AUSTRALIA
The Australian
It is for all of us who make up the church, not royal commissions, to right these wrongs
Angela Shanahan
From:The Australian
November 24, 2012
THIS week, everyone I have met has asked me the same question. What are you, as a practising Catholic woman, going to say about the church and the royal commission into sexual abuse?
Some people have been very insistent. Like every other Catholic person I know, I am depressed and fed up with this scandal. My children and grandchildren are all Catholics and attended Catholic schools; my son-in-law is a Catholic school teacher.
I am a conservative Catholic, as one wit remarked, more pre-Council of Trent than post-Vatican 2, and hearing the likes of Craig “credit card” Thomson on ABC radio saying in outraged tones that a royal commission is needed because “they” can’t just “sweep it under the carpet” is enough to rile up the old church militant in me.
It is obvious to Blind Freddy that the sudden calling of a royal commission over sexual abuse within the church, when the police have convictions and are doing their job, is pretty suspect; particularly when royal commissions should really be looking at the workings of the state child welfare systems in this country, which are in an absolute shambles and have allowed children to die.
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