MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New Daily
May 31, 2019
Victims of sexual abuse can never appeal their sentence. They have to live with the results of abuse for the rest of their lives.
Meanwhile the Catholic Church, with tens of billions of dollars in Australian assets, and tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in annual Australian tax breaks, still has not fairly compensated victims.
This week convicted child abuser and former head of one of the largest and most wealthy banks in the world, the Vatican Bank, George Pell will appeal his sentence.
Here is a thought: In this week of Pell’s appeal, why not redirect those tax breaks to victims?
Pell has every right to be heard and justice must ensure that his conviction for abusing the two children is fair. Love or hate Pell, justice demands that he not serve time in this case for any other issue of with which he stands accused, but was not before the courts in this case.
This case is not about the larger sins of the Catholic Church, which for years turned its backs on victims and allowed abusing priests to continue their vile crimes.
This case is not about the 7 percent of clergy who, according to the Child Abuse Inquiry, engaged in sexual abuse.
This case is not about the appalling ‘Melbourne Response’ Pell set up which has seen victims under Pell’s control get about 30 percent less than victims in the rest of the country. Even then, the national average was a pitiful $49,000 under the ‘Towards Healing’ program.
This case is not about the $30 billion in assets that the Church has been estimated to own throughout the country.
This case is not about the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars the Church gets in tax breaks on land tax, shops, businesses and other activities.
This case is not about the $39 million that the Melbourne archdiocese paid for its new headquarters, right when it said paying more compensation would threaten the Church’s social programs. I didn’t realise ‘social program’ was a euphemism for ‘buying our new headquarters’.
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