Suffer the little children

Out to dinner with friends, I am just home, recollecting with pleasure our common links and shared experiences. I am overlooking the fact that I took some wine which should have been venerably aged and a pleasure to drink, but instead it turned out to be no good. What did it think it was doing, all these years, lying there to reach its peak?  And all to no avail. However the food was good, the ambience excellent, the noise level low, the service excellent and we all had a lovely time. I do not know whether the rest of that vintage is worth opening, or whether we just got a bung bottle.

We are all old enough to recollect our pasts. There has been much publicity here about pedophilia, by teachers, clergy and those in positions of power. We are now to have a Royal Commission into the whole issue. When reviewing our past experiences, we agreed that we had encountered remarkably little of such evil exploitation of the young and vulnerable, and are thankful for that. Evidently we lived in a more repressed, ignorant and innocent age. I find it hard to believe that people in positions of authority and power over the young could have abused their positions so dreadfully. Yet so many, evidently, have suffered grievously. When did such a situation come about?

I am from a much more ignorant and innocent generation. We knew little and imagined less. The abuse of little children was unimaginable - and it remains so, to my mind anyway. I feel sorry for those repressed, inexperienced and frustrated people, but cannot excuse them for their exploitation of children and for their cover ups, their denials and their rationalisations.

I am of an age with Cardinal Pell, but do not suffer from his certainties, his authoritarianism o his blinkered vision.