Pell and other allegations

My father spent a year boarding at St Pat’s during the 60’s. Not sure if Pell was there at the time, but the “Christian Brothers” were disgusting creatures.

Unfortunately, cover ups of all sorts of abuse and harrassment are still on-going within government institutions also. People are put “under investigation”, then they mysteriously move locations within the organisation. You can complain if you’ve been a victim, but you are basically guaranteed to lose.

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If we want to be more accurate it was happening all over the place.

One of the reasons why it happened for so long, behind closed doors and nothing was said openly although many people knew did nothing about it or did know and did nothing to stop it. It came out of a time, when women and children were chattels and therefore were property.

It stills happens under the guise of religion and is excused especially for younger females who can be married at nine years old. Hence the very old joke (which is not funny) “get them young and train them.”

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Pell and others before him, he is NOT the Catholic church, put simply, he just works there.
And; maybe for not much longer. OPTICS, they are very important.

Pell is the Catholic Church and all it stands for.

Catholics can believe in their religion and its principles, but the “Church” is responsible for the actions of all its priests and nuns. Why do you think they worked so hard to cover it up?

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Wrong.

Not wrong at all, and many Catholics aged over 50 are complicit, as they knew something was very wrong.

Many Catholics over 50 are also victims…

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Yep, I was one of the lucky ones spared.

Me too.

But having an education with schools run by Sisters of “Mercy”, “Christian” Brothers and Marist brothers, my recollection is of a brutality that would not be tolerated today.

For example, it was routine for our Form 1 (Year 7) class to have a French exam AND a Latin exam every day. For every error, no matter how minor - for example not placing an acute or a grave symbol above a vowel - would receive one whack with the strap. Up to a maximum of 6. So there was some “mercy” there.

Another time a “Brother” grabbed a student by his hair and whacked his head into the blackboard repeatedly. Because the poor kid who was obviously mentally challenged could not answer some complicated mathematical question. There are two sequelae from this example: that student left in Year 11 to join the public service (that was the last year they did not require matriculation) and that teacher famously had the best pass rate in the state in both Pure and Applied Mathematics in Y12 (with only 2 students failing in his 40+ years of teaching). Parenthetically, I have never appreciated the beauty of maths so much as in his class.

So a double edged sword: brutality we would not tolerate these days but academic outcomes that could not be achieved these days ESPECIALLY on the level of school fees they charged.

I also attended a primary school run by Sisters of “Mercy”. They never showed me any mercy in daily beatings with a leather strap or thick cane. Wasn’t not all of them, but some seemed to delight in abuse. I only spent a short time at a “Christian” Brothers secondary school, my father saved me after another beating, as the next day he punched the Head Brother in the nose, and I was enrolled at the High School in the afternoon.

Funny that I never really thought that much about the mistreatment as everyone got it and it was just part of life, or so it seemed. When the sexual abuse was highlighted, all the memories of these beatings came back, and I was angrier than ever, confronting my Parents about it.

I feel so sad for those that got it much worse than me, hence my gate for Pell.

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The old man told the delightful tale of how they would make you put your head under the bottom shelf of the front blackboard to take the cane, so if you flinched you copped it in the back of the head as well.
Can’t say they weren’t inventive.
He also very, very briefly mentioned a priest who would drive them around in his car and always had a boy sitting in his lap so he could steer…
The worst I got was a few with the ruler.

The Nuns used to cane my uncle’s knuckles because he used his left hand. It’s the Devil’s Hand, you see.

Unfortunately he could not write at all with his right hand, so they’d then cane him for having poor handwriting.

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How Christian of them.

This happened in State Schools as well. I was left handed and many Teachers were determined not to have left handed kids in their classes. If caught writing with the left hand, you could expect to be stood in the corner and be pelted with chalk or the board duster, wearing what was known then as the dunce’s hat. (its actually also a wizard’s hat.) If caught again, it was either the cane or the strap on the left hand only. So then you had to write with the right hand because you would continue to get “the cuts” until you stopped displeasing the Teacher and being disobedient.

This kind of behaviour toward children was readily accepted, today it would be deemed abuse and unacceptable.
It was bullying at its worst. I refused to buckle and probably the only reason I was not expelled, I was the school’s best runner and they didn’t want to lose me. Looking back now, I know I did not do myself any favours.
What it did teach me was high pain tolerance and a distrust of adult in positions of power Kind of damned if you don’t and damned if you do.

I went to a normal public school, but that sort of brutality in the classroom was still present. If you talked the teacher would take you outside, stand on a chair while you had your hands out and jump down off the chair to whack you across the hands with the strp. Getting the “cane” was quite commonplace and wasn’t kept to just RCC stuff.

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Same.
May have had something to with clocking a few Brothers and being expelled from 3 schools.

It’s exactly how I remember it, man.
I got the ‘stick’; every morning, without fail. Everyone had 5, or 6, or 10 ‘of the best’. Mine was a little different - it was ‘until you cried’. And this was, daily, for being reported on school transport - every morning - for…talking.

That sounds like the infamous Father Day from Mildura. Cops knew everything that was going on too, apparently. They were also good Catholics and turned a blind eye.

Went to a state high school in Victoria in the '60’s. We had a teacher in woodwork who was a sadistic B and had a habit of hitting students with a length of 3" x 1/4" ash timber stock. This might be across the a**e , the back of the thighs, over your knuckles and even a clip over the back of the head. This guy had been a commando in WW2 and was barely 5’3" and had a real Napoleon complex. Tended to pick on the taller boys, granted that some weren’t as skilled as others with their hands. Ultimately picked the wrong kid to wack over the back of his thighs , actually kid became champion ruck for Fitzroy, and the kid brought an uppercut from about his knees and ko’d him cold. Whole affair was hushed up and we never saw the teacher again.

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What a surprise. The IPA are promoting a crowd funding appeal for him.