BishopAccountability.org
	Why Did No One Call the Cops? Princes of Church Failed Royally By Mike Carlton Sydney Morning Herald April 10, 2010 http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/why-did-no-one-call-the-cops-princes-of-church-failed-royally-20100409-ryo7.html As this latest tsunami of child sexual abuse engulfs the Catholic Church, a question for the Pope: did anyone ever call the cops? When it became known that a priest had raped or sexually molested a child, did any monsignor/bishop/archbishop/cardinal anywhere in the world report the crime to the police/polizei/polica/polizia? The answer is no. Desperate to preserve its aura of sovereign holiness, the church systematically engaged in a criminal conspiracy of silence and concealment. It placed itself above the laws of nations. Time and again, pervert priests were quietly shuffled off to another parish or another diocese, to pick up where they had left off. The victims were almost always forced to take an oath of secrecy. In Ireland last year, two inquiries reported that literally hundreds of priests had attacked thousands of boys and girls over a span of 70 years. Cardinal Sean Brady, now Archbishop of Armagh and the primate of All Ireland, was one of those who bullied abused children into making the vow. Since that Irish scandal exploded and as late as Easter Sunday, Brady has defied calls for his resignation, all the while spouting unctuous apologies and promises to do better. Clearly, he has the moral clarity of a peat bog. The Irish laity ought to drag the scoundrel bodily from his cathedral. Not that he is the only shocker. Throughout Easter, the Vatican was furiously trying to spin this new disaster, with outraged cries from a flock of cardinals about ''petty gossip'' and a media ''campaign of hatred against the church'' inspired by, yes, the devil. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, huffed that criticism of the Holy See was ''truly incomprehensible''. Yet Sodano himself has questions to answer. As secretary of state to the last pope, John Paul II, he was the chief protector of an extraordinary priestly villain, the late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. This scandal has been extensively covered by the National Catholic Reporter, a respected and independent newspaper in the United States. Degollado, a charismatic Mexican priest who died in 2008, founded a secretive order known as the Legion of Christ. And boy, could he turn a buck. The NCR believes the legion commands assets of ˆ25 billion ($36 billion) with an annual budget of $US650 million, fabulous wealth which made Degollado much loved at the Vatican, where he lavished rich gifts left, right and centre. That he was also a morphine addict, a notorious paedophile who had molested at least 20 of his seminarians and a bisexual fornicator who fathered six children by three different mistresses didn't seem to bother them in Rome. The money talked, and loudly. For years, Sodano and John Paul II himself ignored insistent warnings that Degollado and his order were rotten to the core and should be dealt with. Ironically, it was the new Pope, Benedict, who finally pulled the pin on the rogue and packed him off to a monastery in disgrace. Again, though, nobody called the cops. The Catholic faith faces its greatest crisis since Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg in 1517, but the princes of the church just do not get it. ? ? ? HO HUM, yawn. We are told the Sydney Fish Markets are to get a $40 million upgrade, with the state government putting up half. Forgive me a little cynicism. This story turns up every 10 years or so, always with the promise that fabulous things will happen. The stinky old joint will be transformed. There will be tree-lined pavements, elegant boutiques, restaurants and cafes, marinas, a vast new parking space. Sydneysiders and tourists from around the world will flock in their millions to revel in these delights. Golly, won't it be one up the nose for Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco. Everyone, including the news media, gets excited for 24 hours and then, for whatever reason, the whole project is quietly shelved. It's like another hardy perennial, the grand plan to turn William Street into an elegant boulevard. I recall first covering that story when I was a teenage cadet journalist at the ABC in the 1960s. Yep, tree-lined pavements, elegant boutiques, restaurants and cafes and, uh huh, one in the eye for the Champs-Elysees. The lord mayor, Clover Moore, was the last nabob to recycle this one, a couple of years ago. Millions were thrown at it, but the thing remains a grimy and miserable wind tunnel pock-marked by empty shops and, when I last looked, with neither the Arc de Triomphe at one end nor the Jardin des Tuileries at the other. Doing up the Fish Markets is crazy. Jammed beneath an ugly ziggurat of expressways, the site is hard to approach and way too small. It ought to be moved, on a grand scale, to the old car terminal at White Bay. A plague of geeks in hard hats THIS political fetish for wearing hard hats and fluoro jackets on television has become an epidemic. The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, is the latest to succumb. On the news last Sunday night, arcing up about that Chinese ship aground on the Great Barrier Reef, she was togged out as if she were about to start drilling for oil. She was even wearing safety goggles, for heaven's sake, although she was several hundred kilometres from the disaster. Why? The only possible danger to her was a waving microphone boom. Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Kristina Keneally are also serial hard-hat offenders. Presumably the spin doctors think it gives them a purposeful air that will impress us all in our lounge rooms. No it doesn't. Rudd just looks like he's auditioning for a particularly geeky Village People cover band. Curiously, I can't think of too many Tory hard hatters. John Howard affected that squashed Akubra thingy when he went bush, which gave him the appearance of a mobile fencing nail, and Tony Abbott, of course, prefers cycle helmets. I have no information on Barry O'Farrell. Hard hattery will only get worse as elections draw nearer. I hope readers will help me name and shame the guilty. Contact: smhcarlton@gmail.com
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