Aus gov't announces Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse

[weemadando]

Considering in the past weeks there have been many reports in the Australian media (particularly Fairfax) have been printing a lot of victim interviews that show just how widespread and organised it was. Victoria Police went to the media about the Catholic Church deliberately impeding police investigations. There are already multiple states running inquiries into specific regions and orders, but a Royal Commission is a big, public step.

I have to wonder what the long term consequences (once the several years of the commission hearings are done) will be for the Catholic Church in Australia.

But goddamn I can't wait for the amount of dirt that this is going to spill and to see how politely passive-aggressive the Vatican get regarding our nation over next few days.

Of course, there are a lot of other targets in there (Boy Scouts, foster organisations) but the Church is the big fat juicy one with a massive bullseye on it.

PM announces abuse inquiry
November 12, 2012 - 8:08PM

PM announces Royal Commission
Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a Royal Commission to investigate decades of child abuse in churches, schools and foster homes.

Ms Gillard said the commission would address "institutional responses to child abuse" - the instances of abuse as well as the manner in which they have been dealt - by a range of institutions.

She said she would work in coming weeks with Attorney General Nicola Roxon to define the terms of reference, but said she imagined the investigation would go back decades.

The announcement follows calls by the Greens and some Labor backbenchers for a Royal Commission into abuse in the Catholic Church, after it was alleged by a senior policeman that investigations were hindered and in some cases compromised by church officials.

But Ms Gillard said the inquiry would not be limited to the Catholic Church but would include churches, schools, foster homes, state services, police forces, sand the not-for-profit sector.

"The allegations that have come to light recently about child sexual abuse have been heartbreaking," Ms Gillard said.

"These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject. The individuals concerned deserve the most thorough of investigations into the wrongs that have been committed against them.

"They deserve to have their voices heard and their claims investigated. I believe a Royal Commission is the best way to do this."

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had earlier given his backing to a Royal Commission, provided it was not limited to the Catholic Church.

"Any investigation must be wide-ranging, must consider any evidence of the abuse of children in Australia, and should not be limited to examination of any one institution. It must include all organisations, government and non-government, where there is evidence of sexual abuse."

Ms Gillard said terms of reference and a proposed commissioner would be submitted soon to Governor-General Quentin Bryce, who has the power to establish the commission.

She said she had the backing of her Cabinet. She will speak in coming days to state premiers about co-ordinating with any existing inquiries.

"Discussions will also take place with victims’ groups, religious leaders, and community organisations."

[mr friendly guy]

I wonder if they will try and cry persecution. Should be interesting.

[bobalot]

I wonder if they will try and cry persecution. Should be interesting.

The Catholic Church has been whining. The problem for them is:

1) The Royal Commission covers all institutions that have taken care of children. So they had to welcome the Royal Commission instead of the usual bullshit they have spouted last 20 years whenever the proposal of a Royal Commission was suggested. Anything less would have been a PR disaster.
2) Catholic clergy commit six times as much abuse as those in the rest of the churches combined, ''and that's a conservative figure'', a child protection expert says.

I suspect 50%+ of the resources of the Royal Commission will be focused against the Catholic Church.

[weemadando]

Fuck man, if they have a finding that there was systemic child abuse (which seems likely) and that there was an organised cover-up and criminal conspiracies?

It looks like the Tramps MC might be having their wish fulfilled in seeing the Catholic Church added to the criminal organisations rolls in Australia.

I doubt that will happen as the political backlash to taking any action against a religion will be too high (however nice it would be to remove their religious tax exemptions and strip large assets as proceeds of crime), but nearly the entire Church hierarchy in Australia would have to be scrapped. The organisational rebuilding after that will be fascinating.

[Alkaloid]

I'm not opposed to the idea of a general royal enquiry into paedophilia and cover ups, but I'm concerned the church will use the rest of the shit they find to try and smoke screen itself. Because if even half of what the state enquiries are alleging has gone on has actually happened, then holy fucking shit, that thing needs to be torn apart and gone through with a fine tooth comb and some big stompy boots because there are a lot of vermin in there.

[KhorneFlakes]

HOLY SHIT.

Tony Abbott actually said something smart for once.

I think Australia might implode some point down the line. *sarcasm, for those who's sarcasm detectors are borked*

[weemadando]

Abbott was never going to throw himself in front of this freight train.

If he'd even tried it would have guaranteed a return to Turnbull.

I have been enjoying watching Pell twist and flutter awkwardly in the breeze as he tries to make hay out of the fact that other organisations are also part of the Royal Commission and people should ignore the Church's history after all - the abusee's are all older now or have committed suicide or otherwise died and the Church is immortal, why should we taint it's specialness for all eternity with this slanderous filth that never happened?

[Carinthium]

Just briefly noting, but I think Tony Abbot was being a hypocrite by claiming that the sancity of the confessional overrides reporting a child abuser. Whatever else you think of the decision, there's no way around that particular fact.

[Alkaloid]

Sure there is. Joo-liar. Carbon tax lie. Worst government ever. Rinse and repeat.

Sad as that is though, I couldn't give a shit about Abbot on this, he's not even close to being a bad as fuckwit Pell and his "ïf you know they are going to confess to raping people just don't listen to their confession" bullshit. I kind of think half of what people are upset about is priests knowing other priests are raping children and not telling anyone, let alone the police, you sanctimonious jackass, it doesn't matter if they find out in confession or because someone very angry mother tells you.

[Carinthium]

Whether you consider it good enough reason or not, of course, a hypothetical Cardinal Pell who advocated handing in said confessions to the police would also be a hypocrite. To be fair, what he's doing is also a moral compromise(as the sins would go unforgiven)- I'm guessing he doesn't want his priests to have to be heroes (that's how he'd see it) by risking arrest to protect the sancity of the confessional.

[Stark]

It's almost as if putting your organisation's internal rules and culture above the law leads inevitably to abuse that tarnishes the entire organisation! It's the responsibly for local upper management to make up a compromise that allows their members to retain their culture while not ... Y'know... Committing and protecting horrible crimes. You know what happens when something is well known to go unpunished and that there is a system in place to conceal it? It actually encourages the behaviour, enabling the crime.

If only the result of this commission could be the imprisonment of senior management. Of course, this will never happen and we'll just get low level guys and endless sermonising about bullshit, if anyone's even allowed to say anything mean about the fucking church at all. Justice less important than Jesus! Children's rights less important than Church! Thanks Tony, I'd forgotten what moral bankruptcy looked like.

[ryacko]

Stark.

Are you proposing that we arrest the pope?
Wouldn't God be quite irate?

[Stark]

The pope isn't in Australia so I don't see how that's relevant. There are, however, senior level representatives of Catholicism Pty Ltd whom I'd be very surprised receive any responsibility.

[Batman]

Not that I expect it to happen of course, but if God has a problem with it, he shouldn't have let his alleged servants act that way, or if he's OK with that kind of behaviour, shouldn't have let the rest of humantiy develop a set of values that considers this kind of behaviour just plain despicable. Either way, God is either massively incompetent or a massive dick.

[Stark]

I don't see how God is even remotely relevant to institutional misconduct and obstruction of justice. The issue is discovering responsibility and seeing it served on the right people, not some esoteric doctrinal debate.

It's just sad that after decades of moral cowardice, it's almost certainly more difficult than ever for the church to reform. They've built a culture based on hypocrisy and selfishness and called it SANCTITY OF TEH CONFEZZUONZ and SAVE TEH FAMILIE. To do anything else would involve admitting how their corruption and immorality created terrible crimes; easier just to quote a stupid book and pretend it was someone else's fault.

[Batman]

If God exists he is central to the problem, either by letting it occur to begin with, or by letting all those laws and morals that make it a problem pop up. And looking at the OT God being OK with that kind of behaviour isn't all that hard to swallow.

[Havok]

Stark.

Are you proposing that we arrest the pope?
Wouldn't God be quite irate?

Interesting proposal. Put out a warrant for the Pope's arrest as well as all the Cardinals.

[Stark]

If God exists he is central to the problem, either by letting it occur to begin with, or by letting all those laws and morals that make it a problem pop up. And looking at the OT God being OK with that kind of behaviour isn't all that hard to swallow.

Sorry, everything you're saying is irrelevant. It wouldn't be more or less illegal or immoral one way or the other. You need to learn to focus on actual issues (ie an organisation uses it's social position to protect and enable heinous crimes for decades) and not your favourite soapbox.

I guess the best that could be hoped for is that the commission will expose the message the church has invented to protect itself, that abuse is no more common in their institutions than elsewhere (as if this somehow makes it okay to lie, obstruct justice, and rape kids but whatever) as bullshit.

[Carinthium]

Okay, what's so hypocritical about the Catholic Church's behaviour? As I've just explained, given how long the tradition of the sancity of the confessional has gone on for (people were dying for it in the Middle Ages), wouldn't the opposite be hypocritical?

[Stark]

Truth, justice, fairness, treating people well, taking responsibility, serving the community, thinking of the children... All ideas the church gave up thousands of years ago.

Well, except for the last one. Raping kids is totally ok and they'll even hide it for you, because <bullshit>. Everyone they can prove knew anything about it should go to jail, but we know they won't. This kind of culture doesn't just appear - massive negligence and active participation created it. Every cowardly moralist who shuffled a rapist somewhere else or gagged a family is pretty obviously a hypocrite, because I bet that's not what he was preaching to the flock. It's just what he did because he was a disgusting moral coward and it was easier than taking a stand against the horrible evil being perpetrated on the innocent.

That's the Catholic Church for you. They care about a) money and b) their image. Not people, and certainly not justice. I really can't imagine any level of penalty assigned by the commission that would be 'excessive' toward the organisation.

I guess the least they can do is stop co-funding the rape factories, but like that'd ever happen. Just like hundreds of years ago, people don't mind being told about poverty by the richest people around.

[General Zod]

Stark.

Are you proposing that we arrest the pope?
Wouldn't God be quite irate?

What's funny is that you think God would be irate over arresting the Pope for crimes but not over the Pope abusing his position of authority.

[Carinthium]

Truth, justice, fairness, treating people well, taking responsibility, serving the community, thinking of the children... All ideas the church gave up thousands of years ago.

Well, except for the last one. Raping kids is totally ok and they'll even hide it for you, because <bullshit>. Everyone they can prove knew anything about it should go to jail, but we know they won't. This kind of culture doesn't just appear - massive negligence and active participation created it. Every cowardly moralist who shuffled a rapist somewhere else or gagged a family is pretty obviously a hypocrite, because I bet that's not what he was preaching to the flock. It's just what he did because he was a disgusting moral coward and it was easier than taking a stand against the horrible evil being perpetrated on the innocent.

That's the Catholic Church for you. They care about a) money and b) their image. Not people, and certainly not justice. I really can't imagine any level of penalty assigned by the commission that would be 'excessive' toward the organisation.

I guess the least they can do is stop co-funding the rape factories, but like that'd ever happen. Just like hundreds of years ago, people don't mind being told about poverty by the richest people around.

I hesitate to get into an argument unless I'm on VERY strong ground, but although you're indisputably right on the Rennasaiance and late medieval Popes (although that was hundreds, not thousands of years ago), you're not quite correct about nowadays.

I'm arguing the point of hypocrisy, not morality here, to make things clear. I will therefore ONLY argue two points: That to do what you are advocated would be for the Church hypocritical (already established, as far as I can tell), and the question of the degree of modern Church hypocrisy.

Truth- Did the Church ever stand for this? To show this, you'd have to show examples of the Catholic Church doing things that by their own rules count as outright lying.

Justice/Treating people well/Taking responsibility- Yes there is hypocrisy here, but not as much as you would think. Assuming for the sake of argument that Cardinal Pell is not a direct child-abuser (which seems likely given his posistion), his reasoning would probably go something like this:

-We can't force priests to violate the sancity of the confessional- that clearly violates thousands of years of Church history. A confession is a sacrament, with an absolute right to privacy- the theological precedents for this make it practically iron-clad and certain. (NOTE: A hypothetical Cardinal Pell who wanted to make priests reveal this information would have to use ridicolous theological contortions)

-These child abusers are just a few bad apples which the media will exaggerate out of proportion to their actual numbers. We can't let the Church's reputation be dragged through the mud, especially when there are so many child abusers at other organisations anyway. (NOTE: This doesn't seem that defensible to me and is a clear case of hypocrisy, I'm just putting it in for the sake of completeness. Where the sancity of the confessional isn't an issue, the Church covering up really is indefensible)

Fairness- Could you elaborate on this? The closest I can think of is the early Church giving up on being a commune and what is nowadays known as social justice.

Serving the community- Technically priests still do serve the community (in the sense the Catholic Church would understand this), some just harm it at the same time.

Thinking of the children- Cardinal Pell would argue that the sheer publicity given to these cases would cause more harm than good for a majority of the victims through re-opening old wounds, excluding of course a minority who work with the media. However true or false this is, there are good odds on him believing it.

[Stark]

You've missed the point. They say right is right, wrong is wrong. What they mean is something completely different and they'll lie and break the law and watch others suffer to protect their own organisation. I don't give a shit about their retarded rationale for their crimes beyond understanding how and why they're enabled to get away with it. Bullshit about OMG TEH CONFESSIONALZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ can fuck right off, because a) law don't care, if you withhold information you're a cock head and b) unless every single piece of information was given under confession it's totally irrelevant and a red herring introduced so people like you would run off in the wrong direction about useless crap.

They knew about it, as is obvious because they moved people around and apparently pressured families and generally acted like guilty little cunts. Confessional and their stupid extra-legal special rules from Jesus that make them more important than kids getting raped is a side issue, and you're an idiot if you fall for it. People shouldn't get sidetracked by the religious element. This is simply a large and powerful organisation that enabled and covered by terrible crimes. Jesus and the Magic Spoon will not be appearing in court - but in a just world, the men and women responsible would be.

The only interesting thing about the situation is the tragic death grip the abusive organisation has on lots of people, who will never be able to join the dots in their mind between the nice man at church and the brutal and systematic rape and abuse of children under the protection of the wizard with the hat.

[Carinthium]

As I said, I never disputed the cases which did not occur under the confessional, nor the lying- ONLY the question of the confessional (and not knowing statistics on the matter, I don't know how much of it was confessions). Since you don't seem to dispute that the Catholic Church would have to create a rationale that would be ridicolous within their current theological rules to justify that aspect, we have nothing to argue about.

[Stark]

In previous stories about this stuff in AU (sorry it's a bit vague) the impression I got was that administration were aware of individuals rape crimes and simply moved them to lower risk areas while encouraging everyone to deal with it internally. I'm sure many rapists confess, but it's not the confessing anyone cares about; it's the actions taken to 'deal internally' with actual crimes and obstruct the real investigations in favour of their own bullshit processes. It's what organisations prefer to do, cause its better for the organisation and usually the people - but we're usually talking about compulsive stapler theft or embezzlement, not raping little kids.

In short I don't think it's a secret whispered in confessionals from time to time; I think it was a broadly known problem that was covered up with lies and pressure to protect the special rights of the church in Australia. I think they sacrificed hundreds of children for their pensions, basically, and issues like 'confession' are just things that will distract people into arguing about the utility or not of consequence free confession etc and trick them into a doctrinal debate rather than a HOLY SHIT YOU DISGUSTING CRIMINALS debate.