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VC Craven defends Pell after guilty verdict
Australian Catholic University Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven, a "dear friend" of Cardinal George Pell, remains loyal to him despite Pell's conviction for child sex offences.
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The Catholic Church is rotten to the core. Good people do not need a cover to prove that they are good. Rotten souls do need a glittering cover to claim they are good. How many more thousands of times the victims have to plead to the world that the catholic church is highly protective of the church’s interest and victimising the abuse survives. This VC is hopeless, either deliberately deny the truth or stupidly following the rotten apple’s manipulation.
The sins of clergy in the Catholic Church demand an enormous gesture of atonement, one that goes well beyond decent compensation for victims. Let the church pay for the removal of St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, stone by stone. Let there be a park instead with a memorial to all those who have suffered at the hands of clergy. Let no building ever be built at that site.
To suggest, as Craven, Abbott, Bolt and others have down, that Pell could not possibly have done what he is accused of as he did not fit the profile of a paedophile is missing the point. There exists a profile of a man who opportunistically and with impunity forces himself sexually on a vulnerable person. That is a rapist. Rapists do not need a prior relationship with their victims. They can commit their attacks in public places within close proximity to, but hidden from, others. The same arguments defending Pell’s rapist behaviour have been used to excuse privileged young men who sexually harass and attack women (and men) on university campuses. Rape is the exercise of sexual power by those who feel they have a right to use it on those who do not have the power to defend themselves.