GL responds: >From the stories that Cecil and others have recounted, my conclusion is: "Another Goan account bites the dust". The Goan response is not 'double standards'. To me THE MAJORITY of GoaNetters has learnt from our past harebrained behavior.
Doesn't 'GOSSIP' starts with the last paragraph of these posts? Machem vichartam rre? And ami munta amchi ghorcarnis are into tittle-tattle or Goenchem kaneos:=)) In parts of America where I come from, folks are not into innuendos! Their response likely: "Put Up or Shut UP". Pun ami Goenkar mhunon we are not so difficult and demanding. :=)) But your intellectual reputation is on the line! It is posts like these, that 5-years later lead to posts like Sandeep Heble. I am still awaiting answers from California on their 'investigation' on SFX. Regards. Cecil Pinto: Some eighteen months back, when five innocent boys from Art College were falsely* accused of raping a girl student in the college premises, immediately there was a furor in Goan Cyberspace. Without bothering to delve into the facts of the matter, the boys were condemned as being guilty and a lynching mob of sorts was formed with some people demanding that the boys be castrated!! Now when a priest in Ribandar is accused of having molested a minor girl some of these same people are demanding physical proof and eyewitness accounts (and genetic proof!) of the incident having occurred and refuse to say a word against the priest, or even admit that the incident could have occurred. I think nothing short of a high resolution video tape from close quarters will make them see that a man of God could possibly do something like this. But if a holy man of another religion (the infamous Hindu seer case for example) is accused of a heinous murder they have no difficulty in believing it did happen. How can we have such double standards? What is it about religion that blinds us to the possibility that our men of God are fallible? Don't we see it happening around us? Is there any single parish in Goa that has not had some accusation of sexual impropriety against a priest made at some time or the other? Weren't many of the accusations very credible? George Pinto: This is why I wrote to the Archdiocese if any formal study was done and what the results were. It would help reduce (may be even eliminate) the whispers, rumors, conjecture, speculation, gossip due to the Goa Church's silence. Besides the double standards Cecil mentioned, we have seen some "Carpet and Sand" Goan Catholics - as in sweep dirt under the carpet, bury heads in the sand approach. Regards,
