sexual assault
24 Jul 2008
Don't Get Over It
Why aren't politicians condemning the comments of a Catholic leader about sexual assault as quickly as they did those of other religious leaders?
An Open Letter to all Federal and State MPsLike Prime Minister Rudd, I am a White Ribbon Day Ambassador who has made a commitment to eliminating all forms of violence against women. I am writing this letter to challenge MPs to speak out with equal vehemence against those who belittle the experience of victims of sexual assault, regardless of their faith.
Applicants for provisional and permanent visas are reminded that gender equality is an important Australian value. It seems, however, that some of our political representatives are more concerned about this issue when sectarian, cultural, or political points can be scored.
Before I go any further, let me lay my own sectarian cards on the table. I am an Australian of South Asian heritage. My ancestral faith is Islam. Religion is but one layer of my identity. Like many people for whom Islam is their ancestral or chosen faith, I have had no hesitation in openly criticising religious leaders who have made ugly and insensitive remarks regarding the causes of rape and the experiences of rape victims.
Hence I was among the first to condemn a Sydney sheik who in early 2005 remarked that women who dress in a certain manner became "eligible for rape." When Sheik Tajeddine Hilaly made his infamous cat-meat remarks, I had no hesitation in openly condemning his comments and calling for his removal from the post of mufti. My calls were published in newspapers around the world They were also broadcast on a number of major websites including newmatilda.com, Crikey and Online Opinion.
Hilaly's comments were unacceptable and he was pilloried by politicians and media across Australia. Ordinary people who tick the "Muslim" box on their census forms also had responsibility for Hilaly's comments sheeted home to them by some prominent media commentators and political leaders.
No doubt the Bishop Fisher's recent description of parents of two girls raped by a Catholic priest as "dwelling crankily ... on old wounds" was deeply offensive not only to the family of these victims but also to millions of decent people of all faiths. Thus far, however, ordinary Catholics have not been not been made to feel responsible for these remarks.
And nor should they. The vast majority of lay Catholics and Muslims have no meaningful role in the selection or removal of clergy, bishops, popes, imams or muftis. Further, the views expressed by Catholic clergy are hardly representative of the majority of ordinary Australian Catholics. The same applies to Muslims, many of whom had been openly criticising Hilaly years before his remarks about uncovered meat.
It's interesting to compare responses to the two cases. In the case of Hilaly, commentators and politicians of all stripes and faiths vocally condemned the remarks.
On the other hand, the relative silence of political leaders over Bishop Fisher's comments suggests that many political leaders are not serious about ending violence against women. It appears that the issue of sexual assault — which should unite Australians of all backgrounds and persuasions — has become a tool to fight mono-cultural wars.
This isn't just another case of inconsistency inspired by sectarian prejudice. The message being sent here is that misogynistic and insensitive remarks about sexual assault victims only merit condemnation by political leaders if those making the remarks belong to the "wrong" religious, ethnic or cultural background.
When virtually every State and Federal MP is silent over the description of the families of rape victims as "dwelling crankily ... on old wounds," we still live in a society in which imbecilic words belittling the experience of sexual violence victims are only condemned when they serve sectarian or cultural prejudices. This is a society in which violence against women is effectively tolerated.
Ordinary Catholics celebrating World Youth Day shouldn't be held accountable for Fisher's statements. They had little or no say in his appointment — any more than they have in procedures used by the Church in sexual assault matters. Nor should commentators and politicians cast aspersions on Australian Catholics in the same manner as many did on Australian Muslims. This would achieve nothing.
When sexual assault becomes a cultural or sectarian wedge, however, it demeans and insults the suffering of all victims and their families. It also opens to question our society's commitment to unconditionally ending violence against women.
I congratulate those MPs who stood up and condemned Sheik Hilaly's remarks. However, should they continue in their silence over Bishop Fisher's remarks, they will prove that sensitivity toward rape victims is dependent upon extraneous sectarian, cultural and political factors. This issue should enable us to rise above petty sectarianism.
I challenge our MPs to prove me wrong.
Show that political leaders in this country are unequivocally and unconditionally committed to ending violence against women by speaking out with equal vehemence against all who belittle the experience of all sexual assault victims.
Let's start with you, Mr Rudd...
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"Let’s start with you, Mr Rudd… "
Such optimism…
Well, why aren’t they? It appears that the attitudes of some Christian clerics haven’t changed since the time of Henry II.
Thanks Irfan, you’ve articulated something that’s been troubling me as well.
yes Irfan,but you have little chance of success, me thinks. All those you call on are too much part of ‘Boy George’s’ culture club to make the appropriate connections
michael
Irfan
I don’t read the Silly Morning Herald any more but my wife says there was an enormous fuss about those remarks. Outrage was expressed left, right and centre, the letters pages were filled with protests and expressions of contempt for Bishop Fisher and even on the ABC news site, my only source of local news, the story was given a hiding. "Cranky" was an appalling word to use in the context, but Fisher didn’t say the girls were asking for it and he didn’t use a contemptuous expression like "cat-meat", so there were fewer logs to stoke the fire. I agree that Muslims get a rough ride in the Australian media, especially in the Murdoch press, but you have to expect that, given the frenzy of propaganda that’s come out of America. We’ve all been told for years now that first Iraqis, then Palestinians, then Iranians are going to swarm down here in their nuclear-powered rubber dinghys and rape our womenfolk before slaughtering the entire population. How else can Washington and Canberra maintain our enthusiasm for the most absurd and repugnant foreign policies in history? And Muslims don’t have a beer after work, won’t eat bacon with their eggs and they want us to introduce public stonings (for the sheilas) and quickie divorces (for the blokes).
Irfan, I think there are numerous occasions when you can be justified in feeling angry, but I’m not sure this is a good example.
Correction: I read the Silly Morning Herald crosswords and the Non Sequiter comic strip. I didn’t stop reading the newspaper all at once. I started by eschewing anything that was clearly selling something, someone or some bullshit line, then I eliminated anything with the word "REVEALED:" in the headline, then I hastily turned the pages that featured tabloid and far-right columnists who’d somehow found their way into the wrong paper. Suddenly there was nothing left apart from the crosswords, the comics and the obituaries. The obituaries constantly let me down by not featuring the death of the Herald editor so I stopped reading them too.
Peter - Bishop Fisher’s comments were indeed condemned by the media as you say, but not by a long line of MPs as had been the case with Hilaly. I think that’s the point Irfan was making.
juswhe
Fair enough. Mind you, how many muslim MPs are there, and how many catholic ones? A tap on our knee tends to make our feet kick according to the way we’ve been brainwashed. I think my point - that Hilaly was blaming the victims and using unpleasantly provocative language in doing so - must carry some weight too. Still, it’s terrible that MPs were too gutless to express disgust at Fisher’s toe-curlingly offensive throw-away line. There was some value to the community in it though. Perhaps people became aware of how smug these inner-sanctum saints are, and how shielded from reality. Like footballers at Coff’s Harbour, they think a little bit of playing up is reasonable, perhaps one of the perks of office. Why does everyone get so upset?
It is hard to reconcile the lack of reaction to this statement and Cardinal Pell’s "badly worded" (a new euphemism for "flat out lying"?) letter to a victim of clerical abuse, with the strident "outrage" a few weeks ago at some photographs people didn’t like.
The photographs were criticised because it was claimed (with no evidence) they might lead to abuse. Yet when we’re dealing with real, proven cases of abuse, by people in a position of great trust, representing institutions whose very existence rests on their moral authority, the reaction is "oh yeah".
I have to confess I don’t understand people’s priorities.
peacenow
Criticise a white christian leader, its just not done in Australia, we even welcome George Bush and Dick Cheney.
peterbest did you see ANY calls for Catholics to be banned from immigrating to Australia? Did you see anyone claiming these remarks prove Catholics are not suited to Australian life? Did you see anyone panning Catholicism as a whole because one numpty clueless Bishop said something vile?
No
Then Irfan has picked a great example.
MissnOmar
Catholics were persecuted enthusiastically in Australia for a hundred and fifty years after the arrival of the First Fleet. They copped it at least as badly as Muslims do now, and it went on for a long time. Perhaps Muslims in Saudi Arabia or Iran would be more accepting of other people’s religions/cultures. What do you think? If you were in Somalia and you went without a head scarf or ate some pork would they smile and accept your right to be different? If you agitated against female circumcision would they let you have your view? I think it might be useful for you to work out who your enemies are. I’m certainly not among them unless you wish to silence everybody who doesn’t agree with everything you believe.
You might be able to ride a three year old legally at Randwick racecourse, but there have’nt been any reports of catholics flying jet planes into skyscrapers or blowing themselves up indiscriminately in crowded places. Not yet anyway.
peterbest what on earth is your point?
Catholics were persecuted so it’s OK to do it to Muslims now?
What are you jabbering about enemies for?
You said Irfan picked a dubious example because people (though as Irfan points out not MP’s) took issue with the Bishop’s appalling comments. I simply pointed out that whilst people did take issue they did not expect all Catholics to apologise. Any time some individual Muslim numpty says something dumb it is always held up as representative of Islam as a whole.
I believe that is the point Irfan was making, that you disputed.
I have no idea why you’re reeling off a list of nations where individual freedom is lacking, bet I have a more visceral understanding of Saudi oppression than you bub.
Point of order - Hilaly did not actually use the term "cat-meat". Just to be pedantic about it.
Thank you Ben. It was "uncovered meat".
MissnOmar: Why so overwrought? Expressions like "jabbering" and "bub" sound as if they’re coming through a spray of saliva. I didn’t say that because catholics were persecuted it’s all right to do it to Muslims. At any given time there are tens of thousands of groups who feel persecuted, and any form of persecution is unacceptable. But Australians have been barraged with propaganda designed to justify the invasion of Iraq, the blind support of Israel and soon, I fear, the invasion of Iran. The propaganda has aimed to make us hate and fear "The Other" which, this year, is Islam. Big companies spend billions trying to persuade us to buy their products, but their power to distort and persuade doesn’t come near that of Washington and its acolytes so I’m disappointed but not surprised to see Muslims getting a rough time. I hope this situation will change soon, but of course the persecution never entirely goes away, it’s just transferred to another unfortunate group. I’ve already acknowledged the failure of politicians to express outrage about Fisher’s comments but that, it seems, is not enough for you. I must be stoned, or burnt at the stake. Before I die I’d be intrigued to learn how you come to have " a more visceral understanding of Saudi oppression". Perhaps, without insults, you might tell us?
Irfan, if you compared this case with Al Hilaly situation, the case wasn’t those politicians came to public and made their statement. In fact, media had blown up the issue right after the Idul Adha Sermon. Then, to support and celebrate their condemnation, media (Those of Murdoch’s) felt that they needed some politicians to deliver it. Indeed, they interviewed some politicians and soon their statements became national issue of this ‘uncover meat’ situation.
Then in your article, you challenged politicians to stand up on podium and make their own statements against women abuse. Why don’t you also challenge the media to condemn the issue right after the sexual abuse happened by coming up to those politicians for their ‘national’ statements just like the old days of Al hilaly? The unfairness of your article was you put your irrational weight on politicians without exercising your view on the media.
Irfan, When Muslims are in sufficient numbers to out vote Roman Catholics the MP’s will suddenly become very critical of bishops and old Pellpotif he is still alive. Be of good cheer Irfan, remember Mc Millan’s Winds of Change there is even a faint breeze stirring in the direction of Australian Muslims the vast majority of whom are fine law abiding Australians and very useful members of our society compared to some of the scum who invest our streets after dark.
Make that invest infest
Venise Alstergren
Irfan, I’ve got a nasty tummy upset and shouldn’t be commenting on anything. I think you are being a tad disingenuous here. You know, and I know that Catholic politicians are thick on the ground; look at the appalling Tony Abbott; Jesuit trained-the whole catastrophe-if ever Australia is going to be fair on the religious front, it won’t happened while the Federal Opposition is crowded with them. The Catholic stranglehold in this country is unspeakable.
I think I’ll go back to bed. Good night
Venise
Since when has anywhere in the world been "fair" on the religious front? Religions are like little nations, fighting for territory. As long as we put up with their jockeying for power they’ll go on jockeying. Tony Abbott is a shocker, but anyone who owes greater allegiance to a sect than to the nation must be suspect. That’s why people were frightened of catholics, and why they’re now frightened of Muslims. Zealots of any kind are scarey. I hope a nice sleep fixes the tummy upset. It will take more than that to eliminate Tony Abbott, but whatever you have to take, please take it and we’ll all be grateful.
Venise Alstergren
Peterbest: I’m not feeling as well as I thought, even after a good night’s sleep. Tell me please, where did I use the word fair? I think all religious extremism is repugnant, and desperately unfair.
The minute anyone makes a remark about religion the adherents of these religions; are the people who jump aboard the discussion with all their witless shibboleths and wielding hate/fear over anyone stupid enough to believe them. e.g.: The world is over-populated. "Go forth and multiply," Says George Pell. Makes so much sense doesn’t it? Using Biblical terms to encourage people to breed. We will never deal with the population explosion as long as Catholics have a say in the matter.
My particular hate is reserved for the Catholic Church. They regard the Australian constitution as something to be ignored or trampled on. Australia has had legions of men (note the word men. As to why women should want to have jobs as priests for this stone-age belief, is beyond me. Women are despised by the church and the only thing the men in mothballs want from women is to be a breeding machine. If she flunks that, send her to a nunnery. Of course, these days the ranks of nuns are thin on the ground) who were Jesuit trained and who held ludicrous amounts of power in parliament. Bartholomew Augustine Michael (call me Bob) Santamaria. The entire DLP when it was around, from whom the Liberal Party received nearly all of its preferences. Sen Brian Harradine who threw his weight behind John Howard on the Telstra deal; Howard’s end of the deal was to get Tony Abbott into a position where he could do the most harm. Namely health where he could block items like the RU46 debate-where he threatened to resign if he didn’t get his own way. He didn’t. Nor did the little runt keep his word and resign. The other part of the deal was to prevent aid reaching countries if it carried information on birth control.
Doesn’t anyone question this corruption of power? Not if you’re a Catholic you
don’t. And there’s Tony Abbott himself. I suspect Brendan Nelson is Catholic as the minute he became leader of the coalition he slammed euthanasia.
Islam, if possible, treats women just as evilly. But it is worse in some countries than others, but I believe it can change given the right circumstances. The greater the amount of people achieving middle-class status, the greater the advances. What never fails to amaze me is that the Catholics have this stone-age beliefs, yet thousands of years later. Despite education, the Pope, the Priests, Cardinals, whatever, still believe the same bullshit. The world has passed them by. It’s just that no one seems to realize it.
Ideally, all Catholics should be barred from parliament. On the grounds that by placing their God above the loyalty to their country makes them traitors to their own country.
Here endeth the rant.
Cheers
Venise
Venise Alstergren
Penultimate paragraph should read ‘despite education: the Pope, the Priests,……’.
To Venise, How many popes , cardinals and men frock wearers of the RC lot really believe what they preach? Perhaps as many as the same number of used car sales men believe the car they are flogging is perfect. After all business is business and that is what theuy both are in
Venise
You asked me to tell you please where you used the word "fair". It was when you said: "if ever Australia is going to be fair on the religious front, it won’t happened while the Federal Opposition is crowded with them."
My objection to catholicism is to its hypocrisy. It’s a gigantic power structure erected on a fairy tale, preaching kindness and self-abnegation while amassing vast sums of money and manipulating the levers of power and influence to make itself stronger.
But its attitude to women is positively Greer-ish compared to the knuckle-dragging outposts of Islam, where men exploit the Qran to turn women into chattels, beasts of burden, baby-machines, kept in powerless ignorance like slaves. I’m not talking only of primitive societies where people live in caves and herd goats.I’m also talking about modern, wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia.
The catholics don’t stop women from driving, from getting an education, from leading independent valuable lives. They stop them from becoming priests and as a sop invent ridiculous nonsense like the virgin birth and Mary’s ascent into heaven.
If Islam is to survive like catholicism it, too, will have to adapt to a world where women contribute equally with men. That moment is many, many years away. When you believe your religion says you’re superior to all women why would you willingly give up such power?
Venise Alstergren
Peterbest: Yes, point taken. However, I did mean it rhetorically. Despite the horror press (mostly warranted) of the Muslim faith, not all Muslim countries are as bad as Saudi Arabia. Not all that long ago I was in Iran, Syria and Jordan, on my own, using the public transport system and meeting the locals. It was a fabulous trip and lovely people. In Iran schooling is mandatory for both sexes, women are welcome at the universities and could even be the predominant sex. They drive cars, have jobs-all the usual things-where the system does fall down is the lack of jobs for this highly articulate group of people. NB: English, also is mandatory. I was very impressed with the work these girls -14 and upwards- showed me. I kept asking myself; what if Iran was the world leader, how would Australian kids cope with learning Farsi? Yes, the women of Iran wear the hijab, but the usual use for burkas is in the female section of mosques. Older women, of course, hang onto the custom. It’s rather ironic, the older women-who have lost their looks-hang onto this medieval custom. I suppose looking at it from another angle they are merely coppering their bets.
I’m not saying that, based on these three countries, Islam is going to be a viable religion in the 21st century, but it can accommodate change. Even if the illiterate youths of these countries can’t think of anything more romantic than blowing up other people. However, Catholicism can’t change. Their dogma is set in stone. None of the Church leaders pretend to upgrade their arcane beliefs. Didn’t the world have to nurse the Catholic church through the Renaissance? Didn’t they lose the plot over Galileo Galilei? Didn’t all of Renaissance thinking shift to northern Europe as a result of the Church’s attitude? Haven’t they continued to lose it today? Tell me I’m dreaming please. But did an old man, a eunuch in theory-unless you count little boys. I’m not accusing him of buggery merely that he tolerates it, is bad enough- solemnly tell a cast of thousands of brain-dead acolytes in Sydney the other week "To go forth and multiply". And the Church wonders why people laugh at it. Nothing can shift this sort of mind-set.
Despite the era in which we live and despite the education of the outside world. The true believers are nothing more than ignorant clods. Oh they can rattle off all sorts of tripe-some of them have even been to thought school-to convince others that learned believers of Catholicism can think with the best of them. No they can’t because their minds are full of sawdust-when it comes to buffering their religion. These men-I can’t take female believers seriously. They know what the Church thinks of women, yet these same women grovel and fall at the alter of the Catholic male. They are destined to remain prone for the next 2000 years-by which time their dominant male- adherents will have multiplied the population to extinction. One day the Church will realize what a lot of their previous adherents know. The Catholic Church has been overtaken by the rest of civilization. It’s just that the Church will leave it until there’s standing room only on the planet. By which time it will be too late anyhow.
Cheers
Venise
Cheers
Venise
Venise Alstergren
Peterbest: I left out the summary which is. On the whole I have greater hope for Islam than I do for the Catholic Church. Iran, Syria and Jordan, are three countries which break the Western conception of Islam.
BTW: I’m, in case you are wondering, am a dedicated atheist.
Venise Alstergren
Harry: Yes; how many of them really believe. Do the high-ranking members of Opus dei really believe in the garbage they carry on with? Power is the thing which propels these people. As you say it is chicanery-you used another word at its amazing, technicoloured, wide, wide screen and stereophonic sound.
Cheers
Venise
Venise
Isn’t it odd that in the US the constitution has taken on the role of the sacred texts that hamstring most religions, whether they be the Qran, the Book of Mormon or the Torah. Rules and strictures that would have been sensible in the ancient world, or in a tribal context are set in concrete. The Jews can’t eat pork, Americans must be permitted to carry firearms. The idea that judges in the Supreme Court over there agonise over what the Founding Fathers meant by one phrase or another is so ludicrous it defies belief.More than one Founding Father didn’t believe in God or in the truth of the bible. The constitution was hammered out in a tearing hurry by people who lived at a particular time and had a particular experience of history. And look where it’s got them now, the presidency being a virtual monarchy, far more powerful than the head of any other democracy. The catholic church, I think, has slid and squeezed through many moments in its history when to stay rigid would have destroyed it. It either changes the rules or pretends to not notice them. I don’t know about Islam’s capacity for change. For it to become generally humane and in step with women’s newfound role in society an awful lot of mullahs would have to be bumped off and millions of zealots would have to abandon their dreams of converting the world. I’m happy to be converted by good sense, but not by dingbat religion. I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism, though I hope I’m wrong.
Venise Alstergren
Peterbest,
Yeah the Americans have sure mucked up their country with religion. I suppose it all had to do with the pilgrims on the Mayflower, trying to escape religious persecution. Then, once established, they turned around and persecuted everyone else who had different beliefs. The Americans are incredibly uniform in their thinking; my child sucks a dummy, sorry pacifier, everyone’s kids have to do it. Try blogging on one of their websites. I love Huffington Post, but the amount of po-faced religionists who want to wave clouds of icky-wicky sticky goo over everything is a bit nauseating.
I can’t say I’m optimistic about Islam. I merely cited three countries where I perceived there was some chance of change. Don’t forget in Afghanistan the Taliban was initially regarded as being a force for good. Women were being schooled, all sorts of things. Then the Taliban showed its true colours.
You mention the Catholic church as having squeezed through moments in history when to have stayed rigid would have ruined them. I can’t say you’re on the money here. Under Islam, Spain had had 800 years of tolerance and peace. Everything was fine until Isabela led her 300,000 troops into Andalucia (Granada to be precise) and conquered it. Almost immediately auto da fés sprouted up everywhere, the Muslims and the Jews soon found out about the rigidity of Catholic Spain.
The biggest problem, apart from the Catholics, in Australia is that Kevin Rudd is a God botherer and gets more kicks of of seeing filth in naked little girls than he shows concern in really fixing Australia. It’s what we elected him for. To lead the effing country, not to keep his head in a sewer of his own imagination.
Must go.Cheers.
Irfan Yusuf picks a wounded victim for a free kick.
Bishop Fisher was not talking about the actual victims, nor the act of abuse but opportunism of "parents" just happenning to want to soil the party twenty years after the event.
But we won’t talk about who was delinquent because abrogation of responsibilities is a cultural characteristic of our times?
Venise Alstergren
ErnestLee:
Crap!
VJBA
A wounded victim? Yes, the Catholic church is absolutely crippled, isn’t it? That was the message of WYD, I presume: "Help us, we’re dying"?
Given that Emma Foster killed herself earlier this year, your "twenty years after the event" seems a bit askew, EarnestLee. I rather think Bishop Fisher didn’t take that into account either when describing it as "old wounds".
Harry Catherine, Problems and more problems. You as a true believer (of the RC Church not necessarily that other Light on the Hill) are a believer in transubstantiation . On section (c) page 13 of The Report of Lutheran Roman Catholic Dialogue Australia is written ‘It is doubtful whether many Catholic theologians today would argue that transubstantiation is defined Catholic doctrine.’
They also in the same section say it was never official Catholic doctrine. If the Inquisition was still here that lot would be burned at the stake for causing such a problem. For instance few Anglicans other than High Church Anglo Catholics believe in transubstantiation and if the official RC line still holds to that they are on the outer. So one of your earlier posts which said I would not support communicants who were not fully prepared for the Sacrament having it bans me. One other thing is does only the priest take the wine and not the laity? If so that puts the above mentioned most Anglicans out of the loop because they do. Afraid that makes the RC Church exclusive.
Harry,
All that stuff about transubstantiation (it’s taken me 5 minutes to write the word) to prove the Catholic Church to be exclusive? They don’t allow women to get the top jobs. That’s exclusive. The fact that women lurve the chains that bind them and still want to join the very Church that excludes them weighs the scales back to equal. The fact that the Church is homophobic tips the scale back against them. The fact that they advise their followers not to use condoms in order to break the nexus on AIDS prevention tips the scales still further. And finally, a Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family went on television in England with the following huge lie "The spermatozoon can pass easily through the "net" that is formed by the condom" ie, it’s useless using a condom as those invisible little wriggly things called sperm just worm their way through the latex condom. Faced with crookedness like this and knowing how shonky are the people in charge in the big concentration camp in their minds, show that the adherents who still follow the religion keeps it exclusively the refuge of the brain-dead, the infirm, the people who trundle off to Lourdes, the pathetic and the lunatic.
Yes, Harry. The RC Church is exclusive. Also, it happens to be evil!
Venise John Steinbeck the USA author once wrote ‘ Business men form themselves into Rotary Clubs to prove to themselves business is fine and pure and noble and not the peculiar ritualized thievery they know it to be.
Similarly those top operators engaged in the business of religion form themselves into churches to convince lay people that their church business organization is fine and pure and noble and not the peculiar ritualized thievery they know it to be. By far the best religious business is the Roman Catholic church. The amount of advertising they do to promote their product is amazing. From virtually the beginnings of Hollywood they slipped in RC Churches and RC priests at every opportunity. On Austar trolling through old films of the 1930’s and 1940’s hardly one of them escapes an RC church or priest being slotted in. Just a few examples of reasonably recent ones The Quiet Man, the Bing Crosby Going My Way. The best example is MASH which has been judged the most watched TV show of all time. In every episode the RC priest appears. This is better propaganda than Dr Goebbels ever achieved. In USA they had the RC McCarthy and his Show Trials black listing actors and film producers he decided were left wing and anti-Catholic. In USA if a newspaper or magazine published an anti-RC church article or letter the bishops and priests went to the businesses who advertised in such media to threaten to withdraw their advertisement if the media ever printed anti RC stuff again. Such censorship worked. In the Menzies era his Customs Minister Sullivan banned anti-Catholic material from entering Australia. Menzies was not an RC but needed te RC vote so he let that happen. Vince Gair a devout RC formed the DLP and held the balance of power. He wanted Australia to declare war against Communist China a wish denied him. So you see this church is a very big business and would have gown larger except the sexual abuse by priests surfaced and the cover up were revealed. It is a pity that the advices of a prophet Joshua ben Joseph, namely the son of Joseph the carpenter later nick named Jesus have been distorted into what the RC Church preaches today. That is the real evil.
Harry: I am so sorry for missing your excellent post on 17.08.08. Today I was checking my entries on Yahoo7 and came across it. Yeah, it’s silent but deadly stuff the Public Relations machine of the Catholic Church comes out with. I didn’t see The Quiet Man, as I avoid movies about Ireland in the full knowledge they’ll dive headfirst into the font of the Church’s icky wicky sticky goo. And associated crap. Bing Crosby’s movies (chunder, vomit, chunder.) were soaked with his Catholicism-and his voice-was as mind-numbingly banal as his religious beliefs. He screwed every woman he could find, while his hapless wife-Dixie, unable to get a divorce, because the Church wouldn’t have liked it-drank herself into oblivion. Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby were having it off, while making that movie, High Society. When her father found out he promptly rustled up a husband for her. Prince Rainier, another devoted RC who was also screwing every woman he could find. Please realize I am not having anything against sex. Not at all, not at all, I merely loathe the hypocrisy of the bloody Church. And I think I am brain-dead for allowing father Mulcrea slip past me in MASH. To my ever-lasting shame, I just sorta accepted him as a feel-good personna.
The vomitous Kennedy family, where the 3 sons competed with their father, Joe Kennedy, as to who could bed the most women. Do you know Harry? I have had good Catholic friends, (ONCE AGAIN IT IS THE FEMALES who adore adoring the chains that bind them) facing me square in the face, and explain that the reason President John F. Kennedy, had to have constant sex, was because of the medication he was on for his bad back! (as a matter of fact-considering the bad back-it was probably it that caused Angie Dickerson to remark "Having sex with JFK was the most exciting 60 seconds of my life.") Robert Kennedy was prodigiously over-sexed (a fact covered up successfully by the Church)-I think a large donation to the Church by Joe Kennedy helped that little cause. The hypocrisy of the ‘ultimate happy family’ where Bobby had 11 children by the none too bright wife, Ethel, at the same time as having as many affairs as his brother. Then came the ultimate betrayal of every unquestioning Catholic on earth. Teddy Kennedy’s killing of Mary Joe Kopeckne, and the blatant lies that entailed. Naturally, he was allowed to get away with it. Bog Irish trash at the top of America’s political tree. And wasn’t it apparent? Goebbels would have been out of his tree with envy, to see such crookedness being unremarked on.
If I start in on the corrupt practices of the DLP in Australia I will only go mad.If I think of Bartholomew Augustine Michael (call me Bob) Santamaria and what he led to, I’ll certainly be unable to sleep tonight. Once again, thank you for your excellent post.
Cheers
Venise