AUSTRALIA
Green Left Weekly
Thursday, November 15, 2012
By Barry Healy
Late on November 12, Julia Gillard announced a federal Royal Commission into child abuse in Australian institutions. The announcement came after growing scandals about paedophilia within the Catholic Church had reached the point where it was politically untenable for the government to continue with inaction.
With a Victorian parliamentary inquiry and a NSW Special Inquiry already underway, independent members of parliament, the Greens leadership and ALP MPs were demanding action. The leadership of the Catholic Church has been anxious for an investigation that is broader than the Church so that it can hide behind the fig leaf that other institutions may have also failed to act.
At the peak of society, a clash is beginning between modern, opportunist politics and arcane religious thought patterns.
But, most importantly, this clash is being driven from below by a demand for justice that is so deeply felt and widely spread that it could explode not just the Australian Catholic Church hierarchy but destabilise the Labor/Liberal mainstream political duopoly as well – that is, if the Royal Commission probes into major party political collusion with the Church.
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