An Australian Cardinal has just been convicted of child abuse/rape. It is possible he may be acquitted on appeal but this is not a comment on the Cardinal, but a comment on some of his supporters. Please note it is not a call to stop Christians from offering him forgiveness if he is not acquitted, but there is something which needs comment.
He has been roundly defended by members of Australia’s Righteous establishment. They have argued things like he was convicted by an atheist or left-wing conspiracy, the case was bad (despite the well-known difficulties of getting unanimous convictions in such cases, and their ignorance of the testimony or the records of testimony) and so on. They almost universally refer to his character as making the charges unlikely. One ex-prime minister called his character ‘exemplary’.
I do not know the man and have never met him. However, he is on record as having led the Church’s denial response to priestly rape. He has defended rapist priests, been unaware of rapist priests (even when he lived with them), attempted to silence victims, successfully argued that the Catholic Church was not a legal body which could be sued, limited compensation to $50,000 dollars, and smeared people who challenged him or presented evidence of abuse. He has fought fiercely to protect the Church from the appearance of scandal, while allowing the scandalous acts to continue for years. This implies that for the Righteous, institutions exist solely:
That this is considered ‘exemplary,’ I think, tells you a lot about Right wing politics and morality. It is about maintaining their authority, supporting the powerful when they fall, and headkicking those hurt by the system. There is little else to it, whatsoever.
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