Categories
Uncategorized

CHRISTMAS CAROLERS FOR CARDINAL PELL GATHERED OUTSIDE MELBOURNE PRISON.

Christmas Eve carolers for Cardinal Pell gathered at Melbourne prison

Ed Condon/CNA

26 December, 2019

Carolers gather outside Melbourne Assessment Prison on Christmas Eve, 2019. (John Macauley/CNA)

About two dozen local Catholics gathered outside the prison to sing carols and pray for the cardinal
A group of local Catholics gathered outside Melbourne prison on Christmas Eve to sing carols for Cardinal George Pell, currently incarcerated in the facility, and to pray for him, as well as the other inmates and prison staff.
At 8pm on December 24, about two dozen local Catholics gathered outside Melbourne Assessment Prison on the west side of the city center to sing Christmas carols and to pray for the cardinal and others in the jail.
One of the singers, John McCauley told CNA that “We just wanted the Cardinal to know he was loved and remembered at Christmas.” The songs included traditional carols like O Come All Ye Faithful and Once in Royal David’s City, as well as Australian favorites like The Three Drovers. Singers wrote messages of support and Christmas greetings in a copy of the carol book, which was left for Pell at the prison’s front desk.
After the caroling, Melbourne’s Vietnamese Catholic Youth Group led a rosary procession around the perimeter of the prison, which houses more than 300 inmates. Decades of the Sorrowful Mysteries were offered for the cardinal, for the prison staff, for the other inmates, for victims of sexual abuse, and for “the vindication of the rights of the Church and His Eminence’s full and speedy exoneration.”
Several of the Vietnamese youth attending explained that they were inspired to attend in support of Pell by the example of Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận, who was imprisoned by Communist authorities in Vietnam for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement. Pell and Cardinal Thuận were friends until his death in 2002.
McCauley said that the gathering “came together quite spontaneously after an individual going under the name ‘Albert Dreyfus’ suggested the idea on a social media earlier that day.”
Albert Dreyfus was a Jewish French military officer tried and convicted for treason by a secret court in 1895. His case polarized the country and he was later exonerated after years of imprisonment.
Cardinal Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996-2001, when he was made Archbishop of Sydney. In 2014, Pope Francis appointed him as head of the newly created Prefecture for the Economy, charged with overseeing and reforming Vatican finances.
In 2017, Pell was accused of sexually abusing two choristers after a Sunday Mass while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 and 1997. He was convicted Dec. 11, 2018, on five charges of sexual abuse and sentenced to six years in prison, of which he must serve at least three years and eight months before being eligible to apply for parole.
In November, the Australian High Court in Canberra agreed to hear his application for special leave to appeal, after the Court of Appeal in the state of Victoria upheld his conviction in July in a decision which deeply divided opinion both in Australia and abroad.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP of Sydney has said he “welcomed” the progress of Pell’s case to the High Court.
“The Cardinal has always maintained his innocence and continues to do so,” Fisher said. “The divided judgment of the Court of Appeal reflects the divided opinion amongst jurors, legal commentators and within our community.”
“For the sake of all involved in this case, I hope that the appeal will be heard as soon as possible,” Fisher said in November.
Pell, who remains an archbishop and a member of the College of Cardinals, has been held in solitary confinement and has not been permitted to celebrate Mass in prison. He was not permitted to see visitors on Christmas Day.
Earlier this month, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot what criticized by political opponents for visiting Pell in prison, with some politicians branding the visit “disgraceful” and a “cruel insult” to victims of abuse.
Abbot declined to comment on the criticism beyond saying he was ‘simply visiting a friend’ in Melbourne Assessment Prison.

PAT SAYS

Catholic carolers serenading an imprisoned cardinal.

Pell will be judged guilty or not be the Australian justice system. Let’s await the outcome.

____

Some straight acting gay priests?

106 replies on “CHRISTMAS CAROLERS FOR CARDINAL PELL GATHERED OUTSIDE MELBOURNE PRISON.”

Pat, any updates on Tullamore Parish debacle? Patsy McGarry has a report on it in today’s Irish Times, apparently the people of your former parish (?) are up in arms. Have you any more to add?

Like

I suspect that, as with the issue of artificial contraception, when it comes to IVF, the vast majority of Catholics have voted with their feet.
It is false to call such people, malcontents. Are you a reactionary? It is noteworthy how one can be insulting to both RCs and Anglicans in the one breath.

Like

I suspect that, as with the issue of artificial contraception, when it comes to IVF, the vast majority of Catholics have voted with their feet.
Just quite what the objection to IVF is is baffling.
It is false to call such people, malcontents. Are you a reactionary? It is worth noting how easy you make it appear to be insulting to both RCs and Anglicans in the one breath.

Like

I suspect that, as with the issue of artificial contraception, when it comes to IVF, the vast majority of Catholics have voted with their feet.
Just quite what the objection to IVF is is baffling.
It is false to call such people, malcontents. Are you a reactionary? It is worth noting how easy you make it appear to be insulting to both RCs and Anglicans in the one breath.

Like

I suspect that, as with the issue of artificial contraception, when it comes to IVF, the vast majority of Catholics have voted with their feet.
Just quite what the objection to IVF is is baffling.
It is false to call such people, malcontents. Are you a reactionary? It is worth noting how easy you make it appear to be insulting to both RCs and Anglicans in the one breath.

Like

It is rare that anything Catholic is stated so clearly so kudos to them. The faithful county being faithful

Like

99% of Irish Catholics are hypocrites. They want church weddings, confirmations, baptisms and funerals and some of them go to Mass, but they don’t believe most of what is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and they vote for abortion.

Like

Paedo Pell has already been judged guilty by an Australian court and the verdict upheld on appeal.
We have to fact an ugly fact here: Pell will ALWAYS maintain that he is innocent, even if the final round in the Australian justice system goes against him. Which it very likely will.
There is another fact, even uglier than Paedo Pell’s spinelessness in refusing to acknowledge his guilt to his victim, and this is that there is a certain mindset of lay Catholic that will ALWAYS believe that Romanist hierarchs like Paedo Pell are innocent…precisely because they are clerics.

Like

7.28
What would Jesus Do? I’m sure we both agree that he wouldn’t lie.
If you sent that card to Paedo Pell stating, or signalling, your belief in his innocence, then Jesus would have done no such thing, since Paedo Pell is guilty and has been found guilty by a court of law.
Incidentally, did you send a card to Paedo Pell’s victim, who was molested, and orally raped, as a terrified thirteen-year-old child, by a six-feet-three-inches tall, sociopatic, Romanist priest-pimp? You didn’t say; therefore I doubt you did.
What would Jesus have done here? Are you attuned enough to his spirit to answer?

Like

“there is a certain mindset of lay Catholic that will ALWAYS believe that Romanist hierarchs like Paedo Pell are innocent…precisely because they are clerics.”
Yet many non-Catholics, such as Andrew Bolt, strongly argue that Pell’s conviction is unsound.

Like

7.32
Andrew Bolt’s opinion is not only irrelevant to my point about certain lay Catholics, but its implication (that there can be no such Catholic) is a non-sequitur.
I have met this mongrel breed of Catholic, and to a dog all were implacably convinced that there are no sexual-abuse victims of Romanist priest-pimps, but that each claiming to be so is simply a moneygrubber.
Are you one of them?

Like

I should have asked earlier, but forgot to do so. (That’s what comes of being on the farside of 30.)
How is your hand?

Like

Magna darling, mummy has told you before about asking clergy about parts of their body. Look where it got me!

Like

I knew some twit would pick up on this lol. @3.39pm has made my day and proved my point!!

Like

Bishop Pat, how is your hand? I recently had an operation also but will need physio in the new year? are you still in the sling?

Like

Ah here!, Yano that story is fake news!!! they were all outside singing ‘I’ll tell me ma, when I got home, the boys won’t leave the girls alone’

Like

‘Vindication of the rights of the church’? Idiots.
The video is mostly indicative that some people just want in to institutions and roles, and frankly it’s very sad.

Like

Morning all: does anybody know why the Diocese of Middlesbrough’s website is down? It looks like the server is not there. Could it have something to do with the authorities; like the server unplugged and taken away? (English authorities, not Spanish… or both…) … hmm.
Or maybe they just could not afford to pay the bill; they are in a very, very bad financial situation – have been for over a decade now.
Terry Drainpipe was the only clown for the job I suppose…
A used car-sales man if ever: he would sell you an old 1986 Ford FIESTA with no engine!
For an extra €50 he will throw in two fully-worn tyres!

Like

Every single aspect of the case against him fails to stand up to analysis. That’s the nature of show trials.

Like

I hold no candle for the likes of Pell. But…..I have always felt uneasy about his conviction. A brief Google search will quickly uncover the arguments on both sides of this case. In the situation where there appears to be many issues unresolved in this case, it is right that it should be tested right to the very end, in this case by the highest court in Australia. So, I will wait until that verdict comes.
The Vatican is evidently waiting for this final decision before taking whatever consequential steps it will take against Pell if the verdict is guilty. I am a little disturbed by what I see as the preferential treatment and judgment by the Church on Pell, in contrast to what would happen to the likes of me, and has happened to may other priests, if even a modicum of what has happened to Pell and been claimed about Pell should have happened to me. I would have been removed, suspended, sidelined, furloughed, and probably worse right from the word go. In my diocese in the last year two priests that I know of have just ‘disappeared’, suddenly and without warning, and with no explanations, evidently following some accusation that has been acted upon immediately. Where they are, what they have been accused of, what process is being followed, what information is available…..none of that is happening. There is a real sense of ‘you could be next’. All is takes is one person to make some sort of accusation, and that is it. You are finished. The process just seems to be so arbitrary and autocratic, against the interests of the priest, with minimal if any protections. It goes far beyond what would be happening in the secular courts or system. I believe that priests are scared. Even if their behaviour has been impeccable. They can still be accused, and ruined. A Church that for so long has ignored this whole abuse crisis, now acts as judge, jury and execution with indecent haste and with minimal protections and with careless abandon. What bishops and VGs are really concerned about is not the victim, or the presumed perpetrator, but their own backsides. And injustice is being done as a consequence. Just saying …..

Like

I mean this comment quite seriously and it is honestly not intended to be critical of your comment or you personally, but many people commenting here have known that the RC church cannot be relied on to care for anybody or anything. I am sorry you are getting this realisation in such a scary way.

Like

3:18pm
You couldn’t make it up?
………..Wait until you hear the news about Liverpool Safeguarding and the St Luke’s centre in Manchester…… you will most certainly vomit 🤮
When in Rome…..

Like

8.48

Why do you continue to serve such a fickle mistress, then? Why don’t you abandon her, because she will abandon you…just as she abandoned the children she molested and tortured.

You are not serving Christ.

You never have.

Like

I think Magna, it may be very difficult for those RC clerics now 60+ to “abandon” the role played for 40 years +. It’s “attractions” and compensations are a seductive holding mechanism when they know their hierarchy will drop them like the proverbial hot potato if they dare step out of line. And with few “real life work skills” their employment and pension prospects may well be zero.
Given that reality, I strongly suspect that if some supportive financial structures were available as an alternative, many RC clerics would abandon the RC ship in its inevitable rudderless drift to the rocks of reality. While some might quit primarily to pursue a relationship, I suspect more would quit from a realisation they’ve been forced to conceal when the reality of clerical life wiped the scales from their eyes.
MMM

Like

What would you know about service, Christ, or the conscience of a third party? Nothing. Nothing. And nothing.

Like

Real priests don’t spend their time whinging on blogs about how scared they are. Your comment is indicative of a priest with no prayer life, no faith and who maybe has skeletons in the cupboard that you are fearful of being disclosed.
A good conscience makes for a good pillow and a worry free existence. If priests have led an impeccable life they have nothing to fear.

Like

Poster at 2.00pm

Your Jesus led an ‘impeccable’ life (so they say), yet things went tits up for him. And all on the grounds of lies and cowardice.

What was that about nothing to fear?

Like

2:00pm
I agree with you, ‘real priests don’t spend their time on blogs whinging.’
But really, what do ‘REAL’ priests spend their time doing on the Internet I wonder…………? 🤭
Fr Matthew Jolley was fixated on children and whales’ erect penises. I could carry on but my fingers would fall off typing out the list.

Like

All indications are that Pelll is a very good priest. He does not spend his time whinging, but praying. He says that he does not worry about his false conviction but about the judgement of God.

Like

Why just sing for Pell hi. I’m sure some others would appreciate a song or two too. Jesus came to bring salvation not just make a political statement. O come all ye faithful hi

Like

On the Pell case my jury is out because this blog sometimes indicates he is an abuser and sometimes indicates that hecwas stitched up for trying to expose corruption at the Vatican bank.

Liked by 1 person

9:03am
Did not the victims ‘indicate’ that it was Pell who abused them? And was not Pell found guilty by a jury of 12?
Yet you say In your case the jury is still out.
What diocese are you from, Father?

Like

I was under the impression that Pell was convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of one person.

Like

One one of the alleged victims “indicated” this some 20 years after the alleged incidents. The other twice denied that he had ever been abused. What an “appalling vista” we face if the conviction is overturned…

Like

Those so-called priests look like they are Anglicans or members of one of the other 22,000 Protestant denominations, so not priests at all, in fact. Even Graham Leonard, Dutch Touch and all, had to be ordained when he came home.

Like

10.14
Came home to what? The Roman Strumpet?
And if she reordains, it is not to make those men priests of God, but pagan priests who will serve her through her laws.
Read the post at 8.48.

Like

10.16

‘Brokeback Martin’? Seriously?

You must be a cult-follower of Michaela Voris, the rug-wearing, hypocritical ex-queen😅 who apparently had roles in gay-porn movies. This is how he refers to Fr Martin SJ.

You keep great company.

Like

Magna takes a lot of interest in Michael Voris and James Martin, which is all the more surprising given that Magna had such a vigorously hetero adolescence. Or say he says, anyway.

Like

Hello again, +Pat.

In regard to that video, ‘Unstereotyped LBGTQ Clergy’ – given the spiritual leadership role of the clergy I’d always be uneasy about any general endorsement of clergy openly involved in any form of irregular sexual activity. And in particular I could never endorse any ‘Q’ (for Queer) clergy since I’d always be unsure what ‘Queer’ takes in.

For example there’s the case of Rev Jonathan Fletcher (which one of the ANONYMOUSs here has referred to at least twice recently).

Fletcher could be placed in the Queer category since he seems to have assembled a set of young men who under his ‘spiritual’ direction indulged in various peculiar practices some of which, such as naked massages, were simply gay while others were plainly sadomasochism.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2019/12/victims-of-sadistic-evangelical-priest-want-police-to-investigate/

Like

I was thinking that about him as well – I suspect that he would probably be horrified to hear other people think his behaviour has a sexual motivation so perhaps the common denominator with so much of the other sexual behaviour described here is that unacknowledged emotion bursts out somewhere?

Like

The Fletcher Affair is getting quite a bit of attention and the Evangelical Christians aren’t trying.to hush it up.
They recently discussed the matter at one of their conferences (one of the speakers was a QC) and you can watch the session on Vimeo.
https://vimeo.com/344888648
The RCC should adopt a similarly open approach to their safeguarding ‘Problems’.

Like

Bp Pat, these so-called “Carolers” are chronically sick people; the two old fags on the right look like they’ve munched down on more than a few penises in their time. Same with fat attention-seeking slut in the middle.

Like

Who, but a bunch of attention seeking whores, would serenade [sic] a convicted pedophile. You couldn’t make it up.

Like

Is there any need for such perverse language on this blog Pat? It has descended now into an obscene almost pornographic tone. I find such language offensive and yes, the nut jobs who comment on here will probably castigate me because that is now the norm here.

Like

God forgive you. Homophobia
is a grave sin. A member of the Catholic Clergy Purity Society I suspect.

Like

God forgive you. Homophobia
is a grave sin. A member of the Catholic Clergy Purity Society I suspect.

Like

I wonder whether any in the Australian Catholic so–called ‘hierarchy’ made any kind of contact with Paedo Pell’s surviving victim.

Did they mention him in any way after Paedo Pell’s lawful conviction?

Did they say anything about him publicly after the fat pervert’s and oral rapist’s conviction was lawfully upheld in the Court of Appeal?

Heck! Did they ever spare him a nano-second of thought?

Like

The ‘hierarchy’ in Australia or elsewhere don’t give a monkey’s about survivors. Fact.
When they don’t give and didn’t give a damn about covering up child rape and protecting child rapists, what would you expect.

Like

3:18pm
You couldn’t make it up?
………..Wait until you hear the news about Liverpool Safeguarding and the St Luke’s centre in Manchester…… you will most certainly vomit 🤮
When in Rome…..

Like

7:18pm
Could you please elaborate on your comments, if you please?
In addition: I think you will find you have misspelled the word PerjurEr.
– verum lumen – Vs – pars reus –
(1) Mens rea,
(2) Actus reus.
(3) sanctus Lucas
(4) el recturem
(5) Londinensi sub terra

Like

perjuror is correct spelling, as your very ignorant critic “The Lyceum” does not know. His string of pseudo-Latin phrases is on the level of: “‘Caesar, adsum!’ iam forte. ‘Passus sum,’ sed Antone,” which being translated means: “Caesar had some jam for tea. ‘Pass us some,’ said Anthony.”

Like

Yes Magna. The present Archbishop of Melbourne is in pastoral contact with the former choir boy. His identity is not public. But there are many statements made by bishops and clergy which *are* public, and which referred to the unnamed man. If there was even a modicum of sincerity behind your abusive virtue signalling, you’d have done some research before you did your Pharisaical thing. But then, you wouldn’t be the Pharisee we’ve all come to know, would you?

Like

Hi Bishop Pat
Can I take this opportunity to wish you a very happy new year. The work you do on here is important and pleases Almighty God.
I was very upset to see one of the nasty messages that you regularly receive on here the other day. I hope that you report these people to the Police – IP addresses are tracked in minutes these days.
Thanks again and may God bless you and all who follow you.

Like

Pat what is all this about Liverpool safeguarding and st Lukes Manchester? Isn’t that the place where they send naughty priests to be analysed by sexologists?
Their website is missing for goodness sake. What on earth is going on up there? Does anybody know anything at all?

Like

Why are you getting so worked up about @6.35pm. You sound demented and irrational over nothing. Calm yourself dear. It’s not even a commercial.

Like

9:18pm
🤣 everybody loves good neighbours, but the adverts are too long haha.
I have got my popcorn and Kia-Ora here, all the while, biting my nails.
My labia are chattering with anticipation. Not to mention the cold whether! Morning dew? Shake your lily!

Like

4:25. It’s not just the hierarchy in Oz who don’t give a damn about survivors. It’s the same here as well. They are too worried about how much money their “fallen clerics” will cost them in compensation. Said it before. The RCC is first and foremost a business

Like

The blasphemous and uncatechised comments under that article, by people it’s reasonable to assume spent years in Catholic schools shows what a disaster the spirit of Vatican II has been in Ireland. When the oldies die, it’s all over for the Church in Ireland.

Like

You haven’t put forward an argument, valid or otherwise, against IVF, @ 10.07 pm.
You are most likely not correct to use the expression ‘blasphemous and uncatechised.’ On the contrary, pace Irenaeus, the glory of God is a human being fully alive. And, if the People of God has not received the magisterium’s rejection of IVF, that may be the result of successful catechesis. It will not have been the first time, or the last, that the magisterium will have been corrected by the sensus fidelium.

Like

Just show you, Bp Pat, some people are ready to do just about anything to get attention. The police should have batten charged them.

Like

Pell has NOT been granted leave to appeal to the High Court in Canberra. For some reason it has been determined that prosecution and defence counsel are to appear before a full sitting of the High Court to argue in support of and against why Pell should be granted leave to appeal.
The High Court will make its decision then as to whether he will be granted leave to appeal.
This will be Pell’s fifth throw of the legal dice so as to secure a sixth and final legal challenge to have his child rape convictions overturned.
It must be a first in the history of Australian jurisprudence that a convicted child rapist has been given so many opportunities to manipulate the legal system to his advantage.

To make some sort of comparison with Alfred Dreyfus is insulting to this mans’ memory and illustrates a willful disregard for the facts surrounding this legal travesty that was informed and guided Roman Catholic hatred of Jews.

Then again a willful disregard for the facts is what propels the carol/rosary nonsense outside Pell’s prison cell in Melbourne

Like

10.41

Not really.

But it does tell us of the mindboggling lengths Pell’s supporters will go to defend a convicted paedophile and rapist.

Like

10:41pm
OMG! So Pell’s accusers all ended up taking to the bottle and drugs (painkillers by any chance?)! … pattern…1
They all allege similar assaults/scenarios! … similar accounts…2
The staff at the Catholic campsite where Pell was a seminarian all sided with Pell in their statements! … does that mean the staff were constantly together and, with Pell, the whole time … very conceivable for a Catholic Safeguarding employee… INCONCEIVABLE to a human being with basic morals…3
(For everything else, there’s MasterCard!) 🧐
Poor Pell; he must be going through hell. On the flip side, his victims will now be well and truly on the road to recovery.
May they find peace and healing in the knowledge that their abuser has been brought to justice and he will not abuse again.

Like

10.41: Thanks for sharing this article which is very thought provoking. Australian anti Catholicism stinks and is very vicious. The media are only too delighted to have a cause celebre (in prison) to promote their liberal, pluralist freedoms without the strong opposing voice of the Church. The CV’s of accusers proves that much of the evidence against Pell is totally unreliable and unsubstantiated. Huge injustices happen when a bandwagon of religious haters and bigots roll into town. God be with Cardinal Pell and bless all genuinely abused people.

Like

At 10:54
Poster says ‘Not really.’ without advancing any argument why not.
This pattern is detectable in posts from the same source passim. That is to say, predication without validation is their modus operandi, as if merely to allege something to be true means that it is true.
In sum: a bag of wind.

Like

There’s nothing “unprecedented” about the case in Australian jurisprudence or elsewhere. This is just legal process. 🤷‍♂️

Like

10.54: Magna, one never expects you to have any mercy or sympathy in your reaction to CATHOLIC priests. That is YOUR problem. Having read the article privided by 10.41, which I believe word for word, there are many serious unanswered questions re: Cardinal Pell’s imprisonment. Australian culture holds a profound dislike and disdain for Catholicism and is virulently bigoted, biased and intolerant against the Catholic Church. The Aussies love unrestricted freedoms and despise all who voice a different opinion. This to destroy the integrity of the Church many individuals, media outlets, freedom fighters, and feminist ideologues found a head on a plate to promote their “society without church is better” philosophy.

Like

Leave a reply to Inspector Taggart Cancel reply