The Gates of Hell (2)

Pre-Christmas crowds milling around. Many have fine tales and some glum ones. It is a task sorting the ones from the others. I just keep busy pulling pints and uncorking fine wines. Its Someone's Birthday coming soon.

And there is a LOT of cleaning to do. There is dirt everywhere one looks.  Let us sweep out some more.

The US and Oz rooms are chokka. The talk is loud and there is a lot of Christmas cheer going down. Mind you, the sunny weather (OK, it is a heatwave) takes many outside onto the patio and strolling in the grounds where they can dream. 

Dreamers abound and some others down in Hillary's Village have lurid and nasty ones.  

Take the tale someone in the US room was telling. I only caught a little of it so you may have to follow it up yourselves. 

Some poor chap was falsely accused of nastyness by a woman dreamer. 

Clarence Moses-El was convicted back in 1988, sentenced to 48 years for allegedly raping and assaulting a woman after she returned home from a night of drinking.

We cannot show the accuser's face - of course.  She is a woman.

 http://www.redpillphilosophy.com/2015/12/woman-wrongfully-accuses-man-after-dreaming-he-raped-her-released-from-prison-after-28-years/

The day after the alleged rape, the “victim” told police the identity of her rapist after the image of his face came to her in a dream.

So now, after most of his adult life in jail he has been exonerated. An innocent man convicted on the say-so a woman who, let's face it, acted maliciously. 

The police and prosecutors too. Malicious.

Maliciousness is rife in our society. Hillary Village society that is. 

A woman has a sexual encounter in circumstances that we will rarely get to hear of or understand (other than she had been boozing stuff that was quite different from the Tavern's fare) but she will be believed, more often than not, when she accuses some poor sap of a man of something dastardly.  It does not help him one bit when he is a black man. His erstwhile 'Victim' status of being black is no help at all. Quite the opposite.

Its a 'sexual' crime, you see, and the village elders take a dim view. 

In Oz at the moment we have a Witch-Hunt going on in regards to sexual crimes against children. False accusations, maliciousness and the poisoned cup are in full view. But the witches in this era are 'men of the cloth'.

There are good Knights and bad. Good Monks and bad. The last conversation reported was about some Monks gone to the dogs. Bit over the sea in Melbourne thay are after a very senior Monk indeed.

Cardinal Pell.

He is a Prince of the Church. And as such a very succulent target for evil. Get Pell and you will seriously damage Christ's Church. The Body of Christ.

The Royal Commission into Child Abuse has focussed its attention on the Church despite reams of evidence (albeit evidence just as questionable) implicating other churches, the Salvos and numerous Departments of State. No public servants or Gummunt Ministers have been hauled before the Commission, but George Pell has, Twice  And now again !

Of course the media knives are slashing about.

Georgina Dent of Mamamia infamy said....

Cardinal Pell, who lives in the Vatican and serves as its finance chief, was due to give evidence on Wednesday. He pulled out last week due to his ill-health and is scheduled to appear in February if his health allows.

 http://www.mamamia.com.au/george-pell/

But last week, Cardinal George Pell had his lawyers ask for a private meeting to discuss the Cardinal’s non-attendance. He is, they say, too sick to travel. His blood pressure is too high.

Victims of abuse have flown from across the world to testify – but the man who allegedly protected sex offenders is a no-show.

No mention that he has already appeared in the witness box twice. No mention that each time he has been shown entirely innocent.  Innuendo works to damage reputation. 

And now his chief accuser  is shown (after some heavy rock turning) to be a man of poor character (to put it mildly).

Pell accuser indecently assaulted boy in bushland outside Ballarat

Cardinal George Pell’s chief critic and accuser has failed to declare in his public statement to the child sex abuse royal commission that he indecently assaulted a 12-year-old boy he groomed while performing youth work.

David Ridsdale has emerged as a de facto spokesman for Ballarat victims of Catholic abuse and has accused Cardinal Pell of impropriety during a 1993 telephone conversation discussing Mr Ridsdale’s abuse at the hands of his uncle Gerald.

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/royal-commission/pell-accuser-indecently-assaulted-boy-at-ymca/news-story/f9f51ff521042b31e15917bb2e75bd37

David Ridsdale, now 49, is the most well-known victim of Gerald Ridsdale, who as a priest in the Ballarat diocese abused hundreds of children, including relentlessly attacking his nephew.

However, David Ridsdale failed to detail in his statement to the commission, the centrepiece of his evidence, how he had groomed the 12-year-old boy in 1984 while working for the YMCA. The Australian has established he used his position as a YMCA activities leader to indecently assault the child on two occasions in bushland outside Ballarat, about 100km west of Melbourne.

So, a man of clearly bad charcter, a convicted paedophile, accuses a fine man.  And who is to be beieved? 

The answer is less about the man than the evidence, which so far, in two hearings already, has shown Cardinal Pell to be of far better Character and able to show his innocence. But seemingly for the pack of baying hounds it is not enough.

Fortunately there are some who will stand up for him. Amanda Vanstone for instance.

She was a Minister in the last gummunt and the Ambassador to Italy, and has some sway, although it has to be said that she is no friend of babies !!

In defence of George Pell

"George Pell will answer questions honestly"

We like to think of ourselves as being civilised. We ban discrimination of all sorts. We believe you are innocent until proven guilty and that everyone is entitled to proper process. But there's an ugly side to humankind that occasionally reverts to animal instincts.

Hunting in a pack is very primal. Rules go out the window. We go looking, desperately, for blood. We become hunters and if you're the hunted, watch out. What's ugly about this is not just the hunt but how few people care.

I have always found George Pell to be a decent, honest, intelligent man. 

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/george-pell-the-latest-prey-in-the-hunt-for-blood-20151218-glqwlm.html#ixzz3utsuVUXv

The slip into animal instincts often happens when we sense a wrong has been perpetrated and that our civilised system just hasn't dealt with the perpetrators.

George Pell is the latest to fall prey to this ugly side of humanity. We know that children in institutional care and in the churches have been abused and we know it's been covered up. It's been hidden in the Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Salvation Army and seemingly endless state institutions. The crimes have been horrific. Now we want blood.

Somehow Pell has become the lightning rod for all the hatred, anger and resentment that's built up around Australia. 

No one seems to have considered that the time we most need the rule of law is when the allegations relate to horrific crimes or their cover-up. The more serious the crime the greater the threat to your reputation or liberty. The rule of law is there to protect us all from these threats. It's what we call being civilised.

Some time ago we saw a version of this baying for blood in Adelaide. A priest at a prominent boys school, which is Anglican and not Catholic, had interfered with at least one boy. The local archbishop gave him a reference to move him along. He left the country and thus escaped criminal prosecution. There's no doubt that the archbishop did the wrong thing. He was made to retire shortly before his scheduled retirement. You might say it was light treatment or well and good.

Everyone needed blood, a sacrifice to assuage the wrong doing. But there was one glaring problem. The principal of the school, members of staff and the board all walked away scot free.

And, I might add, did the relevant Education Ministers and Head of the Education Department.  Funny how all those in 'high position' seem to be overlooked every time. 

THEY are the ones who are supposed to be Responsible and Accountable.

Sure, they didn't write the reference, but how many of them do you imagine knew about the priest's actions, even before the archbishop knew, and did nothing? The priest got away and so did lots of people who failed to notify authorities. 

Adelaide had had its ritual slaughter so everyone could just go home – and those equally as guilty as the archbishop could rest in peace. That's what happens when proper process isn't followed.

Plenty of people, especially in the media, don't like George Pell. 

He's very conservative (albeit a republican) and isn't afraid to speak his mind. While he and I don't agree on lots of things, I admire him. I am an admirer of people who are prepared to stand up for what they believe and who support my right to do the same. Pell easily fits into that category.

Failing to bow down to the self-appointed cognoscenti affronts their sense of importance and draws their gunfire. You have to be taught a lesson. Once you become a target, everyone can join in. It's like criticising politicians, the taxman, bureaucrats or the Devil. It's a free-for-all with no rules.

People who have suffered abuse, and their parents, react and cope in different ways. I don't think even my vivid imagination can fully comprehend the difficulties they face. It would be easy to become obsessed, to see avenging the wrong as your reason for living. It's also true that nobody wants to add to their distress and so, outside of courts, they are rarely seriously challenged on whatever they say. For most I think this is fair enough. 

But for the odd one or two it will be a licence to kill.

There's also something odd about us in that we still fail to recognise that kids are most at risk of abuse in their own home or from family and friends. We (the state) still keep hoping that bad parents and their partners will see the light. We leave kids to suffer their darkest days at the hands of those they should be able to trust. We seem to vainly hope that "it will all turn out".

There's been a fair degree of criticism of Pell's initiative within the Catholic Church to deal with cases of abuse. Little mention that the system he set up was a trailblazer in its time and reportedly as good as any set up by state governments. 

That kind of reporting doesn't fit the narrative of sensational TV on a Sunday night.

I have always found Pell to be a decent, honest, intelligent man who, while forthright in his own views, is happy to listen to those of others. When I was serving as Ambassador to Italy he perpetrated a great kindness that I will never forget.

I asked about the method for getting in the front row at a Papal audience, where one will meet the Pope. How do ministers, businesspeople and others seem to manage it, I wondered. Pell asked if that's what I wanted and I rightly pointed out, given my views, how inappropriate that would be. I told him the Filipino maid and butler at the Ambassador's residence who served his meal when he came to dinner were committed Catholics, true believers, and I wondered how they would get such a chance given they were more godly than many who get the privilege. He organised it and I have not seen two happier people than the day they met the Pope. It was marred in my mind only slightly by their comment that they felt people were staring at them and wondering how they got there. The answer of course is simple: by the good grace of George Pell.

I hope the royal commission on child abuse is out for the truth from everyone – not a blood sacrifice to appease the baying crowd.

Indeed.

Amanda makes several fine points and is deserving of a seat by the window and a fine serving of Grace.

Now.... I have cleaned enough for today and must gird my loins for a more personal attack upon my private parts in the hospital. But I am hopeful that I can bring more and happier tidings in a day or two. 

We have Grace, strong men and strong women. Maliciousness will not win. Hell will not prevail.

I am looking forward to Midnight Mass, which if I cannot travel down the mountain to, shall be in the Crypt.


Pax.