Scapegoating of Cardinal Pell

 

While reading Peter Westmore’s “I accuse A Travesty of justice” I couldn’t help but think of the “scapegoat phenomenon.”  This is the phenomenon where a victim will be chosen or indeed a substitute is chosen to atone for sins in lieu for the sins of the real sinners, and this victim will be seen to expiate and have atoned for the “sins” of the others. We have Jesus as the most perfect “scapegoat”

It is an interesting phenomenon because we in our enlightened society would be scandalized to think that we would use or have a “scapegoat” mentality or even think of punishing anyone other than the guilty party, but the reality is that we have recently been made privy to this phenomenon. The media in all its forms has clearly shown that someone has to “pay” for the “sins” of those offending and molesting priests of long ago.

The media in all its forms (print/visual/social) which we know even supported the victims and their supporters to travel all the way to Rome, to confront Cardinal Pell as he gave his evidence, together with Counsel for the Commission, who seemed intent on breaking down the voluntary witness (Pell) showed an intensity of fury against the witness (Pell) that one would have thought that it was he himself who was responsible for all the criminal acts committed.  That he was the criminal. That it was he who had committed all the offending acts.

 As I watched Counsel for the commission, Ms Gail Furness SC I kept being reminded of the Old Testament priest who laid his hands on the chosen “goat” and placed all the sins of the community on its head and then sent the goat out into the desert to die and so all sins of the community were expiated. (Hence scapegoat).  Is this what Ms Furness was trying to do?   Lay all past sexual abuse sins by sinful priests e.g.  Frs Risdale, Searson, Day and others laid on the head of Card. Pell and he was to take the fall for them? Goodness?  What a scalp!

 As we watched the proceedings being telecast from Rome it became obvious that truth was not the goal, but a side issue of this Royal Commission, and that the presumption guilt rather than the presumption of innocence was that which was to be proven.  The presumption of guilt overhung the whole proceedings like an unpleasant damp overcast Melbourne day, and even from thousands kilometres felt intolerable.

 Mr Peter McClellan QC Chairman of the Royal Commission also appeared to make no effort to temper the belligerence of his counsel (Furness) who was intent on proving the guilt of the Cardinal. Of showing him to be a liar and a non-caring person. From the beginning, Counsel for the commission (Furness) set out to find him guilty at least of knowing what was happening and doing nothing about it.  This was difficult to watch as the palpable hostility made it possible for anyone of goodwill to see that there was a long list of other individuals closer to the perpetrators who may have noted or seen something happening and more likely to do something about  it but it was Pell who was to be the fall guy.  Why?

Because apart from the scapegoat phenomenon in Australia we have a healthy “tall poppy syndrome” alive and well.  We will honour overseas guests and their accomplishments but our own we tend to demean. Our own must wander over the waters and then there is sense that something isn’t quite right.  

The scapegoating phenomenon can be found in all manner of situations where it seems like an injustice has been committed and no reparation done.  The “sin” has not supposedly been atoned

for and so sinner/s appear to have escaped punishment.  A “scapegoat” is chosen because of some link or association and for no other reason the denunciation, humiliation, persecution and removal from the community begins in earnest and persists until the “scapegoat” is finished, that is, dead.

 Whilst scapegoating is not a preferred term but a more modern term “witch-hunt” was used in the Pell experience I would suggest scapegoating is a more apt description because of the wave of hatred against the Cardinal and the Catholic Church,   which was incited by all forms of media and media personalities and which was also clearly demonstrated in the conduct of the members of the Royal Commission itself.

The anti-Pell saga played out before the eyes of the world and was done with the sole purpose of bringing down Cardinal Pell, to make him pay. To humiliate him, to embarrass him and the Church and to call into question his position at the Vatican.    

Someone had to pay for the sins of Ridsdale, Searson, Day, Ryan, and all the other other offending priests and the bigger the scalp the better the prize.

 

 

Abortion and Violence

 

Victoria’s Royal Commission’s Inquiry into Domestic

Violence is very important and timely and this societal
violence needs to be stopped. Far too many children are
being murdered. Too many women. Too many men. There
is too much violence. Everywhere we turn there is one
more murder. One more stabbing. One more violent
assault. The home, the suburbs, the streets, schools, are
now a war zone.
Why?

We live in a society that is so comfortable we have it so
easy. So why so much violence? And always I go back to
loss of respect for life.
Yes indeed we have it easy. We have all the commodities
but at the cost of respect for another and above all for life.

Slowly respect for life has been eroded and this loss of

respect began with the loss of respect for the life of the
tiniest infant.

Those who cannot defend themselves. Abortion has

become “normal.” Abortion means killing another. A little
one and if we can kill a little one then as Mother Teresa
would say “if a mother can kill her own child what is left for
me to kill you and you to kill me, there is nothing between.”

Over one generation we have gone from abortion for

difficulties to abortion on demand to abortion to full term,
to infanticide. In less than 30 years. We are talking legal

death of birthed babies!!! (allowing aborted babies born

alive to die without assistance).We are talking about mothers
 taking their viable babies knowing that they would be
killed in a cruel way. We are talking about fathers taking
their sons or daughters to be killed intentionally.

And then we ask the Royal Commissioners to investigate

domestic/family violence. I wonder if the Commissioners
would ever think that an abortion could be the very start of
violence between previously happy couples.

 I wonder if the Commissioners would consider that the violence
experienced by a child in an abortion is a similar or
replicated version of violence committed during murder of
an adult. Or do they think it’s different?

We now know that there are psychological sequelae to

abortion. The woman experiences life long after effects
whilst the male is also affected but differently, generally
through his sense of impotence in the matter.

For the male who is affected it is often the sense of helplessness
at being unable to do anything to protect his child and this anger is
then turned inwards to self‐punish, by you guessed it, fighting, aggression.

Prior to the birth of the baby the father has absolutely no

rights in respect of the child. He cannot do anything to
protect the life of his child and if the mother of that child
does not want to keep, or give birth to that child then there
is no one who can prevent the abortion from happening.

No‐one, including the state, because the state has

purchased into the argument by legislating that the life of
that new individual whilst in utero is a nonentity, and
therefore dependent upon the whim of the host body.

Legislation has not decreed that the relationship between

woman and infant is symbiotic but at the same time the
infant is independent and deserving of the utmost respect.
It has in fact decreed that the life or death of that infant is
dependent upon the vagaries of the stronger of the two parties.

The violence we are daily fed through all forms of media is

symptomatic of the “just below the surface” violence within
the community. There is a tension, which must be released
and will not evaporate without leaving in its wake a disaster.

Just as we see a tension beneath the psychology of some
men and women after abortion. A tension which explodes
into violence. Both self‐harming and other harming
violence.

Perhaps an explanation (mine) of the response to abortion

may shed some light on this episode. Since the onset of the
culture of the “pill” and “me‐ism” (sexual revolution) the
woman has progressively taken control of her fertility and
her body. And indeed to be able to understand her body
and to guard and protect her body as inviolate is a good thing.

However, this is not what has happened. The woman has

demanded control over her body in as far as her fertility is
concerned, and has removed from her husband/partner
any rights and responsibility towards an act which has
esulted in a conception.

This, whilst ostensibly “good” as far as some men and

women are concerned, has ultimately failed all.
Today, whether he chooses or not, a man can walk away
from his responsibility towards a child he has engendered.

Conversely should he choose not to walk away from the

responsibility it can be forcibly wrenched from him so that
he cannot do anything to change the situation.

The removal of responsibility has not spelled equal rights,

as has been suggested, but indeed unequal suffering. The
woman suffers lifelong anguish. Yes it’s real. It happens
even for those who blithely believe that it hasn’t affected
them. The man suffers loss of something of his essence, of
his fatherhood, of his fathering. Of his manhood. He forgets
how to be man.

For the woman, in her very being there is a rupture unlike

any other. There is a grief quite unlike any other. The kind
of wrenching grief which is the result of guilt. The kind of
grief which is the result of the intent behind the loss. The
kind of grief which says, powerlessness, hopelessness,
utter despair. That is the kind of grief which abortion
leaves in its wake and is the legacy for the woman and man
(either short term or long term) who have acceded to the
abortion experience.

For the state and nation which has decreed that the killing

of its future citizens is lawful, there is to be other losses
which cannot ever be recouped. For this state or nation the
beginning of its end is in sight. Citizens begin their life as
zygotes, embryos, foetuses, babies, young ones,
adolescents, youth, and mature citizens.

A nation to be successful, progressive, depends on its citizens.
A nation needs to be able to sustain itself and to replace itself.
The birth of each child in every nation should be a celebration
and an acknowledgement that a future is assured because
our children are born. Abortion says otherwise. It says
death. And again as Mother Teresa would say “it is the
greatest destroyer of peace.”