Male Abuse of Church Power Can Be Tempered by Women
Morning Herald
I appreciate Reverend Michael Jensen’s sincerity in responding to the pain of victims of abuse and the distress of church members (‘‘Only hope for institutional Christianity lies in truth’’, March 5). As one who has spent many hours with depressed and traumatised victims not only of church abuse, but also the more subtle and strangling experiences of the tendrils of church power, I suggest that the church could respond in a more constructive manner by examining how its institutional practices perpetuate the problems so decried. While you have only men in leadership positions claiming this is the created order for relationships between men and women, you have the potential for abuses of power to increase exponentially. - Josie McSkimming, Coogee What the Catholic Church needs is a 21st century Martina Luther. - Tom Dobinson, Tweed Heads For all the doubters and defenders of Cardinal Pell I quote the remarks of his barrister, Robert Richter (who was actually present for the whole trial), in his apology for his inappropriate remark: ‘‘The seriousness of the crime was acknowledged at the outset by the concession that it merited imprisonment. In seeking to mitigate the sentence I used a wholly inappropriate phrase.’’ People who have difficulty with plain English should consult their dictionary. - Jan Carroll, Potts Point I must take issue with Clare Linane’s response to Andrew Bolt (‘‘Dear Andrew, your ongoing defence of Pell is a mockery of survivors’’, March 5). As a former altar boy who participated in many similar occasions to the one involving Pell, I can, contrary to Ms Linane’s opinion, confirm that the sacristy before and after such a Mass is a hive of activity. The vestments and associated robes worn by Pell took some time, with assistance, to put on and take off and as stated by others would likely have included an alb which requires to be put on and taken off like a pullover although it is of full length, making it impossible to have been opened easily to facilitate the claimed abuse. After a Sunday Mass of that type, many people would be milling around all over the church which, given that the door was open, makes it very difficult to imagine that the events claimed occurred beyond reasonable doubt. I have no wish to denigrate any abused victim’s story but equally I do not wish to see a man convicted by implausible or inaccurate evidence. - Ian Daly, Sherwood (Qld) I wish Clare, her husband and family all the very best in their recovery. - Cecelia McNeil, North Sydney
International humiliation and disgrace is a severe punishment that has already been inflicted on this man. Needless repetition of sordid detail is beginning to look like voyeurism. And surely as a society we can be better than that. - Margaret Huxley, Waitara The '‘presumption of innocence'’ only applies until one is found guilty. Following a verdict of guilty, the burden shifts to the appellant to establish, before an appellate court, that the verdict is unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence. In the circumstances, all this talk that Pell is entitled to a presumption of innocence is nonsense. - Ananda Amara-nath, Epping Celibacy has nothing to do with paedophile priests Thank you Dr Michelle Epstein (Letters, March 5) for calling out paedophile priests as the sociopaths they are. The suggestion celibacy is part of the reason some priests are paedophiles has always dismayed and annoyed me because it is just another manifestation of our patriarchal attitude – ‘‘poor man; throw him a woman and he will be all right’’. It is an attitude that would do the disgusting Incel subculture proud, that men somehow deserve a warm body to have sex with and all will be fine. - Michael McMullan, Five Dock I have always believed that it was no coincidence that so many priests were paedophiles, drawn not by their love of God but by regarding the priesthood as an easy way to access and exploit unlimited numbers of vulnerable boys, with impunity. Dr Epstein states that the ‘‘the priesthood is the perfect cover for a paedophile with no scruples’’. Enough of all those other lame excuses. - Della Strathen, Bowral The problem with such views by Dr Epstein is that it reduces the problem of abusive priests to a facile psychiatric analysis and it deflects the attention from the culpability of the church which, through its inadequate training of the aspirants to the priesthood, fails to give the necessary understanding of their sexuality, ways and means to live happily within the celibate state and the emotional, professional support we all need to live a fulfilling life in our chosen career. Priests are not born paedophiles. They become paedophiles. This is true also of married men and women, is it not? The majority of child abuse is perpetrated in families, by parents, uncles, brothers and sisters, grandparents and so on. They are not born paedophiles. It has to do more with the unpreparedness for family life, the increasing advent of individual gratification, as a way of thinking, the dispersion of support systems which, in the past, provided some protection from personal behavioural aberrations. We should condemn paedophile priests, but we should not absolve the church of its failure to give them a task to perform for which they had not been prepared. - John Colussi, Wahroonga My husband and I are both survivors of child sex abuse. He is in his 70s and I’m in my 60s. On Monday we watched Four Corners about the Pell trial. The memories of our abuse have returned, together with feelings experienced during and after our abuse. We are both in tears now, unable to sleep, two sad old people. But we know that we are not alone. There are many just like us, crying privately trying to comfort each other. That’s the legacy of child sex abuse. - Carolyn Lockett, Coffs Harbour Politics is behind projects splurge The NSW infrastructure spend, on a yearly basis, is now three times the spend appearing in federal government advertisements – $75 billion over 10 years for all of Australia (‘‘State banks on $90 billion splurge’’, March 5). While a portion of projects are audited, neither government publishes a multi-year accounting of their infrastructure expenditure. The numbers may be fake news. NSW ministers love listing a few major projects, but we never see geographic analyses explaining why schools, hospitals, roads and railways are needed where the government says they are. It means personal preferences and marginal seats strategy drives investment decisions. - Peter Egan, Artarmon PM cries wolf The PM warns of a recession if Labor is elected (‘‘Scott Morrison warns of economic downturn under Labor’’, smh.com.au, March 5). Will he deny this could happen under a LNP government? Economists say recessions are related to global events, such as the GFC, and not local issues. Australia was fortunate to avoid a recession post GFC as a result of the intervention of the government of the time. A Labor government. Why is Morrison so pessimistic now? Could he be laying the groundwork for the post election period in opposition? - David Sargeant, Jannali Keep jihadists in Syria Australian jihadists captured by the Kurdish fighters in Syria should be handed over to the Syrian government instead of being brought home (‘‘Kurdish fighters: take back your jihadists’’, March 5). They fought illegally in that region therefore they should be punished by the government of the country of capture. - Kim Woo, Mascot High-flying Bird A most suitable name has been chosen for Sydney’s new airport (‘‘Nancy-Bird will fly – but let’s do better,’’ March 5). Not because of fame but because of Nancy-Bird’s service: to the Royal Children’s Far West Health Scheme, to the Australian Women’s Pilots’ Association and to the Australian people. Indigenous children were helped and women were inspired. - Pam Connor, Mollymook Beach Did anyone consider Bill Bradfield, son of the Harbour Bridge designer, who was responsible for most of the development of Sydney airport, many of the other major city airports, not to mention his contribution to the development of airports throughout Australia post war. Another captain’s pick. - Jim Eames, Gerringong How long before the Western Sydney International Nancy-Bird Walton Airport is shortened to the Badgery Bird? - Gail McAlpine, Griffith (ACT) Any genius will soon be telling us what the new NBW Airport stands for during fog-bound winter mornings characteristic of western Sydney: Not Bloody Working. - Michael Petras, Thornleigh Jones put in his place For once we have a politician who fails to cower before the all-powerful Alan Jones (‘‘‘I don’t care what enemies I pick’: Daley doubles down on SCG Trust threat’’, smh.com.au, March 5). A taste of his own medicine is what every bully needs. Well done, Michael Daley. - Jonathan Tanner, Darlinghurst Congratulations to Daley for refusing to grovel to the hectoring Jones. For far too long both state and federal politicians have grovelled before this reactionary bully. The $730m rebuild of the Moore Park stadium is a poor use of state funds. Our politicians should keep in mind that 90 per cent of Jones’ audience are over 60. - Tony Simons, Balmain Michael Daley! Come on down! - Stewart Copper, Maroubra Malcolm Turnbull once refused to take dictation from Jones and didn’t that work out well for him. - Stephen Manns, Woollahra Step in right direction I hope some of the projected $750 million for RPA redevelopment goes into either installing new fire stairs, or making the existing ones in the eye hospital more immediately accessible (‘‘$750m pledge for RPA hospital part of ‘building boom’’’, March 5). I got stuck in one of RPA’s lifts before their fairly recent upgrade. Only one person out of the seven of us – a staff member – had a mobile phone to call for help. At my most recent appointment, I asked the doctor about fire stairs. He was not quite sure where the fire stairs were and said that to get to them one has to go through some section of the building which requires permission to enter. - Anne Roberts, Leichhardt A new roll for TAFE Strange that we have to employ skilled sandwich makers on 190 visas to make Subway sandwiches (‘‘Former Subway operator fined for underpaying worker’’, March 5). Perhaps we need to begin offering new courses in Sandwich Artistry at our TAFEs and universities. Might help reduce youth unemployment figures. - David Hare, Valentine Cars on the way out Self-driving cars won’t increase road use (Letters, March 5). You won’t need to have your own car, you will summon one as needed. We could better use space devoted to parking and housing empty cars and the roadway used by single occupant cars. - Kay Templeton, Paddington CEO club on top ANZ chairman David Gonski opposes the notion of capping chief executives pay but admits that there has not been enough ‘accountability’ in bank boardrooms (‘‘‘Don’t cap CEO pay’: ANZ chair’’, March 5). But how is the remuneration of CEOs and board members determined? And what is the correlation between board and CEO pay and companies’ performance over, say, the past 20 years? In the absence of this data those in the club can continue to pull the strings. As no doubt they will. - Norman Carter, Roseville Chase Working overtime The ‘‘fresh’’ says it all (‘‘NRL suspects former Panthers player of leaking fresh sex tape’’, March 5). The Integrity Commission must be starting each meeting with a prayer: ‘‘Please God, no more’’. - Steve Bright, North Avoca Prince among men Your obituary of Prince Leonard of Hutt River (March 5) reminded me of my favourite headline of all time. The Herald one regarding his consort: ‘‘Princess Shirl gives the social whirl a burl.’’ - Caroll Casey, North Ryde East west divide Not only is East Hills not in the east, there are no hills (Letters, March 5). Come and visit. - Tony Ilott, East Hills East Hills is in the south-west, South Turramurra is in the north, Northmead is in the west and West Head is in the north-east. - Doug Walker, Baulkham Hills And South West Rocks is in north-east NSW. - Michael Judd, Coffs Harbour The eastern suburbs become the far-east, the Sydney CBD the mid-east, the inner-west the inner-east and Parramatta the centre. Those west of the centre can decide the rest. Think of the impact on real estate values. - Ray Johnson, Bondi Beach Given that Parramatta, or near enough, is the centre it’s pretty clear that we need to look at renaming Inner West Council the Inner East Council. - Colin Hesse, Marrickville In the northern beaches, we moved to the western suburbs 25 years ago. Western side of Barrenjoey Road. - Trish Nielsen, Avalon Anything the other side of Anzac Parade is western suburbs. And everything this side of it is the centre of the universe. - Christopher Woodley, Vaucluse
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