Comments on: Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse : repercussions

By: Lizzie Moore

Lizzie Moore — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 23:40:41 +0000

Its all so terribly sad; its not as though these guys get professional training in admin. It puts me in mind of a certain Catholic monsignor in our region [a good and wise man and an impressive scholar] who back in the late 80s, decided to “go with the flow”. A certain element in our region was then given their heads and the outcome was a siege like set up in a country town – of priests, in effect, conducted a reign of terror. People being driven out of town, stand over tactics, menaces, threats to destroy businesses through boycotts, etc., all punishments for political non-compliance. So one unwise decision can have repercussions for decades and create a mess which is very hard to clean up. The above, also permanently sullied the reputation of the above cleric, sad to say.

The impression one gets about certain catastrophic decisions also, is that at the time, “one will get away with it” and “the X situation shall never come to light”. What we Aussies call the “she’ll be right, mate!” attitude. It took the impressive powers invested in a Royal commission to truly ‘lift the lid’ in Australia. Sadly, Jewry got to be part of the tale…

By: Cynthia Godfrey

Cynthia Godfrey — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 07:39:29 +0000

In reply to ben gershon.

How I agree with Ben Gershon, and any reasonable person will understand that it is not Chabad that is being attacked, but the persons who have been abusing young boys.
Sadly it seems that this particular group closed ranks and ignored what was happening under their very noses. Any religious organisation that has condoned WITH THEIR SILENCE, and it certainly applied to the Roman Catholic church, has to inevitably face the justice system, whoever they are.
Anyone who can betray the trust of a young person, then go to lengths to keep it quiet has my contempt. As a Jewish mother and thanks to the almighty it never happened to my children, I would have shouted it from the rooftops and made very certain that the full glare of publicity was shone on such a despicable situation. It is beyond words to even imagine the feelings of all those young people involved, these perpetrators should ‘bow their heads in shame’ and have a semblance of humility on the wrongs they have done or have allowed to be covered up.

By: ben gershon

ben gershon — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 05:16:59 +0000

the community should freeze all official connections with chabbad until all former leaders.rabbis and executive members have been purged from the pay rolls and boards

ben

it is going to be a long “ul chet shechutaty l’fanechah” round there for a while