Marist and Daramalan buy off more victims

It’s difficult for me NOT to be anti-Catholic but I actively repress my instinctive prejudices. Not all Catholics are evil. But when they DO evil things we need to deal with them. Johnboy is genuinely horrified by all this and he’s not slinging mud, he’s reporting facts. This is something that MUST be dealt with – child molestors are still EVERYWHERE. They won’t thrive under the protection of their establishment these days – HOPEFULLY – but if we don’t illustrate the depth of damage they have done they’ll be back at it again you can bet on it.

It’s been a while. I had even lost my password so now I’m MickW1965 and even LESS anonymous but that’s OK I know now it’s not my fault what happened. I was surprised to see people are still interested in this topic. I had a mediation session in December 2009 and I eventually took a settlement that was deemed fair by all (when I say “fair” I mean it was as much as we believed I would get in court and I would have had to spend more to get it). Jason and his team were incredible. They were very supportive and I mean it when I say they really give a damn. I am not allowed to say how much I got, but I will say it was enough to buy maybe 1/2 of a fair priced 4 bedroom home in Kambah. I am allowed to say what happened to me though, and I am writing a book that covers my time at Marist and the following years. At the mediation session I was met by a Marist Brother whose name escapes me but he had Kostka’s eyes and it really freaked me out! Everyone else got to talk to Brother William but not me because he knoew me so I got this other guy. He apoloigised to me for what Kostka had done and said it was a terrible thing and that they all know what happened and all felt the same that it was terrible. I broke down as I thanked him and I explained that his words were comforting, but were only words. I asked him to let his actions do the talking and for him to talk to the other Marist Brothers about how they could avoid this from happening. I also told him it’s important that training Brothers know it’s far more important to expose the truth than to put the school’s reputation first because the thing that still kills me is I know other teachers and Brothers and I’m guessing fellow students KNEW what was going on, but their silence still makes me feel like I was being punished because I was evil. BerraBoy – what’s your email? I have been off work for over a year and have not had a contact for you!

Not anti-Catholicism. Just Anti-Abrahamism. Judaism, Islam, Christianity are all derived from the same ancient perverted sex sect. The old testament is a catalogue of their sex crimes. Adherents of these works must therefore inevitably be interested in imitating such thoroughly well-documented sex crimes. All of these faiths are simply sex sects. That explains EVERYTHING. The abusers are simply good adherents of the faith.

Even today’s Canberra Times has a story with the Pope talking about addressing child abuse. He still doesn’t get it. His words are still about the Church dealing with it. If there’s any evidence of child abuse, call the damn police in.
All that I’ve seen indicates that the Catholic institution still thinks it is a law unto itself. I have a friend who is a victim of Kostka. He went to Marist in the 1980s. He’s been fighting the institution ever since. His life has been affected, and will be, forever.

justin heywood said :

While Rioters trawl endlessly over the activities of a few individuals several decades ago, in NSW more than one teacher PER WEEK is reported for sexual misconduct. (Allegations sustained in 26 cases in the last 2 years). There is no reason to think that the ACT would be any better proportionately.

Is it institutionalised?

justin heywood said :

Anti-Catholicism. The last resort of the polite bigot.

There’s nothing bigoted about being anti-religion.

You’re so wrong, justin, on almost every level.

The random cases in schools you refer to are happening, and are being dealt with.

The problem with what happened in Catholic (and other) schools was institutionalised abuse. This is where victims were victimised further; where perpetrators were not only protected, but allowed, indeed encouraged, to move on to other “green fields” where a whole new set of victims were created.

Attacking comment by other people on this site does not diminish one iota the effects of the institutional abuse created, supported and protected by the church hierarchy.

justin heywood said :

BerraBoy68 said :

Just because people don’t agree with you it doesn’t make them a bigot, just different, or possibly more informed

True, although I am a little more informed than you seem to think – and a severely lapsed Catholic atheist like you. I was not attacking your post particularly BeraBoy – you have a personal interest in the issue and addressed it – but others refer to it only in passing in their eagerness to vent their bigotry.

Yesterday, a poster here was saying, without apparent irony, that he could spot a bigot by the stickers on his car. Today, the first two threads I read contained anti-Catholic rants from numerous posters with only tangential reference to the OP.

Only a fool would argue that the Catholic church behaved ethically on this issue. My point was that the abuse issue is a lightning rod for bigots, who use the issue to exercise their intolerance for Christianity in general.

When the abuse of children is such a current and widespread issue, the focus on one small aspect of it (historical abuse by clergy) smells of a witch hunt by people who would call themselves civilized.

Very well said. If we are going to stand against intolerance, then we have to show tolerance ourselves, even when its toward a general group we dislike.

BerraBoy68 said :

Just because people don’t agree with you it doesn’t make them a bigot, just different, or possibly more informed

True, although I am a little more informed than you seem to think – and a severely lapsed Catholic atheist like you. I was not attacking your post particularly BeraBoy – you have a personal interest in the issue and addressed it – but others refer to it only in passing in their eagerness to vent their bigotry.

Yesterday, a poster here was saying, without apparent irony, that he could spot a bigot by the stickers on his car. Today, the first two threads I read contained anti-Catholic rants from numerous posters with only tangential reference to the OP.

Only a fool would argue that the Catholic church behaved ethically on this issue. My point was that the abuse issue is a lightning rod for bigots, who use the issue to exercise their intolerance for Christianity in general.

When the abuse of children is such a current and widespread issue, the focus on one small aspect of it (historical abuse by clergy) smells of a witch hunt by people who would call themselves civilized.

justin heywood said :

Anti-Catholicism. The last resort of the polite bigot.

Say what you like Justin, I’ve spoken to these people and seen what they can do to those they are supposed to care for if it meets their own ends.

Like many others I was raised a catholic but, like many of my peers, turned away from it once I realised it is one of the most hypocritical organisations on the face of the earth. Seems to me if there really was a God and what the bible says is true, then first thing he’d do is disown his official fanclub.

Just because people don’t agree with you it doesn’t make them a bigot, just different, or possibly more informed

The church does not handle abuse issues well at all, and trying to bring the issue of child abuse within the church out into the public is not anti-catholicism. Prosecuting crimes committed by religious people is not anti-catholicism.

I believe that all the publicity around abuse in the church will make parents and school teachers and principals far more aware of what can happen, and they will be far less trusting, and less abuse will occur.

Geoffrey Robinson has an interesting take on this one:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/16/3013313.htm?section=justin
“The problem with the church is that it’s been treating paedophile priests as sinners and not as serious criminals.”