Tag Archive: Geoffrey Robertson QC


Spotlight on the case. Holy shit! Hold the front page!

Filed under: Movies, Politics — Leave a comment
March 13, 2016

SPOTLIGHT directed by Tom McCarthy (USA, 2015)

 oscarometro2016spotlightHoly shit! Never has this exclamation carried more significance.

Based on actual events (isn’t everything?), the shit uncovered by the Spotlight team of fearless reporters of the Boston Globe at the turn of the Millennium indeed had the holiest of stenches.

The Roman Catholic priests in Boston who molested and abused young boys and girls turned out the be the tip of a dung heap of global proportions. As the credits roll, the printed list of subsequent cases found in parishes around the world is enough to make Jesus and the rest of us mere mortals weep.

Anything which widens the scope of the negative publicity against the hypocritical church establishment is welcome but I doubt that the Pope is quaking in his satin slippers after seeing this lackluster movie. In toning down the sensationalist elements of the story, it becomes more of a celebration of investigative journalism than a full-blooded indictment of this holy disorder. Continue reading →

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THE POPE AND CHILD ABUSE

Filed under: Books, Politics — 1 Comment
January 8, 2011

There are some books that should come with health warnings and  The Case of the Pope by Geoffrey Robertson QC is one of them. Reading it will make your blood pressure rise and fuel an uncontrollable  rage towards the Catholic Church in general and the current Pope in particular.

Of course, you may not feel the same way about this.

For example, if you think that ordaining women priests is as serious as sodomising a child you’ll have no problem with the Vatican’s policy towards victims of child abuse. Also you won’t feel so enraged as I did if you consider that molesting minors is a sin on a par with masturbation. You will be able to argue calmly that, after all, both breach the Catholic rule that stipulates the “non use of the sexual faculty” .

So, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a health warning needs to be directed at readers with hearts, minds and souls, and at those who place common sense above religious dogma.

This would alert those (surely the vast majority)  who believe that abusing a child is not only a sin, but also a criminal act and one which demands not only that the perpetrators be brought to justice but also that  the victims  be properly recompensed.

And if you are hoodwinked by Pope Benedict XVI’s recent public apology on behalf of priests under his charge  then Robertson’s book is essential reading. Continue reading →

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