September 15, 2011 | Graham

Labor can blame itself for Cappo debacle



Labor has made it virtually impossible to appoint any sort of churchman to any sort of high profile government role. It did this by the disgraceful way it demonised Peter Hollingworth, former Anglican Archbishop, and drove him from the role of Governor-General.

Hollingworth was ostensibly crucified, not because he abused a child, not because he dealt with abuse inappropriately, but because he failed, in the view of some, to show sufficient sympathy towards the victims of abuse at one Anglican school run independently from his oversight.

It appears that Cappo may have been closer to the alleged incident, but that the incident has not been proven to any sort of standard of proof (whereas at least Hollingworth’s had) and it does not even involve children but two, possibly consenting, adult men.

All large scale organisations that deal with children are going to have instances of child abuse. There is a saying that you “fish where the fish are”, so anyone prone to abusing children, is most likely to be found where victims are available. They will be in schools, children and youth organisations and so on.

Expand the ambit to include adult sexual abuse and you expand the potential number of organisations significantly.

So under our new standards of moral opprobrium it would be virtually impossible to find a church where there had not been sexual misconduct of some sort.

Which means that it is unlikely that there is a high ranking churchman or woman anywhere who has not been involved, no matter how tangentially, in dealing with allegations of abuse, which can then be used as a club to attack them.

It is a ridiculous standard, but Labor brought it all on itself, perhaps because it opportunistically saw an opportunity to destroy Hollingworth, the first G-G to be appointed by John Howard after the Republican Referendum was lost.

Opportunism is not restricted to Labor. Moral hysteria campaigns require the cooperation of legions of opportunists. In this case Xenophon was supported by many of the usual chorus, but achieved this end mostly on his own. In the Hollingworth case the choir was mostly conducted by Hetty Johnson, who has made a career out of lynch mob vigilantism, but she was joined by many others, including the families of victims, and those who just have it in for Christianity.

This latter is the most disturbing. I have yet to hear of any protests against the appointment of any executive from secular organisations that have significant rates of child abuse, such as directors general of education, community services or health departments, yet child abuse would be at least as widespread there as in any church organisation.

This opportunism doesn’t just prejudice the appointment of public officials, but it takes the focus off the area where most child abuse occurs.

Only a very small minority of abuse actually occurs in institutions. Most of it occurs in families and close social groups, but as no-one can see any leverage in any of these cases, most of which are probably hushed-up by parents and relatives, they rarely come into the public arena. If you really wanted to tackle child abuse, this is where you would focus, which leads one to the conclusion that these other high profile cases are not about child abuse at all.

What’s more this fascination with using child abuse as a tool to dislodge high level appointees takes the focus off where the bulk of the problem lies.

 



Posted by Graham at 9:56 pm | Comments (5) |
Filed under: Uncategorized

5 Comments

  1. Re; “I have yet to hear of any protests against the appointment of any executive from secular organisations that have significant rates of child abuse, such as directors general of education, community services or health departments, yet child abuse would be at least as widespread there as in any church organisation”.
    I very much doubt that claim. I worked as a full time volunteer in a state high school with 1000 students for five years and there was not one case of child sexual abuse by staff in that period whereas in a religious high school in the same general area the students had a saying, which came to light in a court case,
    “Backs to the wall here comes Paul”.
    I suggest you read up on the Brother Best case in Victoria. A police witness stated that there had been at least 20 suicides due to sexual student abuse in one local area.

    Comment by John Turner — September 15, 2011 @ 11:21 pm

  2. John, I think a count of court cases will reveal just as many, if not more, prosecutions of secular staff in secular schools for improper relations with their students. Indeed Mem Fox’s husband is the latest that I can think of.

    Hard evidence trumps anecdotes.

    Comment by Graham Young — September 16, 2011 @ 2:16 am

  3. Archbishop Hollingsworth was alleged to have covered up abuse by priest John Elliott, by moving him from one job to another and conveniently forgetting to let authorities know about his knowledge of the allegations against Fr Elliott. This much is admitted by this source which seems to automatically try to find the best view possible in favour of Archbishop Hollingsworth.

    That’s a lot more serious than failing “to show sufficient sympathy towards the victims of abuse at one Anglican school run independently from his oversight”.

    As far as Mgr Cappo’s case goes, what exactly is in doubt? That Traditional Anglican Communion Archbishop Hepworth told Mgr Cappo over four years ago about allegations of abuse by Fr Ian Dempsey? That Mgr Cappo took no action on these allegations? That in contrast, the Catholic Church in Melbourne took allegations by the same victim very seriously and admitted that priests raped now-Archbishop Hepworth?

    If the ALP is to be blamed for the fact that those who cover up sexual abuse are now to be considered unsuitable for appointment to senior government posts, then that’s one of the very few good things they’ve done in the last ten years.

    Comment by David Jackmanson — September 17, 2011 @ 10:37 am

  4. David, what you have said is defamatory and untrue. You have not even quoted accurately from your source. And it does not accord with the public campaign that was waged against Hollingworth which focussed much more on what happened in Toowoomba than anywhere else.

    Hollingworth was not party to any cover-up and it is an entirely unwarranted accusation to make.

    Your comments on Cappo are also defamatory and wide of the mark. There is in fact a Catholic Church inquiry into the alleged abuse. In any event how can there be an admission when there is no proof – just one man’s word against another’s?

    Comment by Graham Young — September 17, 2011 @ 11:45 am

  5. The long and the short of it is Cappo did not do his job. The Church were given ample warning by Senator Xenophon and they in their arrogance ignored him. Humility perhaps is one of the lessons that is badly needed by the clergy not only in Australia but globally.

    Comment by Hanora Brennan — September 20, 2011 @ 10:16 pm

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