Almost the Pope

With a bit of luck and the application of the law, cardinal Pell will be in a cell tonight. There might be a God after all! One wonders how this will be faced by this man who for years denied justice to those child victims subjected to terrible abuse. I never like the man. Each time he was on TV I could not help but feel he was a man devoid of feeling. The Pope has now been given a list of 6000 paedophile priests. Those priests are still alive. The Pope in his celestial wisdom announced they were ‘The Tools of Satan’.  Even now, he is not willing to face the terrible truth that each of those abusers should have been dealt with by the law. The Catholic church still prefers to hide the fact that for decades the only thing the church was interested in was to hide the truth of rampant paedophilia. The victims were secondary in this whole debacle.

Cardinal Pell was the third highest in the hierarchy of the catholic Church. Almost a Pope. The Catholic church now has a crisis on its hands. It can no longer persists in one of its strongest dogmas of its insistence on celibacy. People have sex. The denial of that is just plain stupid. Of course, abuse of children is not just concentrated by the catholic church. It happens everywhere but, the catholic church is the one religion which stands out above all the others in its treatment of the victims.  The hiding and moving paedophile priests to other parishes was a matter of routine. It seems unbelievable that that was the norm. Pell seemed to blame the victims of abuse. A callous man devoid of compassion and empathy.

It is now seen as an institution run by feeble old men run for feeble old men. You look at those images of all those old purple clad men huddling together eager to kiss the withered hand of a shaky mitered Pope in Rome. Where are the women in all this? There needs to be a revolution by the catholic church.

In any case, Pell will be locked up tonight. One can only wonder what he will be thinking. Is there going to be a moment, just a split second, whereby he will acknowledge within his frosty heart, the terrible deeds he now has been found guilty of?

Hotdog

Every few months I take some time off and get the car washed. I know I should do that myself but I have hardly ever washed a car. The tediousness of it I never overcame. It might also explain why I was never drawn to join the army, the police force, became a Jesuit or follow any kind of group where discipline is required.

The car-wash place is about three kilometres from here. They charge $ 45.-. They do a thorough job. A whole team of young people beaver about with specialised equipment. High pressure steam spray blasts the dirt off the exterior after which the interior gets a vacuuming with the upholstery cleaning and burnishing waxing of the leather seats. The carpet especially is beyond my capability. They have a specially strong machine that just about sucks up the car itself. Anyone who has a Jack Russell would know that their hairs will be almost impossible to remove. They stick to the carpet like a Velcro stocking to a varicosed leg.

Some of the car washers wear headgear of Sikhs, others wear Turbans both indicating a belonging to a disciplinary faith based organisation. This installs me with complete trust and confidence. I never heard of car jackings by people that wear religious clothing. I mean, would a man (or woman) steal a car wearing a cardinal’s mitre with humble desert sandals?

The cleaning always takes about an hour. And as this car-cleaning business is situated in a large shopping complex with a food-court, I do what I rarely do; have a coffee with a hotdog. It does not matter what time it is, the food-court is really rocking. I read yesterday that peoples lives are becoming more and more aimless. Eating is the one activity that is still possible to experience as a pleasure. The food courts are proof of it. Eating is now seen as an aim in itself. Of course, I become part of that as well. I sit there the same as the others. The hotdog itself contradicts everything that I know about healthy eating. Part of it is that I am doing this by myself. With Helvi, I would be eating a far healthier Japanese sushi take-away. But what the heck, (I sooth myself). The car washing combo with hotdog is enjoyed a couple of times year.

So what?