UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Jesus was Jewish, not Catholic. He said child abuse was a serious evil that should be punished severely. After Roman Emperor Constantine and his Fourth Century successors began the transformation of the Catholic Church into a “top down absolute monarchy”, too many popes, up to and including Pope Francis, lost their way on following Jesus’ Jewish mandate to protect children. Pope Francis and his Cardinals are this week working on the pope’s top priority — fine tuning the top down and unaccountable management structure apparently to maximize papal power and wealth. This structure is clearly contradicted by Jesus’ mandate for a leadership that serves, not dominates, that was mainly followed by early Christians for over three centuries.
THE CATHOLIC ANSWER FIRST. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has found (2/11/15) that Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese repeatedly failed in their dealings with Sydney abuse victim John Ellis.
After Pell testified before the Royal Commission, Pell moved quickly to Rome to become the top money man in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis had rewarded his Australian service by making him head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy. He lives in luxury in his palatial Roman “guest house”, Domus Australia, renovated with $30 million of Australian donations.
Cardinal Pell is headlining meetings this week in Rome with Pope Francis and all the world’s Cardinals. If Pope Francis is serious about holding Bishops to account, Pell must be fired pronto, not promoted and honored. Otherwise, the pope is making a mockery of Jesus’ mandates about protecting children and serving, not dominating.. Please see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now” here,
and “NY Times Pulls Punches As SNAP Jabs Pope & US Pols On Abuse Ploys“, here, [Christian Catholicism] .
The criticism of Pell comes in a new Royal Commission Report, Report of Case Study 8: Mr John Ellis’s experience of the Towards Healing process and civil litigation. (2/11/15)
The Report found that Cardinal Pell “did not act fairly from a Christian point of view in the conduct of the litigation against Mr Ellis”. (my emphasis)
The Royal Commission examined the treatment of John Ellis, a Sydney lawyer and former altar boy who was abused repeatedly by Father Aidan Duggan between 1974 and 1979. The Report said Ellis, who suffered personally and severely as a result of the sexual abuse in his youth, spent more than a decade seeking compensation, but lost the case on a legal technicality in 2007 when the Court of Appeal ruled the Catholic Church was not an entity that could be sued.
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