gerardcharleswilson

What is it with the Fairfax Group? Does the corporate team think they have some sort of messianic mission to flatten Australian society by stamping on such nasty bumps on the body politic as the Catholic Church? It seems their task is to seek high and low for personnel who are shameless in their distortion and misrepresentation of matters concerning orthodox Christian Churches, most especially the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church obviously sparks some sort of sick collective fetish at The Age. This fetish is exhibited at its most naked in the Age-Mitchell-3AW tag team that mercilessly puts the boot into the Church at every opportunity. (Radio 3AW is part of the Fairfax Group.) I made my first comment on this super tag-team back in May 2004.

The Age had found in its trawling for Church dirt that an American priest who admitted to one sexual contact with a sixteen-year-old ten years before in a parish in the US was attached to the Williamstown parish in Melbourne. No police were involved, there was only one occasion, the priest had on his own initiative admitted his wrong-doing and submitted himself to Church discipline and rehabilitation.

The Age went to work in a series of reports inciting the usual anti-Catholic bigotry until the tormented priest was forced to withdraw. The details of the cowardly persecution are in my comment, as is Mitchell's meltdown into a steaming pool of sanctimony and hypocrisy because the priest dared to say, "Let those without sin cast the first stone." This was of course a fair and understandable appeal to give him a break. As I pointed out, anyone else in a similar situation would have been applauded for the effort to correct unacceptable behaviour. Not Catholic priests. It is always open season on Catholic religious with whatever lies, smears, misrepresentations and distortions can be got away with. There was a good example in the Williamstown case. This is what Neil Mitchell said quoting from The Age report:

A priest who has admitted having sex with a sixteen-year-old boy is back at a church in Williamstown, which adjoins a primary school. The Age reported the details today. We have known before that this was likely to happen, but The Age has the detail today.

Just about every report pointed out that the church was next a primary school. The intention was clear: it was to warn that the primary school kids were in danger of sexual abuse at the hands of the "paedophile" priest. Pure smear and misrepresentation. Primary schools do not have sixteen-year-olds. The priest freely admitted one non-criminal contact. Homosexual groups have campaigned successfully for the age of consent for gays to be fixed at sixteen years, meaning for the purposes of the law (to be consistent) that the priest's contact with the youth was a case of consenting adults. But the smear is effective. The Age knows that. If it was not for their blind prejudice it should have occurred to them that consistent with the smear, any active homosexual in the vicinity of that primary school was potentially of more danger to the pupils than the priest. That is the logic of the smear.

Age investigative reporter, Nick McKenzie has been tutored well in the boss's tactics, as he none too subtly demonstrated in a series of "investigative" reports this week. The reports have all the appearance of being a precisely directed attack in a long campaign - as indeed we know they are. The main thrust of the attack is in one long report - Faith betrayed - which appeared Monday 10 August. It was backed by a shorter report in the same edition that developed an aspect of the main report. I will come back to that in a following comment. The report is about Fr Paul Pavlou who was charged "with committing 'indecent acts' with a minor, a crime to which the Healesville priest pleaded guilty last month." This is the way the report is headed and introduced:

Faith betrayed

Nick McKenzie

August 10, 2009

When a Catholic priest began preying on her son, Lisa Smith sought help. But the church's response left her feeling shaken, bewildered and betrayed. Nick McKenzie reports.

The headline is certainly correct. The faith was violently betrayed. The priest's actions were sinful and irresponsible to such a disgusting degree that all Catholics would be filled with dismay anger and revulsion. It leaves one speechless that after all the misery and trouble caused by a small minority of priests and religious, a priest within two years of his ordination in 2004 can be so bereft of ordinary moral consciousness.

Broken Rites claimed "...the case also raises questions about how the church is recruiting its priests." Knowing their objectives I do not agree with much this group asserts but in this case one of their claims coincides with the truth. Indeed, I do not think they realise how much they are indicting themselves. The issue of recruitment is all about the type of man the Church should accept for the priesthood. Clearly Fr Pavlou is far from that type, as just about every case of clerical sexual abuse demonstrates, the reason for which Broken Rites blatantly ignores. They ignore it because it would contradict their motivating belief system and shoot their campaign down in flames. The reason Fr Pavlou is unsuitable explains his behaviour and I will come back to this.

When McKenzie talks about betrayal he is clearly not focusing on the depraved actions and irresponsibility of the doer of the evil acts, namely Fr Pavlou. He is focusing on the way the Church is dealing with cases of clerical sexual abuse. He is exerting himself - at times stretching himself - to assemble the detail in a way that leaves the Church utterly discredited. That is essentially the Broken Rites campaign. That is the implicit collusion.

Before looking more closely at McKenzie's exertions, we must review Fr Pavlou's actions which are the central concern here. At least those not driven by a political agenda would normally think so. Without Pavlou's wrongdoing there would be no harm done to the boy in question. Surely this is the main issue. If a society downgrades or denies personal moral responsibility for actions, then without that inner restraint there must be compensating external constraint: the excuse for the implementation of rigid ideologies with a program of oppressive legislation - as is being demonstrated daily.

Pavlou was ordained in 2004, spent some time at Croydon parish before arriving at the Healesville parish late 2005 as the "administrator". (Pavlou signed one of his messages to the boy as P.P. - parish priest.) He was also a senior teacher at the parish's primary school. According to McKenzie his behaviour began to "raise eyebrows" early 2006. One of the teachers noted his attention to "young boys". Her concerns were "brushed aside". The boy's mother understandably had concerns. McKenzie:

Healesville mother Lisa Smith [not her real name] had growing concerns about the 47-year-old priest's interest in her 14-year-old son, including late-night phone calls and regular sleepovers at the priest's home. She recalls shuddering when Pavlou told her that her son looked ''so cute'' when he slept.

''[He is there] Friday night, all of Saturday, Saturday evening, Sunday,'' Smith later told church investigators. ''I have had this battle of trying to get my child home.''

Most people would read this with incomprehension. First, it is clear that the priest's behaviour is not only inappropriate, but wrong. Glaringly wrong. Inviting a 14-year-old boy to sleep over in the priest's presbytery is a fundamental transgression of a priest's duty. It is so fundamental that the Archdiocese should not have to say it. Moreover, no normal parent would allow her 14-year-old son to sleep over at the house of a 47-year-old bachelor even once, priest or not. Alarm bells should have been ringing immediately.

Why did the mother not take immediate action? Was it naivety? Neglect? Stupidity? Why couldn't she get her son home? Was it an uncontrollable wilful son? If McKenzie wants to pursue a line of negligence then there is no reason why he should not look at the possible negligence of the primary carer of the boy. If she had been up to the normal responsibility of a parent, surely she would have gone immediately to the relevant authorities. There would have been no abuse to report and Pavlou would have come up on the radar.

There has been so much media attention given to the problem of clerical sexual abuse that it should be now foremost in the minds of those who have contact with the clergy, not only because of the welfare of the children under their care, but because of the majority of clergy who do the right thing and whose reputation is constantly trashed by those cynically using the actions of imposter priests to pursue an anti-Catholic agenda. I consciously use the term "imposter priest". Why? Well, let's have a look at the detail McKenzie gives of the priest's actions.

[Lisa Smith said that] on a so-called ''healing retreat''... Pavlou asked the teenager to massage his leg after a tennis game and again when they got home. ''[My son] was massaging [Pavlou's] calf muscle, which I thought, you can do that yourself..."

On another occasion, Smith peered into a room to discover Pavlou standing behind her son. ''They didn't know I was there and he was rubbing his fingers through his hair, patting him on the head and then he rubbed his shoulders.'' When Pavlou realised he was being watched, he ''sort of moved right away''.

In early October 2006, after Pavlou was offered a job at another church, he sought urgent counsel from the teenager via a series of text messages later discovered by Smith.

The first message stated: ''Hi bud, I hope I did not set you up last night. Urgent news. Boronia is now officially available. Do I apply?''

Nine minutes later, Pavlou texted the 14-year-old again: ''We will talk about it tonight. OK. Pray for me. Even if I go - I still want you to be part of my life. I hope you want that too.''

Other messages from Pavlou were also concerning. One said: ''Promise we sms each other everyday no matter what we are doing. PP.''

Stated another: ''You're my bestest friend. On fri when you come up for work we'll set up 2 monitors & 2 computers.''

When Smith threatened to stop her son contacting Pavlou, the priest warned her that he would stage a breakdown at the local parish. Days later, after announcing during a sermon that he was ill, Pavlou sent yet another text.

''Hi buddy. I'm still struggling. I will be back Tuesday. Please keep in contact daily if possible. I need your support. P.P.''

[Smith's son claimed] that Pavlou ''said he loved me'' and that the priest had spoken to the teenager about his ''very strong temptation of the devil … a temptation to masturbate''.

[He also claimed] that while he was using Pavlou's online messaging system, Pavlou had been sent a message that stated: ''Hey mate, have you got child porn yet, I need child porn.''

[And again claimed] the priest had in 2006 placed his hands underneath his top and massaged his chest and, on another occasion, ''came up from behind and tried to pull down his pants in a sexual manner''.

Despite Pavlou's efforts to erase the computer's hard disk, child pornography was found. I must add that Pavlou strenuously denied the last two accusations. Even if untrue, it hardly changes the nature of the priest's mentality and actions. Here we have a long settled habit of mind and a fixed pattern of behaviour. It is clear that the habit and pattern go on unchallenged; it is the unquestioned mode of Pavlou's life. The question now is what social and moral outlook they correspond with? Nobody and no organisation would know better than The Age.

They would know that Pavlou's behaviour is diametrically opposed to Catholic sexual morality. They know this because they are forever exclaiming about the homophobia of the patriarchic Church. They are forever telling us that they find Catholic talk about the family, marriage, fidelity in marriage, abstinence before marriage and so on backward and "highly offensive". As for the priesthood, the ordinary Catholic knows, if the PC class does not, that it is a higher calling with strict vows of chastity and obedience to Church authorities, and the responsibility of teaching and defending Church doctrine. Palvou's outlook and behaviour are in deep contradiction.

Pavlou is a homosexual and his behaviour is that of a homosexual. Nothing could be clearer. And just as clear is that Pavlou's habit of mind and behaviour mark him as an imposter in the Catholic clergy. He had to pass through the training process as an imposter. His motivations? At this point I have to be careful. There several more conclusions that follow, but I will leave them to the reader.

But one conclusion is unavoidable, though McKenzie steadfastly ignores it even in the act of bringing the evidence before the reader. The Pavlou case is in the same category as the overwhelmingly majority of cases of clerical sexual abuse: it is about a homosexual whose habits of mind and behaviour are in direct opposition to the Catholic priesthood and Catholic teaching. If a priest lives his calling faithfully it is impossible that he would ever be guilty of sexual impropriety, let alone sexual abuse. The problem of clerical sexual abuse, then, is in the first place a problem of homosexual outlook and behaviour, not of the state of a religious calling or of the way the Church deals with sexual impropriety and abuse.

McKenzie tenaciously works up the case of negligence on the part of Church authorities. He and his partners in collusion are unrestrained in the describing the culpability of this negligence, drawing all sorts of moral conclusions and recommendations for compensation. But where is the first point of negligence in clerical sexual abuse? Surely it is in the denial of the core problem.

How negligent is it to manipulate legislation is order to put homosexuals in Christian schools, when the evidence is that pubescent boys in Christian schools are most at risk when homosexuals are around? How are those so placed in danger through this negligence to be compensated? Indeed, how are those to be compensated when the first negligence is on the part of those who have the responsibility find the truth for the public and recommend appropriate measures?

In a following comment I will look more closely at the arguments and evidence McKenzie works up to demonstrate negligence on the part of the Church.

15 August 2009

Ordinary faithful Catholics can expect nothing but woe from the multi-million dollar pages of The Age (1)

A priest who has admitted having sex with a sixteen-year-old boy is back at a church in Williamstown, which adjoins a primary school. The Age reported the details today. We have known before that this was likely to happen, but The Age has the detail today.