quote:

Cardinal George Pell allegedly sexually abused cathedral choirboys, book claims



Explosive claims of child sex abuse have been levelled against Australia's highest-ranking Catholic official, Cardinal George Pell.

A soon-to-be-released book about Cardinal Pell contains detailed claims that he sexually abused two choirboys at St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne in the late 1990s.

The alleged abuse is said to have occurred after the introduction of the Melbourne Response, the compensation scheme for clerical sexual abuse victims established in 1996 by Cardinal Pell, when he was Archbishop of Melbourne.

The book, Cardinal: The Rise And Fall of George Pell, also contains new information about the child abuse cover-up within the church, including allegations that he knew about paedophile priests earlier than he claimed.

It is written by ABC journalist Louise Milligan, who revealed historic sex abuse allegations against Cardinal Pell in a 2016 report for the 7.30 program.

Earlier this year, Milligan and her colleague Andy Burns won the Melbourne Press Club's Gold Quill for their report.

Milligan interviewed two men, Lyndon Monument and Damian Dignan, who claimed they were sexually assaulted by Cardinal Pell, then a priest, at Ballarat's Eureka Pool in the late 1970's.

Police confirmed earlier this year that a brief of evidence against Cardinal Pell had been returned to the Office of Public Prosecutions for consideration.

In October last year, three members of Victoria Police flew to Rome to interview Cardinal Pell, who took part voluntarily.

There is no suggestion Cardinal Pell is guilty of any allegations of child sex abuse, only that they have been investigated by police.

In her television report from last year, Milligan referred to allegations that Cardinal Pell had also been accused of abusing two choirboys, but the book contains details that have never before been made public.

The boys, who were both students at St Kevin's College in Toorak and sung in the choir at St Patrick's Cathedral in East Melbourne, were allegedly abused in a back room of the church.

Soon after the alleged abuse took place, both boys asked to leave the choir, according to the book.

Cardinal Pell, 75, is the third most senior member of the Catholic Church and in charge of the Vatican's finances. He has always vehemently denied sex abuse allegations made against him.

"One of the things that has helped George Pell and his defenders to bat off or gloss over the allegations of Monument and Dignan is the seeming ambiguity of the behaviour, depending on how it is cast," writes Milligan, now an investigative reporter for ABC's Four Corners program.

"It's the notion that this was simply 'horseplay' or 'a bit of rough and tumble' and that Monument and Dignan, damaged men, had simply misinterpreted what was going on.

"The story of [the choirboys] has no such ambiguity. If these allegations are true, they point to utter, sinful, hypocrisy."

Milligan's book, released next week, details the testimony of one alleged victim, a man now aged in his 30s, and the family of a second alleged victim, who died from a drug overdose in 2014.

According to the book, the mother of the second alleged victim suspected her son had been sexually abused and asked him at least twice before his death. He told her he had not been.

But after he died she asked her son's friend, the first alleged victim.

"I asked him if my son was a victim and he said, 'Yes'." The mother was told by the friend that Cardinal Pell allegedly abused both boys.

Milligan writes that the first man reported the allegations to Victoria Police's SANO Taskforce and the mother of the deceased man also gave a statement to investigators.

In 2015, SANO Taskforce detectives put out a rare public statement appealing for information about allegations of historic sexual abuse against 14-year-old boys at St Patrick's Cathedral between 1996 and 2001.

Fairfax Media reported at the time that investigators were understood to have executed search warrants on buildings linked to the cathedral, including in East Melbourne and Toorak.

SANO was set up to investigate allegations that emerged from the 2013 Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse involving religious and non-government organisations and also investigates allegations of abuse arising from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell by Louise Milligan, published by Melbourne University Publishing, available on Monday, mup.com.au.

Gorilla Salad posted:

I now await the puff piece by Bolt, "My dear friend the sadistic paedophile and the wowsers who want to bring him low."

"Gumtree Ad [via Pedestrian posted:

"]
"Interested parties sought for purchase of a tropical island in the Great Barrier Reef system of north Queensland to escape the extreme taxation slavery, debt slavery & unfair divorce laws we are currently suffering on the Australian main land / the concept being of seceding from Australia to form our own fairer government on the island to be called "The People's Republic of Fair and Workable Laws and Taxation"

"Interested parties and in vestors are sought for the purchase of the island the forming of a government and council and then the seceding from the main land government to form a separate state free from the unworkable laws of the main land government / supportive and interested parties are sought to get the ball rolling with a committee being formed to make this new island state happen / all positive supportive suggestions welcome

"cheers"

Bogan King posted:

Solemn Sloth posted:

Of course it's angry single dads

Starshark posted:

JBP didn't read that 'you can't waste your vote' cartoon. Sad, really.

norp posted:

You haven't read bolt recently have you. It will be more like "it is all of us that are pedophiles now"

Edit: source - https://www.google.com.au/search?q=weare+all+leftists+now+bolt

MORE PELL CLAIMS, BUT BEWARE posted:

...Of course, I don't know whether the allegations are true or false.

But the timing of the alleged abuse - which Pell denies - is very odd. Is it really likely that Pell, having been under fiercely hostile scrutiny by the media over his conservatism and his attempts to clean out pedophiles in his church and compensate victims, would then risk everything by abusing boys himself?

Even stranger, one of the two victims actually denied he was abused:

Milligan's book, released next week, details the testimony of one alleged victim, a man now aged in his 30s, and the family of a second alleged victim, who died from a drug overdose in 2014.

According to the book, the mother of the second alleged victim suspected her son had been sexually abused and asked him at least twice before his death. He told her he had not been.

But after he died she asked her son's friend, the first alleged victim.

"I asked him if my son was a victim and he said, 'Yes'." The mother was told by the friend that Cardinal Pell allegedly abused both boys.

Starshark posted:

Scary times for the humanities. Glad I got my degree in when I did.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/humanities-students-budget-cuts-university-suny?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Humanities departments in America are once again being axed. The reasons, one hears, are economic rather than ideological. It’s not that schools don’t care about the humanities – they just can’t afford them. But if one looks at these institutions’ priorities, one finds a hidden ideology at work.

Earlier this month, the State University of New York (Suny) Stony Brook, announced a plan to eliminate several of the college’s well-regarded departments for budgetary reasons. Undergraduates will no longer be able to major in Comparative Literature, in Cinema and Cultural Studies, or in Theater Arts.

Three doctoral programs would be cut, and three departments (European Languages and Literature, Hispanic Languages and Literature, and Cultural Studies) would be merged into one. Not only students but faculty will be affected; many untenured teachers would lose their jobs, and doctoral candidates would have to finish their studies elsewhere.

This is happening at a time in which high salaries are awarded to college administrators that dwarf those of junior or even a senior faculty member teaching in at-risk departments. That discrepancy can only be explained through ideology. The decision to reduce education to a corporate consumer-driven model, providing services to the student-client, is ideological too.

Suny Stony Brook is spending millions on a multiyear program entitled “Far Beyond” that is intended to “rebrand” the college’s image: a redesigned logo and web site, new signs, banners and flags throughout the campus. Do colleges now care more about how a school looks and markets itself than about what it teaches? Has the university become a theme park: Collegeland, churning out workers trained to fill particular niches? Far beyond what?

The threat of cuts that Suny Stony Brook is facing is not entirely new. In 2010, Suny Albany announced that it was getting rid of its Russian, classics, theater, French and Italian departments – a decision later rescinded. The University of Pittsburgh has cut its German, classics, and religious studies program.
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This problem has parallels internationally. In the UK, protests greeted Middlesex University’s 2010 decision to phase out its philosophy department. In June 2015, the Japanese minister of education sent a letter to the presidents of the national universities of Japan, suggesting they close their graduate and undergraduate departments in the humanities and social sciences and focus on something more practical.

Most recently, the Hungarian government announced restrictions that would essentially make it impossible for the Central European University, funded by George Soros, to function in Budapest.

These are hard times. Students need jobs when they graduate. But a singular opportunity has been lost if they are denied the opportunity to study foreign languages, the classics, literature, philosophy, music, theater and art. When else in their busy lives will they get that chance?

Eloquent defenses of the humanities have appeared, essays explaining why we need these subjects, what their loss would mean. Those of us who teach and study are aware of what these areas of learning provide: the ability to think critically and independently; to tolerate ambiguity; to see both sides of an issue; to look beneath the surface of what we are being told; to appreciate the ways in which language can help us understand one another more clearly and profoundly – or, alternately, how language can conceal and misrepresent. They help us learn how to think, and they equip us to live in – to sustain – a democracy.

Studying the classics and philosophy teaches students where we come from, and how our modes of reasoning have evolved over time. Learning foreign languages, and about other cultures, enables students to understand how other societies resemble or differ from our own. Is it entirely paranoid to wonder if these subjects are under attack because they enable students to think in ways that are more complex than the reductive simplifications so congenial to our current political and corporate discourse?
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I don’t believe that the humanities can make you a decent person. We know that Hitler was an ardent Wagner fan and had a lively interest in architecture. But literature, art and music can focus and expand our sense of what humans can accomplish and create. The humanities teach us about those who have gone before us; a foreign language brings us closer to those with whom we share the planet.

The humanities can touch those aspects of consciousness that we call intellect and heart – organs seemingly lacking among lawmakers whose views on health care suggest not only zero compassion but a poor understanding of human experience, with its crises and setbacks.

Courses in the humanities are as formative and beneficial as the classes that will replace them. Instead of Shakespeare or French, there will be (perhaps there already are) college classes in how to trim corporate spending – courses that instruct us to eliminate “frivolous” programs of study that might actually teach students to think.

quote:

If you're thinking about busting out the barbecue before winter arrives, make sure your wire-bristle brush is still in good nick before using it to scrub down the grill.

Surgeons are warning of the potential dangers of loose wire bristles after a 39-year-old man on the New South Wales Coffs Coast accidentally swallowed one at a barbecue and had it pulled out of his pancreas more than a week later.

"This is the first case that has ever been reported in the world and it's in Australia," said Dr Rafael Gaszynski, the general surgery trainee who made the finding.

The unlucky patient had visited the Coffs Harbour emergency department three times with a vague abdominal pain that became extremely severe when he tried to eat something.

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

Apparently they're a good degree if you want to be hired by ASIO. Especially if you did a language. Also just good as a stepping stone into a postgrad qualification you can use to be actually hired.

bowmore posted:

humanities can get you a job, the rhetoric that they can't is part of the same reason they are axing them

foolish_fool posted:

Does humanities attract a lot of overseas students? It seems conceivable that art least part of the challenge is financial.

Periphery posted:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-13/barbecue-brush-bristle-injures-mans-pancreas/8516800

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

The Arsetralian posted:

A man with a parliamentary pension of $80,000 a year called me elite this week, just over a decade since I took a half-eaten chicken from outside a stranger’s hotel room because I had no money for food. Now it is possible I achieved this mythical elite status in the intervening years; I am writing this column. But my assailant is a Well Known Commentator whose only stumbling block in his many well-paid media gigs is that he holds on to them like a man in a greasy pig competition.

I do understand where he is coming from, however, having grown up in similar circumstances. Mum raised me and my two siblings on her own while working for meagre pay. Our father paid $21 a month child support for most of that time. Were it not for the local Catholic Church and its community, we would have had more than one desolate Christmas.

This man, whose father died when he was a teenager, became mayor at 30 and leader of the ALP before losing an election. His wife is a lawyer. He breeds racehorses for fun. None of these are bad things, unless you’ve glazed your persona in the resentment of never fitting into the class you’ve now belonged to for decades.

What commentators — well-read, well-connected — never disclose is that elitism is built on cultural capital. Not just the big stuff, either. By the time I’d finished high school I had read only three classics. I never finished Pride and Prejudice, as mandated, but nailed the essay based on the four-hour BBC drama. I knew of some artworks, but only by indirect means. Whistler’s Mother was famous, I knew, because Mr Bean ruined it in a movie. I saw a few foreign-language films on SBS, but only because we had dial-up internet and I stayed up late to see naked people. Such were the times.

We laugh, but there is an acute shame in all of this. I won a scholarship to a private univer­sity, about which I cared little, but it came with a newspaper cadetship so I went. During one of the valedictory speeches I listened to a student give a speech in which he lamented the rise of scholarships “diluting the elite status of the university” for the full-fee paying among them.

I cried when, in my late teens, I sat next to some of these students at a teppanyaki restaurant during an official function and went hungry because I did not know how to use the chopsticks and was too embarrassed to ask. Days before, I’d never even heard of such a restaurant.

It’s enough to make a man angry, I get it.

My provocateur must have known this feeling. It has riled him for decades. I suspect not, however, out of concern for the millions of other Australians to whom this continues to happen but on account of his own wounds, which have festered.

Both Mark Latham and I made it out of this milieu, whether he wants to admit it or not, though I remain tethered to it in weekly battles to support Mum through the drug addiction of a very close family member that has raged for years. I have feared for her safety more often than I care to think about. None of us has the resources or social leverage to even start an intervention, let alone make rehab work.

There is a certain access that comes to being in the media, though nothing of the sort the anti-elites would have you believe. It is true that when Mum feared our relative had been involved in a serious car accident I called police media to get some basic details and put her mind at ease. It wasn’t him. I did not feel elite.

This is the “real Australia” the commentators claim to represent, though of course they do not. They peer in, as if through a window at a zoo, and sketch clownish caricatures of our lives. I use my experience only because I know it, though there are many whose experiences outside mainstream politics and power deserve to be captured in minutiae instead of airbrushed by pointless slogans.

But I get it, the residual hurt and anger. I know the fissures outsiderism can leave on the soul, particularly when you’ve wanted to belong somewhere but end up between the start and the finish. Even now, I find myself wondering if this might have been more powerfully argued, more eloquently put, if I’d known more people who’d read the right books when I was younger.

Bogan King posted:

quote:

Notorious US white supremacist Mike Enoch has announced plans to visit Australia as local nationalist group The Dingoes claim him as a speaker at their upcoming Sydney conference.

The Dingoes, who identify themselves as Australian adherents of the "alt-right", run a podcast that has featured former opposition leader Mark Latham and federal Nationals MP George Christensen.

Enoch's blog The Right Stuff has been called a "neo-Nazi" website by the US Southern Poverty Law Centre. The New Republic magazine labelled him a "virulent anti-Semite". He has been criticised for joking about killing Jewish people and created the internet meme putting Jewish names in triple parentheses to highlight their Jewishness.

Lid posted:

But the group claims it is not white supremacist, as it does not believe whites should rule over other races. Rather, The Dingoes say Australia should be an "ethnostate" in which all citizens are white.

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN PRETEND TO MEAN

Lid posted:

Speaking of Latham


Also:

But the group claims it is not white supremacist, as it does not believe whites should rule over other races. Rather, The Dingoes say Australia should be an "ethnostate" in which all citizens are white.

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN PRETEND TO MEAN

Lid posted:

Also:

But the group claims it is not white supremacist, as it does not believe whites should rule over other races. Rather, The Dingoes say Australia should be an "ethnostate" in which all citizens are white.

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN PRETEND TO MEAN

Bogan King posted:

Is this the event with no actual agenda set but is also selling tickets for $300+

Buy our tickets!
For what?
Shut your face and give us money!

Lid posted:

Speaking of Latham


Also:

But the group claims it is not white supremacist, as it does not believe whites should rule over other races. Rather, The Dingoes say Australia should be an "ethnostate" in which all citizens are white.

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN PRETEND TO MEAN

Lid posted:

Speaking of Latham


Also:

But the group claims it is not white supremacist, as it does not believe whites should rule over other races. Rather, The Dingoes say Australia should be an "ethnostate" in which all citizens are white.

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN PRETEND TO MEAN