Pell not good choice for cardinal
The Editor, Osservatore Romano newspaper, Vatican City.
Oct 11, 2003
I respectfully suggest that Dr Pell be NOT admitted to the College of Cardinals, because:
- He made erroneous statements about clergy child sex abuse when being videotaped for television's "60 Minutes" on June 2 2002, yet for 10 days denied the truthful statements he had made to that programme,
- He failed to correct the perception that he had given incorrect information, even after reviewing his own denial and then admission about the parents of the two girls, and after Archbishop of Brisbane John Bathersby explained around June 3 2002 that some victims were signing secrecy clauses, and other cases around Australia were being publicised.
- All along he knew that the Australian Catholic Bishops' document "Towards Healing," saying that confidentiality would not be required from victims, was directly contrary to traditional Church practice and has virtually no status at the Vatican, and is unenforceable in Canon Law,
- He knew, or ought to have known, that secrecy is at the heart of the policy of sex-abusing clergy being transferred by their superiors, because of the waste of time in holding diocesan trials, with the strong possibility that the Vatican will overturn the expulsion of sinful clergy, and
- Promotion will be perceived as approval of the Church's traditional sex-abuse practices that have harmed so many thousands of lives, plus the officially sanctioned secrecy and dishonesty.
I'll pray for the Pope to get well soon.
-- John Massam, Greenwood, Western Australia
The Frames section below suits most Browsers, being in Rich Text Format (RTF)
If the letter is not displayed, try clicking pellout.rtf of 35 kilobytes.
To PRINT the wording in the Floating Frame panel above, do NOT previously click your Mouse in the Address or Location panel of your Browser. (By the way, Print Preview does not work properly with some Browsers.) To be sure, click in the Framed part of the Webpage first. If your computer does not display Frames, follow the directions displayed above in the panel starting "No Frames?".
** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is available without profit for people who are interested in reading it for research and educational purposes. If you quote from this, please check back (if possible) and acknowledge the ORIGINAL source. **
Want to help clean up clergy child abuse? Visit the Ethics Outreach webpage on this website.
Original letter composed on Microsoft® Word 2000©,
and changed to Rich Text Format (RTF) on 11 October 2003. The HTML webpage was
composed with Ms WordPad© and spellchecked with Ms Word 2000© (North American spelling and grammar retained where applicable), on 11 Oct 03, revised 12 Oct 03, modified 15 Oct 03
RELIGION CLARITY CAMPAIGN
Doc. URL =
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/religion/pellout.htm