by FadeToBlack 10 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Can anybody here from Australia fill me in on this guy? I did the search thing and the only thing I could find seemed to imply that he had been shipped off here to Poland to avoid problems there. I talked to him at a CA in Warsaw and he seemed kind of 'off'... It also seemed to me that he had lots of 'handlers'. His talks sucked - very smarmy (if that is a word).
I see him as potential GB material (in the manner of Morris the III)
Viv must be getting on a bit by now. He used to be the branch overseer at the Australia bethel when I was there in the 80s.
He had all the warmth of a squid, which is to say - not much. He generally didn't say much to the underlings and would walk past you in the hallway and not say a word. I don't think he ever called me by my name or ever spoke to me outside of work hours. He was known for his pithy advice at morning worship and if he was in a good mood at the table he would tell the same lame jokes.
His talks aways seemed to be off the cuff and it often sounded like he was just making it up as he went along. But they always hammered home the party line. He is one of three (?) brothers who were all high up in the Australian jw scene. We used to joke that they owned the 3M (3 Moritz) company as we used to have a lot of 3M supplies at bethel.
I know nothing of what happened to him beyond the mid 90s. As far as being shipped off to Poland - maybe someone else can help out...
Viv ( I think) is a true believer. Actually Tiktaalik, he must surely be in his 70's, and he has 3 other brothers (not 2). The Mouritz's were theocratic nobility with roots going way back. I think Viv was the oldest and among the earliest aussies to go to Gilead. John was the second brother, Doug next (on circuit work for a long time - named his boy Nathan - erk!) and Bob was the youngest. There's a story there - but it's all in the past - so let's leave them to the dream world of a paradise that never comes.
Viv succeeded John Wilson as branch overseer (or, whatever Yahweh has handed down as the right title). John W was a great guy, he has my respect. Not sure why he stood down and left bethel - maybe just tired! The branch had had a big problem with the 2.I.C. David Madzay having to leave bethel after a drink driving charge. Funny how it takes public 'scandal' to precipitate action. The heavy drinking by some insiders had been notorious for years. But it was still a shock for the local brothers when Dave went to pieces after having to cope with the outside world, even worse, when, on a cold winter night and pissed out of his brain, he filled his kerosene heater with petrol by mistake (????) and burnt his flat out and himself with it.
Maybe Viv was sent back to Aust. as a steady hand on the steering wheel. So if he's off to Poland, I'd say that Brooklyn sees a need for a steady hand in Warsaw (or, wherever the branch is located).
The only other thing I can recall about him is that he loved conducting the orchestra at district assemblies, but the 'theocratic' way, none of that 'swing' crap for Viv. It's all going hazy for me as the spiritual paradise gets further and further away. He always said hello to me at assemblies, but no real conversation - but then that may have been my fault
I did a search also F2black, and among the stuff that came up was a JWnews post ( at http://jwnews.org/2012/03/11/criminal-prosecution-of-the-christian-congregation-of-jehovahs-witnesses/ ) dated March 11, 2012, that listed:
Donald H. MacLean - director of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia and elder.
Harold Vivian Mouritz - director of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia and elder.
as (possibly) subject to charges over mishandling of child abuse problems. That also is a possibility to explain his move to Poland. You could try a search on here, as there could be previous posts about Brother Viv
Who are the big wigs in the Australian bethel now ?
Good on you FTS. Thanks for filling in a few more gaps. I had forgotten about the conductor thing Viv used to do.
He'd wave the baton around with a big dumb grin on his face. You'd see all this because he was facing the audience, NOT the orchestra. That was actually pretty funny now that I remember it.
When I was in bethel the branch committee was:
- Viv Mouritz (boss)
- Don McLean (nice bloke)
-George Hamnett (one of the most boring speakers ever)
- Max (?) damn! Can't remember his surname. But he was a very decent bloke.
- Doug King (he was pedant for English language and a florid verbose writer)
I got no idea what has happened to any of them. Can someone help out?
Max Larson I guess.
John Wilson passed away last year - about july/august. So did his wife. I also thought he was an OK person until I had dealings with him, then found him to be very arrogant and quite nasty - maybe bitter at the end.
I remember after a visit to the homeland Don McLean mentioning in a talk how much more polite Canadian kids were than Aussie kids - didn't go down too well. His wife was a funny one. She was a model when he met her - not really in the 'truth' and he was the new blood from Canada. I think most QLDers thought he was American :-)
I believe it was Dave Madzay's visit to gay bars that go thim into trouble - unless I was misinformed. There was a rumour that he died of AIDS - but rumours are plentiful in those situations and are mostly just rumours. I believe JW leaving Bethel was tied to that - but that's also a rumour. I've also heard rumours re the Mouritz's rumour - but it was also just a rumour. I only ever had dealings with John and although I was very young at the time I definitely picked up on something squidish...
I got no idea what has happened to any of them. Can someone help out?
George Hammett passed away recently. They say don't speak ill of the dead..... but he was the worst speaker every year at the DC without fail.
Roski, I can't believe John Wilson and Beverly Wilson have died. I use to be in their cong when I was 5 years old until I was 18. Dave Madzay got df for being a drunk and he use to looka t alot of porn, I don't think he was gay. His wife was very good looking and she left him and got remarried. Viv is a sh-t speaker, the last assembly DC, I attended he gave the main talk and I was so embarressed at how pompous he was in saying that if you are not a wotness you will die at armargeddon. I thought of all new ones there and I was mortified. I haven't been back since. By the way his brother John died a while back.
Etna
ah names from the past...
i had met some of them while visting rellies in bethel, didnt get to be around them long enough to form opinions though. I do remember how those guys were looked up to as some sort of royalty. You know, ''i shook hands with brother king!" sort of thing.
Vincent Toole was well liked and we rank and file were oh so pround to learn how he was being sent to law school so he could do battle with satans world on our behalf. what a crock that turned out to be.
Its a shame Terry Obrien was made branch servant, It means he knows a whole lot of dirty deeds done dirt cheap and turns his head. He took my pioneer school and I really liked him.
We had larry and Cathy roberts as Co for a while, cathy was nice enough but didnt like witnessing much as i recall. I think she was stuck following Larry as he tried to be a wheel right out of Bethel. I heard jokes about larry while i was visiting bethel once...''we call larry hubcap...he thinks he's a wheel but he's just a hubcap" He was nice enough, very young and i think the circuit just liked him after a series of cranky old farts doing the rounds. besides, all the lads liked his V8 fairlane...it was pretty nice, he would get extractors and a twin system on it and a set of low key mags as i recall.
wasn't there a MAZDAY and a MADZAY there at the sime time too?
Oz
Titaalik - The 'Max' you were thinking of would be Max Lloyd. And, yeah! I agree, Max was one of the good guys. My mad, gay XJW (MGXJW) mate has a nice little story about Max L. MGXJW was worried about being an elder (as far as I know MGXJW had never 'sinned' in the flesh, so to speak, at that time, so that was not an issue) because he thought you got involved in all sorts of organisational stuff that kept you from caring for the sheep. So Max, (he claims) said to him, "Look around you, and what do you see? There are two types of elders, one lot love to wear nice suits and be on the platform telling everyone what to do - and the other lot (and he used a Gk word that both MGFXJW and I forget that meant, one who runs through the dust, i.e. a humble slave. You go away and work out what you want to be."
I had a lot to do with George Hamnett during the building of Ingleburn, I thought George a rather humble guy, but I agree his talks were not very easy to listen to.
Hey! I knew one of the non-bethelites high up in the construction. He told me the insider joke for the Ingelburn bethel (built on the site of an old 'kingdom farm' from Judge Joey's day) was " the funny farm." (slang for a mental asylum).
Sad that John Wilson is dead and his wife too - (forget her name)
The other night, I was watching TV and there's talk about how the beaches on the Gold coast were being eroded, and suddenly there's a face from the past, one John MacArthur, winging about his backyard being washed away. John came from another theocratic family.
Doug King came from another family of theocratic nobility. His brother Merv was on the circuit and district work for a long time.
Never heard anything about Dave Madzay being 'gay.' *** And, I knew his wife Joy a bit after she got re-married. They moved down the NSW south coast near the border with Victoria. Dave came from a family in the USA that were close friends with Nathan Knorr, and were smuggling literature into Canada in WW2.
In 1942 the WTS had bought a small print shop in a slum area of Cleveland with Dave Madzay's father as the 'front.' They printed the WT there and other stuff and smuggled it across the lake into Canada. When the war was over and the Canadian ban was lifted, Madzay senior bought the printshop and turned out those 'extra's' that used to be available like clipboards for H2H records, Calendars, Year txt banners and so on. Nathan must have appreciated their work during the war years to encourage that. Nathan used to stay with the family whenever he was in the area. Both sons were pioneers, both went to Gilead, true theocratic nobility as I said.
And I can definitely assure you that DAve M died in that fire I previously mentioned. I was in a nearby congregation, but I also heard the story from a woman who studied with Joy Madzay (Dave's wife).
What else? Yeah, Don Maclean - all true about Don picking a good looking girl on her looks and not her theocratic record. But June turned out great from a theocratic viewpoint. Now my Don Mac. story. his supportive family in North America bought him one of those Studebakers that looked like the offspring off a fighter plane that had had triplets and shipped it to him. When I came 'in' the truth, I was just a young labourer, and I was repairing the footpath in the city one day with a gang of road workers, and Don pulls up in his Studebaker and steps out in his expensive suit with his living doll wife, so I got to say, "Hello Don, Hello June," with a suitable response from them, and then I got ribbed by the gang of workers for half the day, asking how come I knew people like that.
In saying that I was just a labourer, I've got to acknowledge that most congregations in Australia were made up of 'working class' people, and in some ways likely more accepting, than they may be now. Anyway, they played a role in the sort of person I became, and my decision to go to uni in my old age. I just feel sad that I wasted some 40 years hoping/praying/working for an illusion.
*** after thoughts about 'gay' brothers. Beside my MGXJW mate, who, I believe only started 'doing' anything physical in the last couple of years before he got kicked out, there was Vince McNee, who spent years on the circuit and district work. He got 'outed' after he was off the district and living in Brissie. His wife came home one day and found him in 'compromising' circumstances with an ex-bethelite with whom Vince had had an affair for a long time. Vince is one of the few people I've heard off that got sacked (sent home) from Gilead, and I'm not sure if it did not happen twice.
Another, was a brother from Adelaide who came from a wealthy political dynasty in Adelaide. The family disinherited him. He went into the pioneer service, went to Gilead and met a brother there and they 'fell in love.' Somehow they both got assigned to Cambodia where they continued their love affair. One died (tragic story) and the Adelaide guy had a breakdown and came back to Adelaide. The Society sent someone out to the rented premises and they found some compromising stuff in one of the bedrooms. End of story.
And the end of my memories - uni's started, so I got to study.
Edited to add: some recall on John Mouritz, I thought him the best of the four Mouritz brothers. I found his talks thoughtful and though he was quiet in his delivery, he was easy to listen to. He likely had some difficult circumstances, as his wife Helen was very ill with cancer for years. She was still alive when I was kicked out, but is likely dead by now. John was one of the first brothers I knew to have a computer.
