‘Many People Were Damaged By Carl Beech’

‘Many people were damaged by Carl Beech’

Carl Beech ruined lives with fake accusations of sex abuse. Why? Vanessa Engle, the director of a new film about him, explains

Ed Potton

Monday August 17 2020, 12.01am, The Times

Vanessa Engle, director of The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech

Vanessa Engle has built a reputation on asking straight questions about knotty subjects. Engle’s television documentaries on the art world, Jews, lefties, Harley Street and domestic violence have been marked out by humanity, curiosity and her disarming, direct interviewing style. The British journalist’s new film, though, is perhaps the most disturbing of her 30-year career. The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech is one of those rare titles that’s not an exaggeration.

In 2012 Beech, a hospital inspector in his forties from Gloucester, claimed to police that he had been abused, raped and tortured as a boy in the late Seventies and early Eighties by a paedophile ring that included the politicians Edward Heath, Leon Brittan and Harvey Proctor and the senior army officer Lord Bramall. Beech, referred to by the police as “Nick” to protect his identity, also said that he witnessed members of that ring murder three boys and that he had been abused by his stepfather. “I had poppies pinned to my chest whilst they did whatever they wanted to do,” he says of the “VIP ring” in a police interview. That would normally begin with him being forced to perform oral sex, he adds, “but would always culminate in being raped”.

As Proctor said in an incendiary press conference at the time, Beech’s claims amounted to “just about the worst allegations anyone can make against another person”. Yet, after an 18-month investigation that cost £2.5 million and put huge stress on the accused men — Proctor lost his job and home — not a single arrest had been made. The allegations were completely fabricated. Last year Beech, who had been awarded more than £20,000 in compensation for non-existent injuries suffered in the alleged abuse, was tried and sentenced to 18 years in prison for offences including fraud and perverting the course of justice.

Carl Beech (left) in Court 2018

And yet his unbelievable story was at first widely believed in a country that was reeling from Jimmy Savile’s crimes. Victims of abuse were being listened to like never before. In the police interviews Beech looks plausibly nervous, vulnerable, damaged. 

“We were at a moment where people would believe literally anything on this subject,” Engle, 57, says by phone from her home in north London. “The press believed it, politicians believed it, police believed it, the public believed it. There are still people saying, ‘Oh, no smoke without fire. It must be true.’ ”

Except in this case it wasn’t. Beech, it is clear now, is a fantasist on a grand scale. If notes read out in the film are anything to go by, he is also a dreadful poet. “Electrocution and drowning were some of the tools/ They used when I broke the rules,” he wrote. “They used snakes and wasps/ Or left me out there to die in the frost.”

“Well he obviously didn’t die, did he, because he’s alive and still in prison, for f***’s sake,” says his ex-wife, Dawn Beech, in the film. She is a peach of an interviewee — candid, courageous and funny — which is extraordinary, given her travails. Her sex life with Beech, she tells Engle, “just wasn’t good at all”. 

Another interviewee is Mark Conrad, a journalist who was taken in by Beech. “Some people have probably assumed that Beech took you for a fool,” Engle says to Conrad. See what I mean about direct? “I’m a very direct person,” she says. “I did ten years of therapy and that gave me the tools to be very aware of what’s happening in the room when I ask questions and what it’s possible to ask. You know you’ve done a good interview if you know you’ve taken a risk in some of your questions.”

Nevertheless, she says she was nervous about making this documentary. “Why would I spend time on somebody who was not a real victim, as far as we know, and who had inflicted so much damage to the real victims? Normally, the more you familiarise yourself with stories, the less strange they become, but with this one Carl’s motivation just seemed stranger and more despicable to me.”

What was that motivation? Engle thinks there may have been a past trauma. “You just have to look at him. He does not look comfortable in his own skin, does he?” When police searched Beech’s home they found substantial amounts of child pornography, the possession of which contributed to his prison sentence. While there is no evidence that Beech was abused, Mike Pierce — an anti-abuse charity worker and survivor of child sexual abuse who appears in the film — met him and felt that he had been. “So, I can’t categorically say that he wasn’t,” Engle says. “I don’t know how bad a thing has to happen to someone to send them off the rails.”

The film ended up becoming an examination of the damage that Beech has done. “There was just wave upon wave,” she says. “We all understood that the falsely accused were very damaged, but I hadn’t really realised that Beech’s own family was damaged too. The family of his step-siblings has been really badly damaged. I hadn’t understood that the journalists [who covered the case] were damaged.”

Conrad talks about the long period of depression he went through when Beech was found to be a liar. “I know that some of the police who were fooled have had breakdowns as well,” Engle says.

She coaxes brilliant details out of people, punctuating the grimness with off-kilter interludes. Brittan’s widow and housekeeper talk about the police searching the house. “The thing that hurt the lady more than anything — they took his slippers,” the housekeeper says. “Were they nice slippers?” Engle asks. “They were pretty awful, to be honest,” Diana Brittan replies. “No monogram.” 

This is ultimately, Engle says, “a film about truth. Which, of course, is very relevant in the post-truth era.” In the age of Trump and Johnson, will fantasists like Beech become more common? “That’s a terrifying thought,” she says. There have always been fantasists, she points out. Her previous film, The $50m Art Swindle, was about Michel Cohen, a Frenchman who made a fortune by selling Picassos and Monets that he didn’t own. “He was a conman and a very deluded person too. We all have a tiny strain of deluded thinking. That’s not always a bad thing. It’s what makes people have dreams and grand ambitions.”

It’s hard to put a positive spin on Beech’s case, though. What’s most heartbreaking is how much damage it has done to the cause of genuine abuse victims. “We just were at a moment where the victims of historic child sexual abuse were coming forward and were being believed,” she says. “What kind of a person would want to get in the way of that?”

Engle asked Beech for an interview, but he refused. “We’d have loved to ask him why he did it. But when you see his extraordinary performance in those police videos, I don’t think you could whip off the mask and the real Carl Beech would step forward.”

Does she think he feels any remorse? “From everything I know and from everything I’ve heard from those closest to him, no, he doesn’t,” Engle says. “He’s never said, ‘I made it up.’ He really does seem to believe what he’s saying.”

The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech is on BBC Two on August 24 at 9pm

Cardinal George Pell and His Accusers [1]

Cardinal George Pell

George Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia  from 1996 to 2001 and Archbishop of Sydney from 2001 to 2014. He was created Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003. He is the Catholic Church's most senior official to be convicted of child sexual abuse. In June 2017, Cardinal Pell was charged in Victoria with multiple historical sexual assault offences; he denied all charges. On 11 December 2018 he was found guilty on five charges related to sexual assault of two 13-year old boys while Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s. Pell lodged an appeal against his conviction to the Victorian Court of Appeal, which dismissed Pell's appeal by a majority of two to one in August 2019. (Justice Mark Weinberg strongly dissented from the other two). On 13 November 2019, the High Court of Australia  granted Cardinal George Pell special leave to appeal his convictions. The appeal is to be held in March 2020.

The High Court acquitted Cardinal Pell of all charges on a unanimous verdict by all 7 judges. I am doing  a second article Cardinal George Pell - Acquittal and Continued Hysteria [2].

(A) Parallels with Ireland (and UK)

At least eight Irish Bishops (including all four Archbishops) have been subjected to false allegations related to child sex abuse - either of being pedophiles themselves or of covering up child sex abuse. This includes the late Cardinal Archbishop Cahal Daly who was Primate of All Ireland and John Charles McQuaid, Primate of Ireland and the best known Irish Catholic churchman of the 20th century. I wrote about this in 2017 in a comment on an article in America Magazine concerning Cardinal Pell [see section (E) below]. There is a more up to date version here
Eight Falsely Accused Bishops (and Archbishops) in Ireland

There are also similarities with the case of former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall who was found guilty on a second charge of raping a child even though the initial charge was clearly bogus - and the jury acquitted on that count. (The entire case then collapsed due to the stupidly of the accusers in giving a post-conviction interview to a newspaper that exposed both as serial accusers!) Cardinal Pell was convicted on the unsupported testimony of one accuser even though several previous allegations against him had been found to be false. [see section (D) ] 

Hysteria generated by the media played a major role for Nora Wall and Cardinal Pell. An Irish Times editorial on 17 December 2005 entitled "Nora Wall" stated that: The charges were laid at a time when allegations of the abuse of children in institutions had entered the public domain. The case was heard within a month of the broadcast by RTÉ of the [3 part] States of Fear programmes. The jury could not but have been affected, it seems, by the horrific abuse exposed in that series and by the complaints of the child victims that no-one listened to them. Cardinal Pell was likewise subjected to a vicious media assault for years before his trial in 2018. [See section (B) ] 

In addition to being convicted a few weeks after the States of Fear series, Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe were initially accused within months of the broadcast of RTE's broadcast of a different bogus documentary "Dear Daughter". As per Wikipedia on Nora Wall:

In February 1996 RTÉ broadcast "Dear Daughter" – Louis Lentin's TV documentary about alleged abuse in St Vincent’s residential school, Goldenbridge, Dublin, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy. It featured the story of Christine Buckley who had been there in the 1950s.The documentary concentrated on allegations made against one Mercy nun Sister Xavieria. The programme claimed that, on one occasion, Christine Buckley had been caned by Sister Xavieria so severely that the entire side of her leg was split open from her hip to her knee. She said that she was treated in the casualty department of the local hospital and believes that she received 80 to 120 stitches.

No medical evidence has ever been produced to support this claim.The surgeon who ran the casualty department at the hospital has made a statement which renders it highly unlikely that such an incident ever took place. The surgeon pointed out that caning would not have caused a wound of this kind, which would have required surgical treatment under a general anaesthetic and not stitches in a casualty department.

Yet the allegations against the Sisters of Mercy were widely believed at the time. In his essay "States of Fear, the Redress Board and Ireland's Folly", UK cultural historian Richard Webster states that "in the wake of the broadcast, atrocity stories about Goldenbridge and other industrial schools began to proliferate".

There is also a clear parallel with Operation Midland in the UK, a hysterical child abuse witch-hunt conducted by the Metropolitan police in London from 2014-16. In this case the motive was Class Hatred rather than the Anti-Clerical variety and the targets were leading Tories (Conservatives) or "Cultural Tories" rather than Catholic Bishops.  As per Wikipedia:
Once Operation Midland was underway, the police began their focus on the men whom [Carl] Beech had implicated as being members of a VIP paedophile ring – amongst those he had named included the former Members of Parliament Harvey Proctor and Greville Janner, the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, the former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Bramall, the former Director of the Secret Intelligence Service Maurice Oldfield, and the former Director-General of MI5 Michael Hanley.

In July 2019 false accuser Carl Beech was sentenced to 18 years in prison on 12 counts of perverting the cause of justice and one of fraud. It was by no means a typical ending to a false allegations saga and it may mark a turning point in the UK!

(B) Demonised by "Liberal" Media because of Catholic Orthodoxy

According to Bill Donohue President of the Catholic League in The War Against Cardinal Pell  (20 July 2017)

We know one thing for sure: Pell was demonized when he offered his account [to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse].  Indeed, as a reporter for one Australian newspaper put it, he has “appeared at a parliamentary inquiry and a royal commission and before an audience of abuse survivors who reflexively hiss, howl and heckle.” Yet he always honors requests to speak.....

Few Australian reporters have been as dogged as Andrew Bolt in covering the Pell story; he writes for the Herald Sun. He has long noted the media bias against Pell. In 2016, he wrote, “There is something utterly repulsive about the media’s persecution of George Pell. There is something also very frightening about this abuse of power.” On July 3, 2017, Bolt said, “The media commentary suggests there’s little chance Cardinal George Pell can get a fair trial.” What concerns him is the temptation to make someone in the Church hierarchy pay for the sins of others. “He himself may be innocent,” Bolt says, “yet could be punished as a scapegoat.”

Amanda Vanstone is not a friend of organized religion, but in her coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald she noted that “What we are seeing is no better than a lynch mob from the dark ages.” She adds that “The public arena is being used to trash a reputation and probably prevent a fair trial.” She freely admits that she and Pell have “widely divergent views on a number of matters,” but having “differing views isn’t meant to be a social death warrant for the one with the least popular views."........

The principal reason why Pell is hated is because he is a larger-than-life Australian cleric who strongly supports the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Quite frankly, he is an inviting target in a land where expressions of anti-Catholic bigotry are ascendant. Carl E. Olson writes in the Catholic World Report that “much of Australia seems to have held on rather tightly to its suspicion, dislike, and even hatred of the Catholic Church.” Olson quotes one of his Aussie correspondents. “The Australian leftist establishment hates him, the gay lobby hates him, the atheists, liberal Catholics and feminist ideologues hold him in contempt and he has taken on the Italian mafia in trying to reform the Vatican finances."

(C) Justice Mark Weinberg (Victoria Court of Appeal) Dissents regarding Pell's Conviction

[Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large on "The Australian" and a former Editor-in-Chief. On 24 August 2019 The Australian published his article "How Faith Was Lost on Judgment Day for a State Legal System"]

Justice Mark Weinberg’s dissent is long and closely reasoned, ensuring grave doubts about Pell’s guilt will not be dissipated by the 2-1 verdict against him. 

The 2-1 Victorian Court of Appeal dismissal of George Pell’s appeal against his sexual offences convictions may settle Pell’s guilt in the eyes of the law, but this contested judgment cannot constitute an enduring settlement or convincing argument in relation to Pell’s guilt.

It is an extraordinary judgment. The power, logic and suasion lies in the 200-page minority judgment by Mark Weinberg, a former commonwealth director of public prosecutions and the most experienced of the three judges in criminal law. Weinberg’s dissent is long and closely reasoned. Weinberg has ensured that grave doubts about Pell’s guilt will not be dissipated by the 2-1 verdict against him.

Weinberg has undermined the assumptions of the prosecution case as accepted by Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Justice Chris Maxwell, president of the Court of Appeal. Given this minority judgment, Pell’s legal team is likely to take recourse to the High Court.

In upholding Pell’s appeal and in the arguments he made, Weinberg raises the implication an innocent man is being convicted and this, in turn, raises far wider questions. Can the public have faith in the criminal justice system of Victoria? The majority case, obviously, must be accepted. But a reading of the entire judgment suggests the majority case is flawed and less convincing than the minority.

The Pell trial has never been about the egregious crimes of the Catholic Church in relation to sexual abuse of children. It is about only one issue: whether Pell is a sexual predator. Yet these two elements seem difficult, almost impossible, to separate, and this tension seems embedded in the legal process and Court of Appeal decision.

On May 9 last year [2018] on the occasion of Weinberg’s retirement from the Supreme Court and appointment as a reserve judge, Paul Holdenson QC gave the address and began with these words: “Your Honour was undoubtedly the best criminal appellate advocate of your generation.” Given that unassailable testimony, Weinberg’s judgment warrants substantial evaluation. It cannot be ignored.

Weinberg goes to the narrow basis of the prosecution case: “In the present case the prosecution relied entirely upon the evidence of the complainant to establish guilt and nothing more. There was no supporting evidence of any kind from any other witness. Indeed, there was no supporting evidence of any kind at all. These convictions were based upon the jury’s assessment of the complainant as a witness and nothing more.

“Mr Boyce (for the prosecution) in his submission to this court did not shrink from that having been the entire prosecution case at trial. Indeed, as indicated, he invited the members of the court to approach this ground of appeal in exactly the same way. He asked this court to focus upon the complainant’s demeanour in assessing his credibility and reliability and to treat that matter as decisive.

“In my view, Mr Walker (acting for Pell) was justified in submitting that the complainant did, at times, embellish aspects of his account. On occasion, he seemed almost to ‘clutch at straws’ in an attempt to minimise, or overcome, the obvious inconsistencies between what he had said on earlier occasions and what the objective evidence clearly showed.”

These judgments cannot be separated from the social upheaval as exposed by the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that documented extensive crimes of sexual abuse by institutions, notably the Catholic Church, serial cover-ups, abuses of power and refusal to believe the victims when they came forward.

The royal commission correctly condemned the criminal justice system for being “ineffective in responding to crimes of sexual violence”, with Justice Peter McClellan praising the victims, saying: “They deserve our nation’s thanks.” Late last year Scott Morrison captured the essence of the transformation with his apology to the victims, saying: “I believe you, we believe you, your country believes you.”

And the judicial majority believed the victim against Pell. The prosecution depended on the complainant’s testimony, delivered by video in the first trial. Because it was recorded and used in the second trial there was no second cross-examination. No other evidence was required, no witnesses, no corroboration. The Ferguson-Maxwell majority had no doubt. They accepted the prosecution argument that the complainant “came across as someone who was telling the truth” — that he “was clearly not a liar, was not a fantasist and was a witness of truth”.

His word was accepted over that of Pell and the substantial body of evidence produced by Pell’s legal team. That team outlined in evidence 13 factual obstacles in the path of conviction with the Ferguson-Maxwell majority rejecting all 13.

One lawyer close to these events told me: “The word of complainants is now regarded as near infallible.” During the trial various inconsistencies by the complainant were explained away by the prosecution as the established reactions by sexual abuse victims.

Consider the facts. The facts are that complainant A made a complaint to police in June 2015 about an alleged abuse committed by Pell 19 years earlier in 1996 against two 13-year-old choristers. The complainant claimed two incidents. The first happened after Pell served Sunday solemn mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral when he found the two boys in the priests’ sacristy. There was no evidence Pell had spoken to the boys before.

The prosecution said Pell, in his robes, said something like: “What are you doing in here?” Pell then allegedly immediately undid his trousers, pulled out his penis and forced B’s head close to his genitalia. This took place for barely a minute or two. Pell then allegedly turned to A and forced his penis into A’s mouth. This incident did not last any more than two minutes. Pell then instructed A to remove his pants and more abuse occurred for another minute or two. The boys were reported to be sobbing and whimpering.

A did not complain to anyone on the ride home or afterwards, nor did he ever discuss the alleged abuse with B. The second boy, B, died in 2014 having never made any complaint. When asked by his mother, B said he had never been interfered with. [My emphasis]

In Weinberg’s judgment, he refers to the argument made by Pell’s barrister, Robert Richter, in his final address to the jury reminding them “there were literally dozens of people, including a number of adults who would have been congregating around the area of the priests’ sacristy shortly after the conclusion of Sunday solemn mass. Anyone could have walked into that room at any time and immediately seen what was going on …

“It would be extraordinary to think that he would have offended in the manner described by the complainant with the door even partly open. In addition, there was nothing to have prevented either of the boys from leaving the room while the other was being attacked. There was nothing to suggest that the applicant (Pell) had previously been acquainted with either of them. There was no suggestion that he had engaged in any grooming. There was no evidence that the applicant had ever threatened either boy. Nor had he said to them that they were not to tell anyone what had occurred.”

Moreover, by abusing two boys at once it meant if one made a complaint the other could corroborate it. Richter said only a “madman” would have attempted such abuse immediately after Sunday mass.

The second alleged abuse is even more extraordinary. Complainant A said at least a month after the first incident, again following a Sunday mass at the cathedral, he was processing with the choir back through the sacristy corridor when Pell pushed himself against A on a wall and squeezed A’s testicles and penis over his robes. Pell did not say anything. A did not tell B about this incident.

Weinberg said: “Mr Richter submitted that the complainant’s account of this second incident was so highly improbable as to be incapable of acceptance. The idea that a six-foot four-inch fully robed archbishop in the presence of a number of choristers, including at least several adults, as well as some concelebrant priests, would attack a young choirboy in a public place, push him violently against a wall, grab him hard by the testicles and squeeze for several seconds to the point of inflicting considerable pain upon the complainant was said to border on the fanciful.”

Weinberg resorts to the trial transcript:

Richter: Yes, and out of nowhere the archbishop physically assaults you. Is that what you say?

Complainant: Yes.

Richter: In front of all these people?

Complainant: Yes … Yes. And it happened like that. It was such a quick, um, quick and cold, callous kind of thing that happened. It was — it was over before it even started and it was — I was isolated in a corner for literally seconds. Um, there were people sporadically walking down the hallway and um I was obviously not being looked at, at that time, because somebody would have, hopefully would have reported it.

Richter: So the archbishop in his full — oh you said and, of course, the choir numbered what, about 50 people?

Complainant: I would say so.

Richter: And in the middle of that, number of people, the archbishop in his full regalia shoves you against the wall violently, yes?

Complainant: Yes.

Richter: Which hand did he use?

Complainant: I’m not certain.

In relation to the second incident Weinberg was withering in comments going to the integrity of justice in Victoria: “The complainant’s account of the second incident seems to me to take brazenness to new heights, the like of which I have not seen.

“I would have thought any prosecutor would be wary of bringing a charge of this gravity against anyone, based upon the implausible notion that a sexual assault of this kind would take place in public and in the presence of numerous potential witnesses. Had the incident occurred in the way that the complainant alleged, it seems to me highly unlikely that none of those many persons present would have seen what was happening, or reported it in some way.”

The implication cannot be missed: Pell should not have been brought to trial on the second incident, let alone convicted. Weinberg said it was “not open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt” of Pell’s guilt on the second offence.

In reviewing the trials, Weinberg said: “Objectively speaking, this was always going to be a problematic case. The complainant’s allegations against the applicant were, to one degree or another, implausible. In the case of the second incident, even that is an understatement.”

The Ferguson-Maxwell majority saw a different reality. To them, there was nothing in the complainant’s answers to suggest “he had been caught out or had tripped himself up”. Indeed, they saw his uncertainties on issue after issue as “a further indication of A’s credibility”. The majority said the complainant’s explanation of what he could remember and what he could not “had the ring of truth”.

In relation to the second incident they accepted totally the complainant’s version, saying “there was nothing inherently improbable” about his account, and rejected the claim the incident could not have gone unnoticed by others.

In his trial submission Richter said a large number of “independently improbable if not ‘impossible’ things” would need to have had to occur within a very short timeframe (perhaps 10 minutes) “if the complainant’s account of the first incident were true”. A long list followed.

It included evidence by the assistant priest, Charles Portelli, and sacristan, Maxwell Potter, to the effect that they accompanied Pell after mass and that it was, in effect, impossible for him to have found himself alone as described by the complainant. Weinberg said: “Even a mere ‘reasonable possibility’, unrebutted by the prosecution, that what Portelli and Potter said might be both truthful and accurate, would give rise to a complete defence and would necessitate an acquittal.”

He said their evidence in relation to Pell “remaining on the steps after mass was, in substance, ‘alibi’ evidence” concerning the first incident. The judicial majority rejected this. The issue here is whether Pell was in the priests’ sacristy alone and robed for the critical few minutes during which he committed the alleged offences.

The Ferguson-Maxwell judgment said it was “open to the jury” to find the assaults occurred in that five to six minutes before the “hive of activity” described by other witnesses began. They said the jury was entitled to doubts about Portelli’s evidence and, taken as a whole, it did not cast doubts on the complainant’s evidence.

Referring to the defence, Weinberg said: “This trial involved a most detailed and comprehensive challenge to a prosecution case. That attack was largely based upon the unchallenged testimony of a significant number of witnesses, all of whom were of good character, and reputable. It was not suggested that any of them had lied.

“Those who recalled relevant events had good reason to do so. Mr Walker (for Pell) submitted that the evidence that they gave, whether viewed individually or collectively, was more than sufficient to establish that the complainant’s account, in its specific detail, was ‘realistically impossible’. In substance, Mr Walker submitted that this has always been a weak case, built upon an account by the complainant that was itself highly improbable.”

Weinberg said the prosecution did not address Richter’s argument about “compounding improbabilities”.

But he alluded to the heart of the matter by inferring the answer the prosecution would surely give was that the “complainant’s evidence was so compelling, so credible, and reliable that any notion of compounding improbabilities would be overcome”.

In short, all paths lead back to the same place: the complainant must be believed. The prosecution and the appeal majority put much emphasis on the complainant’s demeanour. Weinberg attacked the legal basis behind this.

“The High Court has observed that it can be dangerous to place too much reliance upon the appearance of a witness, rather than focusing, so far as possible, upon other, more objectively reliable matters,” he said. “These might include, for example, contemporary documents, clearly established facts, scientifically approved tests and the apparent logic of the events in question. Empirical evidence has cast serious doubts upon the capacity of any human being to tell the truth from falsehood merely from the observations of a witness giving evidence.”

He referred to research by the Australian Law Reform Commission that “almost universally concluded that facial reaction and bodily behaviour were unlikely to assist in arriving at a valid conclusion about the evidence of most witnesses”. Yet the judicial majority was confident, in the extreme, about its assessment of the complainant’s demeanour saying he “clearly” was telling the truth. No room for doubt there.

Weinberg said the events had taken place 20 years earlier. That alone had to raise questions of memory reliability. When Pell’s team said that B’s denial to his mother of ever being abused should be given weight, the prosecution said it must be put aside entirely — this was now known as characteristic behaviour of victims. [My emphasis]

When Richter challenged the complainant’s failure to have ever discussed the abuse with the other boy, the complainant said they wanted to “purge” it from their systems and the prosecution argued this highly emotional exchange was further evidence of a truthful witness. The prosecution argued the complainant’s evidence had “grown in stature” during the trial and that merely viewing his recording of evidence would, on its own, show why the jury had convicted.

Weinberg was unpersuaded. He said: “Mr Walker (for Pell) submitted that on a fair assessment of the complainant’s evidence, both through reading the transcript and through viewing his recorded testimony, he had frequently adjusted, added to, and indeed embellished the account that he originally gave to police in 2015 … Indeed, on occasion he gave answers that not even he could possibly have believed to be true.

“I am quite unconvinced by Mr Boyce’s submission that the complainant’s evidence was so compelling, either when viewed as a whole, or when regard is had to his distressed response to Mr Richter’s vigorous cross-examination, that I should put aside all of the factors that point to his account as being unreliable.”

Weinberg raised a potential problem for Pell in the trial. Richter’s argument was that the abuse had been impossible in any realistic sense given the evidence. “However, there was a risk that it set a forensic hurdle that the defence never actually had to overcome,” Weinberg said. The onus was on the prosecution to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, not on the defence to show it was impossible for the offences to have occurred. 


Lindy Chamberlain Case and High Court Justice William Deane
 In summary, Weinberg said that Bret Walker SC, acting for Pell, had identified a sufficient body of evidence to cast reasonable doubt on the verdict and that he would set aside the convictions. In conclusion he referred to the Lindy Chamberlain case when Justice William Deane of the High Court would have allowed the appeal from a jury decision.

Deane made the critical distinction — it was not about saying a person was innocent when found guilty; it was about saying the person had not been proven to be guilty according to the test required by the criminal justice system. Deane felt, despite the jury’s verdict, the evidence did not establish Chamberlain’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

“I find myself in a position quite similar to that which confronted Deane J,” Weinberg said. He believed there was a “significant possibility” Pell did not commit the offences. That meant he had to be acquitted.

The split Victorian Court of Appeal judgment exposes a split over the law: are complainants about child sexual abuse to be accorded a higher status of believability despite evidence that would normally cast reasonable doubt? The Weinberg judgment raises the most serious questions about the test used not just in Pell’s conviction but about how the law is to be applied.

PAUL KELLY

(D) Other Sex Abuse Allegations Against Cardinal Pell

Bill Donohue President of the Catholic League listed these in a July 2017 article "The War against Cardinal Pell"  

• [In June 2002] a Melbourne man said he was abused by Pell in 1962 at a camp when he was 12; Pell was studying for the priesthood. The case was thrown out when nothing could be substantiated. Not a single person who worked at the camp supported the charges, and all of the signed statements were favorable to Pell. The accuser had been convicted 39 times for offenses ranging from assault to drug use. Indeed, he was a violent drug addict who served four years in prison. He drove drunk, beat people, and took amphetamines.

• [In 2013] Pell was accused of doing nothing to help an abused Australian boy who pleaded for help in 1969. But Pell’s passport showed that he lived in Rome the entire year. [As per Wikipedia "During the course of the (2013 Victorian Parliamentary) Inquiry, a victim of a paedophile Christian Brother at St Alipius Primary School claimed that in 1969 Pell heard him pleading for help a few weeks after he had been raped. Pell denied the claim, which was later discredited when Pell produced his passport to confirm that he was not living in Australia that year.]

• At a later date, Pell was accused of chasing away a complainant who informed him of a molesting priest. The authorities dismissed the charges after discovering that Pell did not live at the presbytery in Ballarat where the encounter allegedly took place. The accuser was later imprisoned for sexually abusing children. [As per Wikipedia, Pell submitted evidence that he did not live in Ballarat or in that presbytery at the time, and the counsel-assisting noted in her final submission that "Cardinal Pell's evidence about his living arrangements and duties in 1973 and 1974 make it less likely that he was at St Patrick's presbytery late in the afternoon on a week day."]

• In a high profile case, Pell was accused of bribing David Ridsdale to stop making accusations to the police that he was abused by his uncle, Gerald Ridsdale, a notorious molester priest. The accusation was investigated and Pell was exonerated. [As per Wikipedia, Counsel-Assisting Gail Furness conceded in her final submission to the royal commission that, given it was already known to Pell that Gerald Ridsdale was subject to police investigation, and David Ridsdale had requested a "private" rather than police process "it is not likely that Bishop Pell would then have thought it necessary to offer Mr Ridsdale an inducement to prevent him from going to the police or public with his allegations", and Ridsdale could have "misinterpreted Bishop Pell's offer of assistance".]

• Pell was also accused of joking about Gerald Ridsdale’s sexual assaults at a funeral Mass in Ballarat. But there was no Mass that day and the priest whom Pell was allegedly joking with was living someplace else when the supposed incident took place.

(E) Allegations against Irish Archbishops (and a Cardinal!)

I commented on an article in America Magazine "Cardinal Pell Professes Innocence on Sex Abuse Charges" (29 June 2017) pointing out some similarities with the situation in Ireland.  

There have been numerous false allegations of child abuse against Bishops (including 3 Archbishops and a Cardinal) in Ireland. This is an extract from my comment on a 2011 article on the Association of Catholic Priests website 
Two Reflections on Dr. Magee’s Interview. Brendan Hoban and Margaret Lee
[Bishop of Cloyne John Magee resigned in the wake of a claim that he had failed to deal adequately with allegations of child abuse against his priests. ]

Father Hoban
"Regarding the “culture of deference” you are aware that the media have been telling obscene lies about priests and bishops since at least 1994. I have written an essay about false sex allegations directed at SEVEN Irish bishops between 1994 and 2008. These comprise Bishop Magee himself (accused twice in 1994 and 1999), the late Archbishops Cahal Daly, John Charles McQuaid, and Thomas Morris, Bishops Brendan Comiskey and Eamon Casey and the late Bishop Peter Birch.

"You are aware that Bishop Magee himself was the target of the initial libel in April 1994 when the UK Guardian was forced to apologise for claiming that an unnamed Irish Bishop was a member of a paedophile ring. 

"A few months afterwards the government of Albert Reynolds collapsed as a direct result of Pat Rabbitte’s suggestion that there was a conspiracy between Cardinal Daly and Attorney General Harry Whelehan to prevent the extradition of Fr Brendan Smyth. This was followed by an obscene media onslaught against Bishop Comiskey when he went to the USA for treatment for alcoholism. In 1999, TV3 had to apologise for a second (and unrelated ) slander against Bishop Magee while shortly afterwards John Cooney published a biography of Archbishop McQuaid in which he accused him of making sexual advances to underage boys. (This allegation as rejected even by reviewers who praised the remainder of the book!). You are aware that Cooney was made Religious Affairs correspondent of the Irish Independent a few years after the publication of his scurrilous book. (Try to imagine a journalist who similarly slandered a former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, being appointed to the staff of the Irish Catholic.)"
COMMENT on 13 July 2017: I suspect the allegations against Cardinal George Pell, former Archbishop of Sydney and then Melbourne, fall into the same category. Of the Irish hierarchy mentioned above, ALL were either Archbishops (including one Cardinal) OR very well-known Bishops. Obscure prelates seem to be safe from this type of claim!

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and I

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Background

According to the Wikipedia article on the former Cardinal Archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick was ordained in 1958, he became an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1977, then became bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey in 1981. From 1986 to 2000, he was Archbishop of Newark. He became a cardinal in February 2001 and served as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006........... McCarrick has been accused of engaging in sexual conduct with adult male seminarians over the course of decades. This sexual conduct was alleged to be an open secret in some ecclesial circles.Though multiple reports about McCarrick's alleged conduct with adult seminarians  were made to American bishops and the Vatican between 1993 and 2016, allegations of sexual abuse against male minors were not publicly known until 2018. [My emphasis] In June 2018, the Vatican removed McCarrick from public ministry because of credible sexual abuse allegations. In July 2018, the New York Times published a story detailing a pattern of sexual abuse of male seminarians and minors. The emergence of these reports and the lack of action from the church hierarchy infuriated Catholics and sparked demands for action against church leaders believed to be responsible.

McCarrick submitted his resignation from the College of Cardinals in July 2018, and his resignation was accepted by Pope Francis. After a church investigation and trial, he was found guilty of sexual crimes against adults and minors and abuse of power. McCarrick was dismissed from the clergy in February 2019.  He is the most senior church official in modern times to be defrocked and is believed to be the first cardinal ever defrocked for sexual abuse. [End of Wikipedia quote]

One result of the atmosphere of hysteria surrounding allegations of child abuse, is that it makes it difficult to evaluate genuine complaints. Also in the United States, ages of consent to sexual activity have always made at the State level. Since 2018 the legal age of consent varies between 16 and 18 depending on the jurisdiction but has been much lower (I think it was 13 in the State of Texas as recently as the early 2000s). My reading of the McCarrick case is that he sexually harassed male seminarians - who would have been adults or very close - and that the "minor" claims were made as a result of the explosion of media publicity in 2018. According to Catholic League President Bill Donohue  "In the case of Cardinal McCarrick, the alleged abuse took place a half century ago (in the 1970s), and the alleged victim was a teenager, thus ruling out pedophilia."

 I originally suspected that the entire scandal might be a fake - similar to the false allegations against all four Irish Archbishops or the lunatic "Operation Midland" in the UK that targeted top Tory leaders.

Article in America Magazine - and Discussion 

Part of the publicity was an article in America Magazine on 25 July 2018 by Michael J O'Loughlin  Albany priest describes culture of harassment under McCarrick that described the experiences of Desmond Rossi when he was a seminarian in Newark in 1986.  Apparently McCarrick, then newly appointed Archbishop of Newark routinely invited a number of seminarians to a house on the shore with limited sleeping accommodations, resulting in one of them sharing a bed with the bishop. According to Fr. Rossi, he and a friend later realized that the archbishop would cancel weekend gatherings "if there were not enough men going that they would exceed the number of available beds, thus necessitating one guest to share a bed with the archbishop". Apart from harassment by the Archbishop      Fr Rossi narrated an episode where following a night of drinking, he and two other student priests returned to the rectory. There, he said, one of the men threw him onto the bed and began kissing him while the other tried performing oral sex on him. He said he did not report the assault out of a “strange sense of loyalty,” fearful that it would derail his friends’ careers. "Part of the problem was, I think, [Archbishop McCarrick] kind of gave license to others by his own behavior,” Father Rossi said. “When you have that kind of corrupted morality at the top, it gives permission to others."

Desmond Rossi was aged about 25 at that time and subsequently transferred before ordination from the Archdiocese of Newark to the diocese of Albany in New York State where is is currently a  priest in active ministry. According to the America article, Father Rossi returned to active priestly ministry in the Diocese of Albany in 2017 following a roughly 15-year leave, which he said was due to developing “major depression and P.T.S.D. related to the abuse I experienced in Newark.” He said the sexual abuse crisis in the church, which was coming to light in 2002, triggered his depression. 

Father Rossi says he wants a “total inquiry” to discover “who knew what” about Archbishop McCarrick and to discover why steps were not taken to protect seminarians from harassment. “I hope that this gets cleaned up,” Father Rossi said. “I hope we’re starting now to be honest.” Given the current atmosphere of hysteria, this scenario resembles a Jew who has a (possibly justified) grievance against the Chief Rabbi but chooses to voice it during an anti-Semitic pogrom!

Extract from (52) Comments on Article

arthur mccaffrey
my advice to Mr Rossi is to sue for as much $$ as he can get from RCC for PTSD, then leave the priesthood and find another vocation of service to his fellow man that does not involve being part of a criminal organization.

Seems like Rossi is very confused and conflicted and I hope he finds a good therapist to guide him. Rossi is absolutely correct that McCarrick was GROOMING him for further sexual exploitation--this is a classic behavior pattern among all pedophiles, and McCarrick was a pro-----the same charm that he used to bed his victims is the same charm he used to rise thru the RCC hierarchy. McCarrick should be in jail and on the Sexual Offender list just like all the other guys who are predators.

Fred Keyes
As wicked and deserving of severe punishment as the Cardinal's behavior and those of others like him was, it's still exceptional. The Church will survive it.

Suing it seems to me is OK to cover costs as Fr. Rossi did, but I can't see suing for money that comes ultimately from good people's pockets.

Joan McKniff
Over a period of decades this behavior was not reported by a priest who said Mass, heard Confessions of Sins by lay people, who went to confession and received Communion, who pledged his life to service to God and others, put or let others be put at risk for abuse. That delay needs more of an explanation than he felt a sense of loyalty and the Bishop was charming! Come on!

J Jones
Joan ---- Your response has a name: "blaming the victim".

Fr Rossi explains the delay. 1) The power dynamics in the Church. 2) mental illness which resulted from the abuse irself AND the trap created by the power dynamics and abuses in the church; 3) 15 years NOT in ministry

Rory Connor
"Blaming the victim" does not explain why people doubt certain allegations of sex abuse directed against Catholic bishops. I have a separate comment regarding the situation in Ireland where (among other things) four Archbishops were subjected to false accusations. There are only four Archdioceses in Ireland and after the THIRD was accused, I used to joke that the Archbishop of Tuam was obviously next on our anti-clerics hit list! OBVIOUSLY I was correct!

Rory Connor
I have a blog essay entitled "Eight Falsely Accused Bishops (and Archbishops) in Ireland". All four of our Archbishops were the subject of false abuse-related claims and the other four "ordinary" bishops were VERY prominent. No obscure Irish bishops were accused! Is this American case for real?
http://irishsalem.blogspot.com/2018/07/seven-falsely-accused-bishops-and.html


Of the eight prelates accused, most were conservative but I would classify two as "liberal". However none of the false allegations came from Irish conservatives. The first one in 1994 involved The Guardian newspaper in the UK claiming that an unnamed Irish bishop was a member of a paedophile ring. They thought they could avoid a libel suit by not naming him but they gave enough details to expose themselves to a class libel suit from the Conference of Bishops and had to apologise.

J Jones
Rory, I did not read Joan's response as an indicator that she doubts this priest's allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. I think she is criticizing this victim for not having responded to the abuse the way she thinks (and understandably wishes) he had responded.

She seems to misunderstand both the context and meaning of the priest's observation that McCarrick was charming. He was describing McCarrick's personal characteristics which increased the success of his grooming and sexual hassassment of seminarians and young priest's.

She overlooked the power dynamics McCarrick exploited and many of which the priest identifies in this article. The combined force of McCarrick's charming social skills AND his power AND his cagey manipulations would give any thinking person pause as to whether anyone would choose to listen to an underling's profoundly serious allegations about that charming, powerful leader.

Criticizing a victim for not meeting others' expectations about how a victim should behave is, indeed, the very essence of blaming the victim.

Rory Connor
OK. We begin with different attitudes and experiences. I have some experience of these kind of allegations in Ireland and UK and have got very cynical. In the UK, CLASS hatred is a bigger issue than (our Irish) anti-Clericalism. See Wikipedia article on "Operation Midland" where victims of lunatic claims included - and I quote - "the former home secretary Leon Brittan, the former prime minister Edward Heath, the former chief of defence staff Lord Bramall, the former director of the Secret Intelligence Service Maurice Oldfield, and Michael Hanley, the former Director-General of MI5".

The only victim who never achieved Ministerial rank (or similar) was a Tory MP who had to resign 20 years before as result of a GENUINE sex scandal; thus he was a "celebrity" of sorts and became a target! ALL targets of "Operation Midland" in the UK were well-known conservative members of the Establishment. There are too many parallels with Ireland and the USA I believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midland

J Jones
Rory, of course there will be false allegations and lives are damaged by them.

That is why credible investigations are essential before everybody and dogs named Joe start attacking. McCarrick has victims who have already been paid off by the RCC. This priest's allegations are factually similar. This priest went public from the altar, risking losing everything.

There is no acceptable or credible justification for attacking this priest, for blaming him for McCarrick's abuse of others (as joan did) or for blaming or maligning him or attacking his masculinity or his courage (as the male commenter below did) or for having been impacted negatively by McCarrick's harassment.

That is all classic victim-blaming and it is well understood as part of the pressure that silences existing and future victims of this and other perpetrators. And perpetrators KNOW this and they COUNT on this


Victoria Bako
God bless you, Fr. Rossi. I know this isn't easy for you, but I hope more will come out and talk about their abuse so this madness comes to an end and justice is done. These abusers are very, very charming. Never underestimate the charm of a predator. They have to win you over to get close enough to hurt you.

Frank Gibbons
48 seminarians from Tegucigalpa’s major seminary have written a letter protesting the large scale existence of homosexual behavior within the seminary. The letter is unsigned because of fear of reprisals. Many are considering leaving the seminary. True to form, Cardinal Maradiaga accused these young men of being "gossipers".

The news of the seminarians’ protest came after months of allegations involving homosexual abuse and financial misconduct by Bishop Pineda.

Since last December, Cardinal Maradiaga has been accused of allowing Bishop Pineda to continue to serve in his post, and even placing him in charge of the archdiocese during the cardinal’s absence to receive medical treatments for prostate cancer in Houston, despite a body of allegations against Bishop Pineda of homosexual relationships — including with seminarians." National Catholic Register 7/25/18.

Cardinal Maradiagra is one of Pope Francis' closest advisors.

The corruption is ubiquitous. But the hedge is down. I have never criticized Pope Francis but he needs to enter a period deep reflection and reconsider some of the appointments he's made and the advisors whom he surrounds himself with.


justinreany@gmail.com
I have asked repeatedly: Where is the courage of young men today?!?! The moment that this homosexual pervert touched any of these young men, he should have had a broken jaw! That's how you deal with these pervs in the clergy! Beat the living sense out them and expose it. I can tell you if any cleric did this to me when I qas in discernment or my sons he would have to flee in hiding because of what I would do to him. Two things have perpetuated this crisis: (1) evil men covering for each other in the hierarchy; (2) lack of testicular fortitude amongst men. Period.

J Jones
Justin --- your response has a name: "blaming the victim" . It is one of the reasons victims remain silent. If they disclose their abuse, someone (you and Joan, above, in this case) will be dissatisfied with some aspect of the disclosure and will attack them for THAT.

You and Joan just contributed to another victim's decision to remain silent.

Florence Sundberg
July 27th: Sorry but this Priest seems like an immature adolescent. He says others threw him down and molested him... I have brothers and male cousins and friends - none of them would ever have allowed another male to seduce them or engage in any kind of sexual behavior with them. This Priest did not report those who allegedly molested him because he did not want to harm their 'careers' - what hogwash!!! He needs to man up and admit that he is part of the problem. How did McCarrick get adult males to allow him to engage in sexual activity with them? I don't care how much power or influence McCarrick had ... again, no male in my family or among my friends and colleagues would have permitted this for any reason...

J Jones
Florence -- Perpetrators like Cardinal McCarrick are 100% aware that people (even women!) will attack, malign, humiliate, verbally abuse, shun, reject and otherwise participate in destroying the lives of victims (especially men!) if they dare to tell anyone.

Perpetrators COUNT on people like you behaving exactly as you have here.

You just made YOURSELF part of McCarrick's harassment of innocent men who just wanted to serve God and YOU.

And I would put money on it that you just silenced another victim, either one harassed and abused in the past or someone just being victimized as I write.

THIS IS HOW ABUSE OF POWER WORKS. Other people volunteer, as you have here, to ensure the silence of victims by publicly attacking and humiliating any victim who comes forward.

People who speak as you have here today are part of the problem. The priest is a victim of McCarrick and, now you, Florence

And I would money on it that this innocent, dedicated priest will forgive you. Cardinal McCarrick created the opportunity for you to behave in such an ugly way.

And, no, I do not know this priest. The depth of his faith, the sincerity of his vocation, the test of his strength and courage as a man and the depth of his love of the people of God (even those who would act in the ugly way you have here) --- his love of God and his determination to respond to God's call that he serve God and all God's creation --- all of that is made manifest in his return to seminary, his return to the priesthood, his return to ministry.

Next time I am on the east coast, I will seek out this priest and the opportunity to participate in Eucharist with him. THIS priest, this brave man, has been tested and he survived, faith intact. God bless him.

Dolores Pap8 
You are so right! My friend's brother was molested by the local parish priest in a neighboring town- he was too was scared to tell his parents because he felt that nobody would believe him..That priest was finally sued by 21(!!) of his other victims, but sadly, one of the men was so emotionally damaged that he killed himself.

Thank you for speaking out for these innocent victims..


Rory Connor
Reply to Florence Sundberg. Florence: That is the first thing that occurred to me when I read the article [Immaturity] but the point is so unfashionable nowadays that I kind of forgot about it and concentrated on a different - although not unrelated - issue. I also find the following comment surprising:
“I hope that this gets cleaned up,” Father Rossi said. “I hope we’re starting now to be honest.”

What does he expect except a CONTINUATION of an unrelenting media assault on the Catholic Church, that has been underway for the best part of two decades now? Nothing is "starting"!!

J Jones
Rory, I am not aware of any context in which it is unfashionable to refer to immaturity as immaturity.

Rory, please help me understand you.

Are you saying that this priest is responsible for public awareness of former Cardinal McCarrick's abusive and harassing behavior? Are you further suggesting that that makes this priest culpable for the negative press about former Cardinal McCarrick's abusive and haraassing behavior? Are you further blaming this priest for the harm to the RCC caused by the former Cardinal's abusive and harassing behavior?

Rory Connor
You are not aware of any context in which it is unfashionable to refer to immaturity as immaturity? What about when someone suggests that an (alleged) victim of sexual assault should not have drunk herself into a stupor in the company of a man she barely knew - or alternatively that she should not have agreed to go home with a man she first met in a night-club a couple of hours before? A well known Irish radio broadcaster very nearly lost his job for saying something like that. One feminist critic informed him that "Victim-blaming is all too familiar to women in Ireland. George is giving the message that men can do what they want and it is the drunken woman who is to blame. Women have the right to be drunk. They have the right to say no. They have the right to walk down the street naked if they wish..." This lady was advocating behaviour that is both criminal and stupid. A woman who walks down the street drunk and naked would be lucky to be arrested before she is assaulted! However I may have been the only one to say that - certainly no-one in the mainstream media did so. It is becoming dangerous for men to give pragmatic advise to women that they should avoid dangerous situations because the man can be accused of "victim-blaming" and may even be fired!
http://irishsalem.blogspot.com/2017/09/fiona-doyle-and-george-hook.html

As to your related question - the then 25 year old priest should have behaved like an adult at the time. Since he did not, he should not now be making his allegations in the middle of a hysterical media attack on the Catholic Church. A Jew may have a valid complaint about his Rabbi but he should not air it in the middle of an anti-Semitic pogrom because what then occurs will NOT be "healing"!

Fr. Des Rossi
Rory, this is Fr Des Rossi. There are many feelings and many concerns out there in response to the behavior of Archbishop McCarrick. I was a 25 year old kid when this all happened to me. I have come forward as part of the healing process, to assist our Church going forward to learn the lessons here and "right the ship." I want to remind others that I spoke with the journalist who published the article for a few hours, so it's important to remember that not everything I said was included in the article. I want to Thank Michael O'Loughlin for a job well done. Peace!

Rory Connor
Father Rossi. Sorry for delay in replying. I was a 16 year adolescent - and immature for my age - when I had my first summer job and my first time away from home. I was working in a hotel and actually didn't make a great success of it. However when a drunken hotel guest made a sexual suggestion when I had brought him and his luggage to a room, I handled it quite well. I was extremely startled but recognised I was in no danger and politely said no. I informed my immediate boss because I thought I should, but he just raised his eyes to the skies and did nothing as far as I know. I didn't expect anything different as the most junior member of staff had less status than a paying guest. I have never blamed it or ANY other single episode for damaging me. I did make a couple of serious mistakes in my life which cannot now be repaired (I am 68) but I don't agonise over them and especially I don't blame others - even though these errors were not entirely my own doing. (Also other people suffered because of what I did!).

There is no "healing process" going on in the Catholic Church at the moment certainly not in Ireland and not in America either I'm sure. Nothing is "starting" either - just relentless thuggish abuse from journalists whose anti-clerical hatred is the "liberal" equivalent of the anti-Semitic variety. (In Ireland this LITERALLY includes Blood Libels that are directed against Catholics instead of Jews - one of them coming from a politician who later became Minister for Justice! ). Your narrative just feeds into this and I cannot understand how it is supposed to "right the ship".
Eight Falsely Accused Bishops (and Archbishops) in Ireland

Carlos Orozco
Gay culture in the Seminaries. Not a new phenomenon. I remember a papal commission during the pontificate of Benedict XVI reporting of such an infestation. What steps have been taken to erradicate it? One Marcial Maciel is one too many.

J Jones
Carlis, your use of the word "infestation" to describe the presence of human beings in an institution is both repugnant and it reveals your bigotry.

Carlos Orozco
J, Please don't try to bend my comment: human beings are not an infestation. I stand by the term to designate the presence of a destructive CULTURE that directly contradicts 2,000 years of Church teachings. I am not willing to close my eyes and ears to the consequences of relativizing the toxic effects of such culture.

J Jones
Thanks for the clarification. I still would encourage you not to use the word in this context.

Fr. Des Rossi
First of all, I want to thank the hundreds of people who have reached out to me on email, phone, cards, letters and on the street. Your support not only strengthens me but it also strengthens us all. Please be charitable with one another. Listen to one another. Try to heal one another. Don't let the the divisive spirit of the evil one win. Christ calls us to bear up with one another. As for ones who are angry, I am angry also. As for the ones who weep, I have wept, too. As for the ones who feel ashamed, believe me, I have been there. I was in exile in the wilderness for many years wondering where my God was and felt abandoned. But today, I realize he was strengthening me for the future that would unfold. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us and your Church. Assist us in doing good and avoiding evil, so that your kingdom may be made manifest among us all. Love & Peace, Fr. Des Rossi

J Jones
Fr Des Rossi, you are indeed a minister to and for the people of God. I am profoundly grateful for your courage and willingness to be healed and to heal. I will take your message to prayer and be mindful of your example. I wish iived in Albany so I could be part of your parish and participate in the mystery of the Christian experience with you and grow in my own journey. You are the real deal. Welcome home, brother Des Rossi. You are needed.

Jean Davis
Father Rossi you are so admirable and I am praying for you.

Jean Davis
Father Rossi’s narrative is deeply disturbing and tragic. How brave he is! This evil in the church must end.

J Jones
Many want to deny that abuse of power is the fundamental dynamic here.

I do not think power makes otherwise healthy people sexually attack other people.

Power does, however, provide the opportunity for sexual predators to groom, abuse, harass and then threaten their victims with harm should they disclose all of the above; power then provides the sexual predator with the protection of others who are invested in the predator's retention of that power and who will deny that it is possible the abuse could have happened and/or join the predator in destroying the victim's credibility, courage and, if necessary, the victim's entire life. The "power" of power is so real and, yes, POWERFUL that perpetrators need not even overtly threaten many victims because "the power of the powerful" to control the narrative and the outcomes is so obvious that victims understand the threat without having to hear the words. ........

For instance, sexual abuse is "about sex" only some of the time. Sexual abuse and harassment is often about violence (with sexual assault often being an incredibly violent act), domination, the perpetrator's pathological pride that he/she has that power, humiliation, retaliation, control, punishment, retribution, manipulation, a threat to achieve another end, psychological torture, or to relieve pathological stress/anxiety/etc. within a predator who is psychologically damaged and had no other coping tools, etc.

Those motives are NOT "about sex".

Abuse of power is not a hypothesis. It is well known dynamic in just about every sphere of human endeavor and in just about every field of scholarship. It is addressed in law and policy at every level of government all over the world.