{"id":4509,"date":"2019-02-28T10:37:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T00:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4509"},"modified":"2023-06-20T14:48:19","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T04:48:19","slug":"did-pell-ever-think-about-what-jesus-said-about-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4509","title":{"rendered":"Did Pell ever consider what Jesus said about children?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>&#8220;If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose his faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.&#8221;<\/em> <strong>The gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 18, Verse 6.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In December 2018, a jury found Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic official in Australia and the third most senior official at the Vatican. guilty of sexual abuse of minors. The judgement was suppressed until February 26 as a second case against Pell had to heard and the judge felt that announcing the guilty verdict could influence the direction of the second case.<\/p>\n<p>But given that Pell is a globally known individual, numerous foreign newspapers reported the verdict right away as they were not in any way bound by an Australian suppression order. Some Australian newspapers carried big headlines to the effect that a big story was being suppressed; many of these publications now face sanctions from the judge.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nNow two former Liberal Prime Ministers, John Howard and Tony Abbott, have added their voices to the group supporting Pell; one has given him a character reference and the other has said he called the Cardinal after the suppression order was lifted. Both indicate that they believe an appeal will go in Pell&#8217;s favour.<\/p>\n<p>The spectre of people of this status expressing support for a convicted paedophile does not do their reputations any good. There are some crimes that do not merit any sympathy and abuse of children is squarely among them.<\/p>\n<p>It says a lot about Australia that people of this kind gain such high office.<\/p>\n<p>The current prime minister Scott Morrison, also a Liberal, has said he will tell the Governor-General to strip Pell of his Australia Day honours if the appeal fails.<\/p>\n<p>Both Abbott and Howard go to church, the former being a staunch Catholic and the latter a nominal Christian. They seem to have forgotten the injunctions of one Jesus Christ with regard to children a few centuries ago.<\/p>\n<p>But then so too did Pell.<br \/>\n<!-- Start of StatCounter Code for Default Guide --><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\nvar sc_project=2720500; \nvar sc_invisible=1; \nvar sc_security=\"d25d8712\"; \nvar scJsHost = ((\"https:\" == document.location.protocol) ?\n\"https:\/\/secure.\" : \"http:\/\/www.\");\ndocument.write(\"<sc\"+\"ript type='text\/javascript' src='\" + scJsHost+ \"statcounter.com\/counter\/counter.js'><\/\"+\"script>\");\n<\/script><br \/>\n<noscript><\/p>\n<div class=\"statcounter\"><a title=\"Web Analytics\" href=\"http:\/\/statcounter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"statcounter\" src=\"\/\/c.statcounter.com\/2720500\/0\/d25d8712\/1\/\" alt=\"Web Analytics\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/noscript><br \/>\n<!-- End of StatCounter Code for Default Guide --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose his faith in me, it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.&#8221; The gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 18, Verse 6. In December 2018, a jury found Cardinal George &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4509\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Did Pell ever consider what Jesus said about children?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4514,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4514","url_meta":{"origin":4509,"position":0},"title":"Three weeks on, Pell supporters retain their blinkers","date":"March 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\"It is a capital mistake to theorise without data.\" Sherlock Holmes, the creation of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and still the most famous detective of fiction. It is not surprising that nearly 20 days after after the verdict on Cardinal George Pell was announced, the Australian lobbyist Gerard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Australia&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=7","url_meta":{"origin":4509,"position":1},"title":"Are video referees a help or a hindrance?","date":"November 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"TECHNOLOGY has given us many benefits \u2013 of that there is little doubt. At times, however, one does tend to wonder whether technology does more harm than good. This has been brought home to me recently by two incidents \u2013 one, a statement by the authorities who run Australian rules\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;AFL&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4664,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4664","url_meta":{"origin":4509,"position":2},"title":"David Warner must pay for his sins. 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But in front\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ABC&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sams-blog.com\/wp-content\/sams-blog.com\/2023\/07\/david_speers.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4711,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4711","url_meta":{"origin":4509,"position":4},"title":"In Australia-China spats, the media only gives one side of the picture","date":"May 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Australia has been imposing hefty duties on Chinese steel, aluminium and chemical imports for more than six years, despite a letter from the Chinese side in 2014 saying that holding talks with Canberra on this would be of no use. Recently, China said it would impose tariffs on Australian barley\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Australia&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5533,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=5533","url_meta":{"origin":4509,"position":5},"title":"Seventy-two minutes of froth: SBS show The Kingdom is an exercise in narcissism","date":"July 31, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The SBS documentary, The Kingdom, deals with \u2013 well, I thought it was about the church known as Hillsong until I watched it. Turns out that this isn't the case; it's actually about Marc Fennell, the presenter, and his quitting of the church. It is narcissism at its very best.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;America&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Marc Fennell. Courtesy SBS","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sams-blog.com\/wp-content\/sams-blog.com\/2023\/07\/marc_fennell.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4509"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5444,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509\/revisions\/5444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}