Australia: Cardinal Accuses Atheists of Being "Frightened by the Future"

[Sindig_og_stoisk]

Statement from Atheist Foundation of Australia

Pell opens Christmyth slagging season early with usual cheap shot
Release Date: Monday, November 29, 2010

Atheists are astonished by the latest attempt from Cardinal George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, to demonise the growing number of Australians who live without religion.

Speaking at a Mass celebrating the appointment of General Peter Cosgrove as Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, Pell preached that atheists “are frightened by the future.” He went on to say that “It's almost as though they've … nothing but fear to distract themselves from the fact that without God the universe has no objective purpose or meaning. Nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss.”

Once again, Pell’s comments fly in the face of all evidence. In truth, atheists live their lives with an integrity and intellectual rigour that Pell and his Church can only dream of.

Far from seeking to cover the abyss, the atheist looks a hostile universe full in its face without recourse to the emotional security blanket of religion and the supernatural. Unlike Pell’s Church (which has become a byword for superstition and resistance to scientific thinking) the atheist sees the world on its own terms, without the rose-tinted glasses of the promise of an afterlife.

Not content with mischaracterising atheism as weak and fearful, Pell went on to make the extraordinary proposition that “Australian society will become increasingly coarse and uncaring … if Christian principles are excluded from public discussion.”

To state that without the supervision of the Church the Australian people would turn to delinquency is frankly insulting. Millions of atheists and agnostics around the world live their lives ethically and with integrity.

Perhaps what Pell finds so threatening is that they do so according to principles drawn from their own reason and experience, not from slavish obedience to the adulterated writings of ancient and ignorant tent-living goat herders.

Moreover, given the damage that “Christian principles” have inflicted (Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia to name two recent examples), surely the days of Catholics claiming moral superiority should be over.

http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/...ual-cheap-shot

Good grief! Do Catholics really, sincerely believe that belief or non-belief in a deity can cause such a difference in people?
The rebuke from the Atheist Foundation of Australia is a masterful piece of rhetoric, though, and it makes a great deal more sense.

[Ingvaeonic]

It simply shows the degree to which the leaders of organised religion are frightened of growing secularism, the increasing currency of atheism as a belief, and burgeoning numbers of atheists. It is this same fear of growing secularism and atheistic/agnostic attitudes and beliefs that drives Moslem fanaticism against the West. As organised religion weakens in numbers, its propaganda and attacks on nonbelievers from its leaders and followers become more strident, abusive, and hysterical. Australian atheists should find Pell's attack heartening as it's a sign that they are being taken seriously as a rival to organised religion. Organised religion is losing ground and its leaders know it.

When you know there is no heaven, you don't fear hell.

[Sindig_og_stoisk]

Rodger, those are very good points that I failed to consider. Perhaps as Gandhi said: "first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win." I suppose atheism has arrived at Stage Three.

However, I am not entirely sure that victory for reason and rationality is as certain as you say, although I would love to live in a world where it was

[Ingvaeonic]

Rodger, those are very good points that I failed to consider. Perhaps as Gandhi said: "first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win." I suppose atheism has arrived at Stage Three.

However, I am not entirely sure that victory for reason and rationality is as certain as you say, although I would love to live in a world where it was

Thank you, Sindig og stoisk. Gandhi was right. And atheism is, as you say, at the third stage, certainly if the good cardinal's remarks are any indication. Victory for reason and rationality is not certain, and if I gave that impression it was an error, but more and more people are questioning the basis of religious belief and finding religion lacking in empirical evidence, let alone the absence of proof, and so wanting as a system of belief. And that's a good start and a heartening sign.

[jagdmesser]

Australia’s highest court unanimously acquitted Cardinal George Pell of child abuse on Wednesday, after the 78-year-old prelate spent 405 days in jail.


By a vote of 7-0, the high court ruled favorably in Pell’s appeal, noting that there was “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof.” “The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place,” wrote Chief Justice Susan Kiefel in a summary of the decision that has been made public.



In what was described as a “witch hunt” against the conservative prelate, Australian courts went after Pell in 2017 despite the fact that he had already been tried and exonerated in 2002. At that time, former Victorian Supreme Court justice Alec Southwell ruled that accusations of sex abuse against Pell were unsubstantiated, citing “valid criticism of the complainant’s credibility” as well as “the lack of corroborative evidence and the sworn denial of the respondent.”



Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Amanda Vanstone said that the “media frenzy surrounding Cardinal George Pell is the lowest point in civil discourse in my lifetime.” “What we are seeing is no better than a lynch mob from the dark ages,” Vanstone wrote, insisting that Pell has been treated by the media “as guilty from the start,” with no presumption of innocence or sober assessment of the facts of the case. “What we are seeing now is far worse than a simple assessment of guilt,” Vanstone added. “The public arena is being used to trash a reputation and probably prevent a fair trial.”



In December 2018, Cardinal Pell was convicted of having sexually abused two altar servers while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the late 1990s, following an earlier mistrial in which a jury was deadlocked at 10-2 in favour of declaring the cardinal “not guilty.” A number of witnesses stepped forward to denounce the guilty verdict handed down against Pell in what they describe as the mock trial of an innocent man.



An article by canon lawyer Ed Condon suggested that a series of reporting restrictions imposed by the County Court of Victoria in Australia did not serve to guarantee an impartial trial but rather to obfuscate the truth. Judging decades-old sex abuse charges with no corroborating evidence risks turning the presumption of innocence into a “legal fiction,” said Condon said, which obliges jurors to choose “between the word of the accuser and that of the accused.” In these cases, “the right to due process is at risk of becoming moot,” Condon said.



One independent source who was present for the duration of the trial said that the entire proceeding had an “anti-Catholic, anti-clerical drift” and that Pell’s attorneys had made an “unanswerable defense.” “It was absolutely clear to everyone in that court that the accusations were baseless. It wasn’t that Pell didn’t do what he’s accused of — he clearly couldn’t have done it,” the source said.



In a brief statement following the court’s decision, Pell said that he holds no ill will toward his accuser and that “the only basis for justice is truth.” “My trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of pedophilia in the Church,” he wrote. “The point was whether I committed these awful crimes, and I did not.”



The current archbishop Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has issued a statement welcoming Pell’s acquittal. “The Cardinal has always maintained his innocence and today’s decision confirms his conviction was wrong,” Fisher said. “This has not just been a trial of Cardinal Pell, but also of our legal system and culture,” he added. “The Cardinal’s vindication today invites broader reflection on our system of justice, our commitment to the presumption of innocence, and our treatment of high-profile figures accused of crimes.”






I always believed that Cardinal Pell had been stitched up in what amounted to a witch-hunt - yet another example of "believe the victim" stupidity overriding the presumption of innocence and unemotional assessment of fact.


But bit goes much deeper than that.
Consider the following.
Cardinal Pell was one of those tipped to be Pope, we now have to endure Pope Francis.
He was about to expose financial irregularities in the Vatican.
He was a scientifically qualified opponent of the great global warming fraud.
He was an outspoken opponent of homosexual so called marriage, abortion and all the other Marxist agendas.
So in this Holy Week let us give thanks to God for him being exonerated.


He also challenged Islam and spoke out about the passages of violence in the Koran, which made the creed irreconcilable with its claim to be "the religion of peace"
https://www.smh.com.au/nati...
That didn't go down at all well in some quarters.


And the Muslim Times crowed when he was, as they put it,
"brought to justice"
https://themuslimtimes.info...



Australia High Court Acquits Cardinal George Pell in Abuse Case

07 IV 2020.

The Catholic Church's support for basic morality is the chief cause of contention with the 'globalists'.
However, job done with this one.

[jagdmesser]

ROME — Australian Cardinal George Pell has called on the Vatican’s doctrinal office (CDF) to reprimand two outspoken bishops for their rejection of Church teaching regarding homosexuality.



In a statement released by his office on Tuesday, Cardinal Pell urged the CDF to “intervene and pronounce judgment” on the public position taken by Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of the European Bishops’ Conferences (COMECE), and Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, both of whom have challenged the Church’s teaching on the immorality of gay sex.



“Not one of the Ten Commandments is optional; all are there to be followed, and by sinners,” Cardinal Pell said in his statement. “We cannot have a special Australian or German version of the Ten Commandments.” Cardinal Pell’s statement references an interview he gave on March 11 to the German Catholic television agency K-TV. The heterodox position taken by Cardinal Hollerich and Bishop Bätzing represents a “wholesale and explicit rejection of the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual ethics,” Pell said.



“This erroneous teaching not only rejects the ancient Judaeo-Christian doctrines against homosexual activity, but undermines and rejects the teaching on monogamous marriage, the exclusive union of a man and a woman,” his statement reads. On February 1, Cardinal Hollerich declared that Catholic teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual relations is wrong and needs to be corrected. “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct,” Hollerich stated, adding that “I have homosexuals among my priests.” The Catholic Church teaches that same-sex attraction is “is objectively disordered” and that homosexual acts are immoral. “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’” states the Catholic Catechism, adding that under no circumstances “can they be approved.” For his part, Bishop Bätzing declared last week that the Catholic Church must change its teaching on sexual morality, insisting that gay sex does not harm a person’s relationship with God. Same-sex relations are okay, Bishop Bätzing told the German magazine Bunte in its March 4 issue, “as long as they are carried out with loyalty and responsibility.” “It doesn’t affect one’s relationship with God,” the bishop added. No one follows Church teaching on sexuality anymore, the bishop said, and so “we have to partially change the catechism. Sexuality is a gift from God. It’s not a sin.”



Last year Bishop Bätzing made similar statements when he publicly opposed a Vatican declaration forbidding the blessing of same-sex couples. “I believe that we have to assess homosexuality and lived partnerships outside of marriage differently,” said Bätzing at the time. “We can no longer proceed solely from natural law, but have to think much more in terms of care and personal responsibility for one another.” “In this regard, I would like to see a further development of Catholic teaching on sexual ethics,” the bishop said. Bätzing said that people in homosexual relationships want the blessing of the Church, and the Church must “address this desire.” “We can no longer answer these questions simply with a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ That is not possible,” he said.



According to Cardinal Pell, the stance taken by Hollerich and Bätzing “is a rupture, not compatible with the ancient teaching of Scripture and the Magisterium, not compatible with any legitimate doctrinal developments.” What is needed is “a clear Roman reprimand,” Pell declared.


'No one follows Church teaching on sexuality anymore, the bishop said, and so “we have to partially change the catechism. Sexuality is a gift from God. It’s not a sin.”'
Good on Cardinal Pell for fighting such corrosive rot in the Church. He also defends other Church teaching and doctrine. Too bad more of those who wear the red hat are not as outspoken as he. We need more such cardinals willing to speak out.


The Satanic LGBTQ movement is a cancer upon the planet.


"No one follows Church teaching on sexuality anymore...and so we have to partially change the catechism" Rubbish - we need to emphasise the catechism.



Cardinal George Pell Urges Vatican to Admonish Pro-Gay Bishops 17 III 2022.

Morality is an essential part of a healthy and continuous society, that's why the globalists target it.