AUSTRALIA
WA Today

October 12, 2012

Barney Zwartz

Defence of the church, rather than victims, is the priority for clerics.

PETER Mahon, the extremely influential public relations expert who handles media strategy for the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, once stood on the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral and asked me if I really thought the church wanted to further damage victims of clergy sexual abuse after what they had already gone through.

It was an interesting tactic, designed (I think) to reshape the public conversation, but also misleading. Of course I don’t think Archbishop Denis Hart or the Vatican want to cause further pain and trauma – but, the pain and trauma having already occurred, they have several conflicting agendas in which the defence, even preservation, of the institutional church is top priority.

I don’t think the manufacturers of thalidomide actively wanted to deform babies in the womb either,…