https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/12/12/cardinal-pell-top-advis...
Last week Cardinal Pell was found guilty of historical child sex offenses in Australia. The judge imposed a news blackout to avoid prejudicing another trial that Pell will face early next year. Ironically, the only media reporting the verdict appear to be Catholic news websites. The first trial is known as the "Cathedral Trial" because of where the offenses took place. The next one will be the "Swimming Pool Trial".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46578619
Meanwhile in Detroit, a Catholic priest has used a funeral service to condemn a young man who committed suicide, even questioning whether he will get into heaven.
Well if there is a heaven, and if it's full of pious hypocrites like Cardinal George Pell and Father Don LaCuesta, send me to the other place.
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A deliberate ploy by the Catholic news sites to jeopardize the second trial (ballarat). They were hoping that other news outlets would run with the story, along with their social media goons. So far the only conspicuous thing is their lack of success. I am surprised the Murdochrity didn't publish or give it to Sky (Fox)..perhaps their love affair with Catholic ex prime ministers is waning.....so to avoid prejudicing the next trial let us not discuss Mr Pell....please.
@Old man shouts...They were hoping that other news outlets would run with the story
The Washington Post already has.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-top-cardinals-sex-abuse...
The Daily Beast also has the story, but they've geo-blocked it for Australia.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/vatican-no-3-cardinal-george-pell-on-trial...
The Washingon Post story appears to be accessible everywhere.
This is when we could use these people for science... by strapping them to a rocket and firing them into the sun...
I'm sure we could learn something!
Algebe,
"Well if there is a heaven, and if it's full of pious hypocrites like Cardinal George Pell and Father Don LaCuesta, send me to the other place."
The problem is that people such as that most likely don't regard themselves as hypocrites. They probably consider themselves to be sinless and unjustly persecuted. That is because they consider themselves to be "children of God".
1 John 3:9 (CSB) = "Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God."
This idea is also found in the Babylonian Talmud involving rabbis. It says that no rabbi will go to hell because his good deeds outweigh all of his bad deeds.
Sanhedrin 37a = "Even the emptiest [rekanin]18 among you are as full of meritorious deeds as a pomegranate [of seeds].19 R. Zera deduced it from the following verse, And he smelt the smell of his raiment;20 read not begadaw [his raiment] but bogedaw [his traitors].21"
http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_37.html
So when dealing with a religious person such as a priest or rabbi it is best to first determine if he thinks that he is free from sin (crime). If he does then you know that you are dealing with a nutcase.
Damn shame the ones who abused me when I was child are already dead. I don't think North Carolina allows for posthumous trials.
rmfr
@arakish: I don't think North Carolina allows for posthumous trials.
The church certainly did. They dug up John Wycliffe, burned him, and tossed his ashes in a river decades after his death. He committed the heinous crimes of translating the church's magic book into English, and criticizing the clergy for the greedy, gluttonous, lecherous parasites that they were (and are).
Given Christianity's obsession with torturing us all after we die this is hardly surprising behaviour. It took "gentle" Jesus meek and mild to come up with the repulsive idea of eternal torture for the deceased.
As for Cardinal Pell, this is one of those occasions as an atheist where I almost wish hell were not just a repulsive fantasy. As the late Christopher Hitchens once said, "Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child." No 4 in his revised ten commandments:
http://www.openculture.com/2015/04/christopher-hitchens-revises-the-10-c...
Those religious leaders must just hate the fact that in their steadily waning powers they no longer have full control over the courts/state and media where they could just use their power to sweep this stuff under the rug.
Stuff like the internet and increasingly secular (overall) people really screws with their long held dominance over just about everything that let them be entirely above the law. Good to see despite all of the churches efforts at least the most obvious lousy scum of religious leadership are ending up with sentencing and some sort of punishment with the victims being recognized and perhaps a stop of the horrendous behavior.
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