THREAD: 1. Reminded today of another requiem mass back in 1996: the funeral of serial paedophile priest Nazareno Fasciale, attended by the late George #Pell six weeks after Fasciale was charged by police for multiple counts of gross indecency & indecent assault of four children.
2. #Pell was soon to become Archbishop of Melbourne. 3 years before, he was on the church’s Personnel Advisory Board which, knowing Fasciale’s crimes, allowed him to retire for “ill heath & stress”. The child abuse Royal Commission found Pell knew real reason Fasciale retired.
3. When #Pell became archbishop, he made a big thing of introducing the Melbourne Response, supposedly to help victims, but really silenced them, forced them to sign deeds of release & gave them paltry compensation. He said he was the first church leader to tackle this crisis.
4. So why did #Pell attend funeral of a man he knew was a child sex offender? I remember researching, being shocked at the pictures of clergy parading into Fasciale’s funeral, the admission by bishop leading that Fasciale “would be the first to confess that he too was a sinner”.
5. And I remember thinking, that it was no excuse, but it was another time.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
