AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times
November 9, 2015
John Thistleton
Reporter for The Canberra Times.
A long-time religion writer does not have far to look for enough sex scandals to fill a book.
Retired Canberra Times journalist Graham Downie was not after scandal in his latest book, Servants and Leaders – Eminent Christians in their Own Words, but could hardly miss the extraordinary public utterances of people like Cardinal George Pell and former governor-general and previously Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Peter Hollingworth.
Hollingworth’s fall from grace began while commenting on ABC television on an affair between a priest and woman that began when she was about 14 at an Anglican hostel in Forbes. As more scandal emerged, his position as the Governor-General became more untenable.
“What I wrote for the Canberra Times, and have put it in the book, when Hollingworth went to Brisbane there was a time-bombing ticking which he could not defuse, and that was all this nasty sexual abuse at the schools in Brisbane which the [royal] commission was hearing just last week,” Downie says.
“If he had his time again I’m not sure what he could have done about all the abuse, it had already happened, but I’m sure he would be far more cautious about what he said publicly,” Downie says.
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