JUSTICE FOR BISHOP GEORGE BELL OF CHICHESTER

PART 5 - "SPOTLIGHT" FILM - DVD RELEASED IN UK TODAY - MONDAY MAY 23 2016

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/13/spotlight-reporters-uncovered-catholic-child-abuse-boston-globe

“It’s been 13 years since we published our stories,” says Michael Rezendes. “So far, for survivors, there’s been a tribunal that hasn’t taken any concrete action. Over the last 10 years the Vatican has defrocked something like 850 priests and sanctioned maybe 2,500 more. But in terms of policy, there has been very little systemic change.”

PART 6 - "SPOTLIGHT" FILM - DVD RELEASED IN UK TODAY - MONDAY MAY 23 2016

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/13/spotlight-reporters-uncovered-catholic-child-abuse-boston-globe

"SURVIVORS NETWORK OF THOSE ABUSED BY PRIESTS" (SNAP)

http://www.snapnetwork.org/

PART 7 - "SPOTLIGHT" FILM - DVD RELEASED IN UK TODAY - MONDAY MAY 23 2016

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/13/spotlight-reporters-uncovered-catholic-child-abuse-boston-globe

ABUSE SCANDALS IN ENGLAND (LISTED AT END OF FILM)

London
Manchester
Middlesbrough
Preston
Reading

M S. REASON FOR SIGNING

"Because as muslim, I am very upset with the concept of taking an unsubstantiated allegation and then the media portraying it as a fact. It is continuously repeated behaviour which is due to bad journalists"

"STEROFLEX" ON VIRTUE-SIGNALLING AND THE CHURCH
http://archbishopcranmer.com/the-absurd-fiction-of-the-need-for-secrecy-in-the-trial-of-bishop-george-bell/

"Virtue-signalling by a bunch of third-raters. Gossiping old men and women causing people to be condemned without cause. Being forced to prove your innocence...And this is the Church of England?"

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/i-invented-virtue-signalling-now-its-taking-over-the-world/ ("Virtue-signalling")
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/virtue-signalling-putdown-passed-sell-by-date ("Virtue-signalling")
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=virtue%20signalling ("Virtue-signalling" = Saying you love or hate something to show off what a virtuous person you are, instead of actually trying to fix the problem)

"FIRST THEY CAME FOR BISHOP BELL"

First they came for Bishop Bell
But I did not speak out
Because I was not a Bishop...
Then they came for me
But there was no one left to speak up for me

(Adaptatation of Martin Niemoller's Poem "First They Came" by Richard W. Symonds)

PART 1 - PETER HITCHENS ON GEORGE BELL - FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

http://thetab.com/uk/sussex/2016/05/20/no-platforming-silly-interview-peter-hitchens-9752

The Tab Sussex (Ivor Jones) "began by asking him about his current fight for the reputation of the late Bishop George Bell (an early critic of Nazism) in light of allegations revealed by the Church last year he had abused a young girl in the late 1940s and early 50s...."

PART 2 - PETER HITCHENS ON GEORGE BELL - FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

Why have you become so interested in the case of Bishop George Bell and the allegation which has recently come to light that he molested a young girl while a priest?

Well it had been an interest of mine for some time. I had, in the course of reordering all my thoughts about the Second World War, become very conscious of George Bell’s almost unique role in both being a confirmed opponent of Hitler and the Nazis, more confirmed than most – an early observer of the danger, a friend of the German resistance – and also, what some people might see as a paradox, a very severe opponent of the area bombing of German cities by the Royal Air Force.

PART 3 - PETER HITCHENS ON GEORGE BELL - FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

And so when the three major newspapers and the BBC all came out with stories saying he had been a child abuser, I was astonished, because this didn’t in any way fit with the picture of him which I had formed through all my reading and everything else.

I also felt journalistically that those newspapers had made a serious mistake. They had done a thing which you’re not supposed to do: they had confused an allegation with a conviction and I decided I was going to pursue it. That’s why I got involved in it.

PART 4 - PETER HITCHENS ON GEORGE BELL - FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

What comments do you have on the way in which The Argus has handled this case?

Well, I don’t like the way they’ve handled it because I think they’ve been among the newspapers which has treated an allegation as a proven fact, which runs against the principle of English justice, which is that you presume [a person is] innocent until proven guilty. All we have is a solitary, ancient, uncorroborated allegation. It is an allegation, a serious allegation and it should be treated extremely seriously and the person who makes it should be treated with sympathy and the allegation should be thoroughly investigated. And I mean thoroughly investigated. But until it’s been proven then no one’s entitled to say this happened.

PART 5 - PETER HITCHENS ON GEORGE BELL - FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

Do you feel like the presumption of innocence is being eroded in other areas?

Oh, enormously. It is, anyway, in cases where sexual abuses are alleged it goes out of the window almost immediately, the crime itself being so horrible that people are inclined to say “oh well it must be true” or, alternatively, to be afraid – in case they are accused of it themselves – of suggesting that the charge might not necessarily be true. The presumption of innocence is not something like freedom of speech that can be enforced by statute. It has to exist in the hearts of people.

PART 6 - PETER HITCHENS ON GEORGE BELL - FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

On that note of freedom of speech, we’re at the University of Sussex; now a lot of journalists have been saying recently there’s been a real encroachment upon the right to freedom of speech in university campuses.

There is no “right” to freedom of speech; there is no right to anything, it’s a freedom and that’s the whole problem with it – it has to be maintained by constant vigilance and determination and if it isn’t then it will die.

"GEORGE BELL, BISHOP OF CHICHESTER - CHURCH, STATE, AND RESISTANCE IN THE AGE OF DICTATORSHIP" BY DR ANDREW CHANDLER

APPENDIX 3 - "POSTLUDE: HISTORY AND ALLEGATION"

"In sum, we are asked to invest an entire authority in one testimony and to dismiss all the materials by which we have come to know the historical George Bell as mere figments of reputation. The corollary of such a method may now be witnessed in the hasty removal of his name or image from the public institutions and commemorations. It may simply be observed here that such iconoclastic activities are not unknown to historians of other, far darker, times and contexts" ~ Andrew Chandler

http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7227/george-bell-bishop-of-chichester.aspx

"CHRISTIANS AGAINST NAZIS : THE GERMAN CONFESSING CHURCH" BY LEONORE SIEGELE-WENSCHKEWITZ - CHRISTIANITY TODAY - ISSUE 9

http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-9/christians-against-nazis-german-confessing-church.html

"GEORGE BELL, BISHOP OF CHICHESTER - CHURCH, STATE, AND RESISTANCE IN THE AGE OF DICTATORSHIP" BY DR ANDREW CHANDLER (EERDMANS 2016)

http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7227/george-bell-bishop-of-chichester.aspx

PART 1 - CONVERSATION BETWEEN UNCLE BRIAN, ANTON & SIGFRIDIII

http://archbishopcranmer.com/the-absurd-fiction-of-the-need-for-secrecy-in-the-trial-of-bishop-george-bell/

Uncle Brian:

....[Archbishop] Welby would be free to tell us that, wouldn’t he?

Anton to Uncle Brian:

Not necessarily.

Sigfridiii to Uncle Brian:

Unless the gagging arrangement applies to all parties to the agreement.