Today being the day for meditation on sublime mysteries, the pond returned to brooding about the Gillard government and the IT industry.
As predicted by the pond, on Friday night at the AIMIA awards, the hostility to Gillard and her government was tangible and strong. The place was abuzz with indignation, anger and anti-government rhetoric.
It was remarkable stuff because the sector has been inclined to favour the government, if only because of the NBN, and the opportunities it offers and the understanding that copper is no substitute for fibre.
There is a profound fear that the luddite Abbott and the kowtowing Turnbull will fuck it over and fuck it up.
So what does the Gillard government do to one of the few supportive sectors in the business world? Demonise it as part of its general demonising of 457 ...
Rather than attend to the abysmal state of education and lack of ambition amongst Australian residents to work in the sector, which is struggling and which is small and up against well funded international competition, the government decided to go the boot (disclaimer, the sector is important to the pond when in search of a crust).
It's yet another case of the government shooting itself in the foot, or worse, shooting blindly at its one-time supporters, aiming at a non-unionised sector to placate its union base for alleged abuse of 457 visas in other sectors.
Now it's a small sector, but broadband is a growing part of the future, unless said Abbott and kowtowing Turnbull fuck it up, and this government needs as many friends as it can muster ...
The whole thing is as mysterious as transubstantiation, or seeing crucifixion as a jolly way to achieve redemption and attract the attention of the long absent lord.
The pond wished it had offered this government support, so it could do a Wilkie and withdraw its support.
Never mind, the thinking on 457 is a sublime secular mystery, and the pond has been brooding about spiritual matters arising from Christopher Pearson yesterday publishing a torrent of abuse in relation to the new pope, most particularly in relation to crucial matters such as cassocks and Latin rites (bugger the lazy poor, they can just sod off).
Yet a week ago in the Sunday Terror, that firm 20 to 1 favourite turned loser Cardinal Pell, was assuring the world that god was in on the action:
On Wednesday evening the cardinals gathered for an hour of prayer in St. Peter's Basilica in the chapel dedicated to the teacher's chair of St. Peter, the first pope. It is surmounted by a magnificent oval window symbolizing the Holy Spirit, God's presence among us. I was ordained a priest in that chapel nearly 50 years ago.
At both these papal elections I have been touched by the faith and prayerfulness of the "cardinal electors", who vow to God they will vote for the best candidate. (Preparing For The Conclave)
Now either Pearson is right, and god is fallible and She's got it wrong, and guided the faithful to vote for the worst candidate of all time, or Pearson's guilty of a profound heresy, because She was in the room guiding the cardinals as they voted for the very best candidate to hand.
Surely this means the heretic Pearson should be cast from the church by the faithful and prayerful Pellists?
Oh if only idle Sunday fantasies came true ...
Meanwhile, only yesterday came news that She certainly moves amongst the Cardinals in most mysterious ways, what with 'Paedophilia not criminal condition' says Durban cardinal.
What a headline:
Confirming that it's unlikely that the church can ever be led to an understanding that sexual abuse of children is a crime, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, South Africa, told the BBC that padeophilia was a psychological illness, not a criminal condition.
Now it goes without saying that a fixation on children as a way to sexual relief is certainly a psychological displacement, and it would be better for all if the Church had encouraged a fetish for shoes, furs, nappies or whips (none do it for the pond, but feel free).
At the same time, it's possible to hold two thoughts in the noggin at the one time. Yes, children who have been abused are likely to turn abuser, just as the bullied frequently turn to bullying, but by the time you've become a respected member of the community as a priest in the Catholic church you should also be adult enough to know that going the fiddle with children - much younger, and subject to a huge power imbalance - might be driven by your psychological make-up, but has also been deemed by your community as a criminal offence. And if you commit the crime, you should do the time, without cover-ups or excuses.
It's a sublime mystery why people like Napier wilfully and blindly mis-speak week after week, year after year, and compound the church's image of blind stupidity.
He said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children.
"Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged."
It's the old insanity plea writ large, and it helps explain why the church thought shuffling offenders from parish to parish so they could re-offend went on for years ...
Meanwhile, the Sydney Anglicans went wild over the appointment of the new Pope (those high church types really do yearn for the Latin mass, don't they?)
In Anglicans speak on new pope, we copped this sort of remark:
Bishop Venables describes the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as "much more of a Christian, Christ centered and Spirit filled, than a mere churchman. He believes the Bible as it is written."
It's the casual stupidity of Anglicans that gets to the pond.
Surely what Venables meant to say is that the new Pope believes the Bible as it is translated, though which translation is best is a matter of ongoing, endless disputation. It's been written and re-written by many hands, and with many variable results and meanings, and subjected to endless jesuitical inquisitions and disquisitions:
Some Protestants will tell you that the only acceptable version of the Bible is the King James. This position is known as King James-onlyism. Its advocates often make jokes such as, "If the King James Version was good enough for the apostle Paul, it is good enough for me," or, "My King James Version corrects your Greek text." (Bible translation guide for Catholics)
Of course the Anglicans and Venables are deeply inspired by the pope calling the Argentine government satanic:
In 2010 Bishop Venables joined forces with Cardinal Bergoglio to fight a government bill authorizing same-sex marriage. Cardinal Bergogolio denounced the move saying “this is no mere legislative bill. It is a move by the father of lies to confuse and deceive the children of God.”
Satan won, as you'd expect, and Argentina became the tenth country worldwide to allow same-sex marriage, as the wiki tells us here.
Strangely the country hasn't descended into Satanic hell as a result, with a wistful yearning for the Falkland islands about as weird as it gets ...
If only Bergoglio had been as strong about Satan roaming the earth during the days of the disappeared, instead of the queasy stories that surfaced, as outlined in his wiki here.
As for the Archbishop's statement on Pope Francis, where the Sydney Anglicans give their official welcome to the new pope, we can thankfully note that brevity sometimes avoids all wit, insight, or intelligence ...
Six lines of surly welcome from the Jensenists praying that the pope will at last use the office to further the gospel of Jesus Christ for the sake of all humanity, obviously having failed so dismally at the task in previous years and papacies ...
It's almost enough for the pond to have pity on the new pope, faced with corruption and blind wilful stupidity of Napier new world kind ...
Almost ...
We don't want too many inscrutable mysteries on a Sunday ...
Don't want to get all Hendo and pedantic on you,Dorothy, but the 'sexually abused child becoming an abuser' is a bit overstated by people like Napier. The majority of abusers are men who molest multiple children, while the majority of victims are girls. Most victims never touch another child.
ReplyDeleteYes you're right GlenH, but I didn't want to get into the whole phenomenon, hence the slack wording
ReplyDeleteThe abused can turn to abuse, but there was no intention to defame the vast majority of those abused who don't turn to abuse.
Ditto most people who've been bullied never use as it an excuse for bullying and never turn bully.
And of course abuse also happens in a family context, and the church (and some of its accusers) routinely conflate homosexuality and paedophilia, and so on and so on, with the field rife with mis-statements and mis-information ... so when the pond slackly takes up the word of a defensive Cardinal, Hendo pedantry is entirely appropriate, especially when you don't make Hendo pedant errors :)
I should have just left it at saying that a man who has qualified as a priest, and as an adult member of a religious and wider community, should understand that paedophilia is a crime, in much the same way as they come to understanding that murder is a crime, and pleading extenuating circumstances is a cop-out of an entirely predictable Catholic church kind ...
Thank you to both GlenH and DP for the above, the former for his important and real observation and for DP in her graceful acknowledgment and reinforcement.
ReplyDeletefred