Do you go to church?
I rarely go. Maybe 1-2 a year. Not really a churchgoing or religious person. I have better things to do on Sunday morning.
sharewhy do you go at all??
share
MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Do you go to church?
I used to, but the church I was attending closed and I haven't gone since.
shareOnly when the church bells are calling my name.
shareI rarely leave it...
https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,h_2138,w_3809,x_0,y_0/v1554744380/shape/mentalfloss/556629-istock-852755038_primary.jpg?itok=_6oc5fKR
Now that's quite a nice looking church.
shareNo.
shareNo I don't and I'm a Christian. I don't buy into organized religion, especially the Catholic Church. I can believe in God, try to live a good life, and worship without going to a building. I've never found a group I truly relate to and most very religious people make me uncomfortable to be around. My family was dedicated to our church and my uncle was a minister. I gave up on going to church about 25 years ago - the minister was heavily involved in the anti pornography movement and that is all we heard from the pulpit every week. It was more about him and his crusade than God.
shareThose who speak out against something loudly (pornography, homosexuality, etc) often have something to hide.
shareSo true. Cardinal George Pell was one of the most fiercely anti-gay religious figures in Australia.
Look at him now.
Cardinal Pell was stitched up big time. The "evidence" against him was a joke and the guilty verdict was ridiculous.
Hmm, not my take I'm sorry. I think he is as guilty as sin.
According to the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions, it is actually Pell's legal team who have overlooked evidence related to the surviving victim's credibility in this new appeal.
"(Pell's legal team) glosses over evidence supportive of the account of the complainant" was the latest word from them.
If only Pell had consulted Andrew Bolt before the shit hit the fan, he could have just claimed he was merely "hitting on" these kids. No harm, no foul.
Accuser: Pell sexually abused me over twenty years ago. There was a witness but he's dead. Pell sexually abused him too.
Pell: I didn't do it.
Jury: Guilty !
That's certainly an abridged version of events!
I'm not trying to be dismissive of your support of Pell, I just can't share it. This statement from the victim following the first appeal solidifies my belief that he had nothing to gain from bringing his complaint to the police, in fact quite the opposite:
“I am relieved at the decision of the Court of Appeal. It is four years since I reported to the police. The criminal process has been stressful. The journey has taken me to places that, in my darkest moments, I feared I could not return from.
The justice machine rolls on with all of its processes and punditry, almost forgetting about the people at the heart of the matter. Despite this, I appreciate that the criminal process afforded Pell every opportunity to challenge the charges and to be heard. I am glad he had the best legal representation money can buy. There are a lot of checks and balances in the criminal justice system and the appeal process is one of them. I just hope that it is all over now.
Some commentators have suggested that I reported to the police somehow for my own personal gain. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have risked my privacy, my health, my wellbeing, my family. I have not instructed any solicitor in relation to a claim for compensation. This is not about money and never has been.
I'm not on a mission to do anybody any harm. Although my faith has taken a battering it is still a part of my life, and part of the lives of my loved ones.
I am grateful for a legal system that everyone can believe in, where everybody is equal before the law and no one is above the law."
So like the jury you chose to take the word of the accuser over Pell's denial because he was persuasive. That doesn't alter the fact that it was his word against Pell's and there was no corroborating evidence to support his accusation. The case should have been thrown out of court in five minutes.
Not just that, I think Pell is a creep and always has been. Trying to hush victims of the church's systemic abuse of children with pithy one-off payments, constant public damnation of homosexuals, trying to convince the public that as a senior official he was unaware of the sexual abuse that was occurring constantly under his watch, ongoing support of priests who have been convicted of sexual abuse...
So yeah, it's a lot more than a heartfelt statement released by the victim after the appeal that makes me less likely to believe anything that man says.
Pell may well be a bastard but that is not the reason he was on trial. Although I agree the trial was used to get him because the view was that he "had it coming". So Pell is now a convicted paedophile and in jail not because he was proven to be guilty but because he was "a bastard who had it coming". So much for the "rule of law" in Australia.