Connors told AAP.  “I don’t think they’ll learn very much more … I’m convinced we’ve done the best we can in more recent years.” Best, who taught at schools throughout Victoria, including Ballarat, will be sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty to 27 charges of abusing 11 boys between 1969 and 1988. Best was principal at St Alipius primary school in Ballarat at the same time convicted serial paedophile and priest Gerald Ridsdale was the school chaplain. But Bishop Connors said not even revelations from Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson that 26 young men had killed themselves after being abused by priests and brothers in Ballarat convinced him that more would be learnt from an inquiry. “I think we’ve learnt a lot of things about what is appropriate behaviour and what’s not appropriate behaviour,” Bishop Connors said.  “I think people are very well informed nowadays as to what’s inappropriate approaches from a male”,  the Bishop contnued. But I would ask, what have these lame statements got to do with opening an inquiry in to the abuse? While conceding the abuse of children was wrong, he said that in the past it had not always been clear to everyone what was appropriate and inappropriate behaviour.  I don’t believe he could make such a claim. Surely grown men in the priesthood, one would assume, should have known what was appropriate behaviour?

Bishop Connor’s ramblings don’t make sense. “In the past a lot of ignorance was there on the part of lots of people. Parents didn’t understand, sometimes bishops didn’t understand. We have no excuse now.” As to whether there was an excuse when Ridsdale and Best were abusing boys, Bishop Connors said he did not know. Among the charges laid against Best in Victoria’s County Court last month were details of him raping a nine-year-old boy in his office. The court heard that after Best raped him, the boy thought he was going to die and blacked out. Bishop Connors said in the past 14 years he had spoken to more than 30 victims of Ridsdale and other priests in the Ballarat diocese. But he said none had told him they were also abused by Best. “I can’t remember them saying they were victims of Brother Best as well,” he said. The bishop said he had no reason to meet Best’s victims “because he being a Christian Brother, I’m not responsible for him.” Another stupid answer. Yet he conceded that some of Ridsdale’s victims he had met could also have been abused by Best, because  both men were there at the same time. Bishop Connors says the church has paid some victims far more than the $70,000 the Archdiocese of Melbourne says should be paid for the worst cases of child assault. Others have been paid less but overall victims had received “a considerable amount”. He is now waiting to see if any of those victims will come forward in two civil compensation cases set to be mounted against Best and whether the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat will be named in the actions. The statements made by Bishop Connors tells me that the Vatican does not employ the right sort of specialists to deal with sexual abuse cases. This is part of the problem.  Bishop Connors, like other priest and Bishops, is trained to minister to the spritual needs of their congregations, not to deal with thousands of sexual abuse victims.

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ABC News Update on Brother Best 8/08/2011:

Christian Brother Robert Best jailed for sex abuse of Victorian school boys.

Robert Best has been sentenced by the Court to 14 years imprisonment  for abusing 11 boys, mainly aged between eight and 11, but will probably serve a minimum term of 11 years. Seventy-year-old Robert Best taught at schools in Ballarat, Box Hill and Geelong between the 1960s and the 1980s.  During the sentencing, Best stood in the dock without emotion. His many victims were in court and shouted at Best as he was led away.

Civil claims lawyer Dr Vivian Waller:  The Catholic Church, and particularly Christian Brothers, who supported Brother Best throughout, now need to take the next step on the road to recovery for these victims and assist them with their treatment and education. We’ll be claiming damages for pain and suffering and for the cost of medical treatment, and other special damages that will assist these victims to recover from what they’ve been through.

Victims believe Best is unrepentant. “He doesn’t show any remorse.”

See relevant posts:

Celibacy & Sexual Abuse

& Catholic Dichotomy of the Female & Abuse of Children