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Monday, May 19, 2014

Just Fun

An ursine "Nutcracker" 
Or  "I can see all the way to Kiev  from up here!" 

Violence in any form


Putting this up with a slight sense of hesitation.
The problems of the Church and institutions has been in the news more often than not. Certainly over the past few months things have come spewing out as witnesses or victims have come forth to give evidence to the various commissions and bodies that have been set up to deal with these practices.
One thing is patently obvious: that the vast majority of perpetrators or predators are male. It is seemingly not confined to the church but also to those areas where adults have complete control over the children e.g. boarding schools ( many of these cases of abuse are hidden and not talked about) as well as celebrities etc etc.
Abuse is not merely sexual but physical, mental or any other form of bigotry that twists the minds of those who condone and encourage such behaviour.
Ghandi once famously remarked that poverty is violence in a pure unadulterated form.
It wasn't so long ago, perhaps less than thirty years that a child's evidence was ignored as juries were instructed to  favour the denials of the accused ; it was considered that adults were more likely to tell the truth than youngsters.
What is also clear is that the gender of victims is not confined purely to the males but to both sexes; it's distressing to realise that many are and will continue to be subject to violence in one form or another,
It is fortunate that the perpetrators are in the minority. Of all the priests and adults who exist,  those who actually commit these crimes are a small percentage. Many people do good work and are not known or recognised as such.