Melbourne's feminist newspaper fiddles while the community burns

A week or so ago I commented on a series of reports Melbourne's Age produced on the widespread child abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) in the community. Not only had the instruments of government virtually displayed criminal neglect in tackling the problem, but the holy-than-thou media had ignored, knew nothing about, left untouched - or whatever you want to call it - the systematic brutalisation of children.

It is not as if the abuse of children is a phenomenon just uncovered by intrepid print journalists such the Age's Nick McKenzie. As McKenzie has demonstrated, child sexual abuse is a burning topic in the sanctuary of the august newspaper he pounds the beat for. On the surface, nothing wrong with that. McKenzie with his Columbo gabardine overcoat flapping behind him has long been on the case. Well, there is a qualification here, an extreme narrowing of the focus. It's clerical sexual abuse exclusively that he has been on, royally rewarding his masters - or is that sisters? - for giving him the journalistic opportunity. Long reports were produced to titillate the Age's constituency, not about the molestation of children, normally understood as prepubescent, but in reality about homosexual priests abusing pubescent males. I will come back to this in a moment.

I said the Age's reports ironically were a vindication of my claim that sexual abuse was not a matter only for the Catholic Church, but more importantly for modern society, and that political objectives explained that sanctimonious newspaper's obsessive preoccupation.

If one wants to investigate the origins of sexual abuse across society than one should begin with the driving forces behind the Kinsey generation. If all priests followed the teachings on the Church on sexual matters, none would engage in any act of sexual impropriety. If one follows Kinseyan prescriptions on sexual behaviour, there are few restraints. Kinsey's success is reflected in the mentality of the Dolly Dunns of the world who (logically) think there is nothing wrong with what they do.

Pointing out the obvious makes no difference to the feminist Age. Simple obsessive ideology to the core. The Catholic Church and its teaching represents a stumbling block to the project of purifying society so that we all become peace-loving feminists or homosexuals, at least in mind if not in practice. Delusory thoughts of a right-wing ratbag?

Today's Age has an article by a feminist academic who having had her mind poisoned by gender theory is in turn doing the same to innocent minds coming from school direct to the cosy seminar rooms of 'the department of gender and cultural studies at the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney' so that they, too, can argue an academic case for hating maleness. (Oh, what a fall has been there!) The article is headed Feminism is not a dirty word. I will leave comment on this for another time. I want to refer people to the reader comments that follow her piece. If the Age makes a weary thinly disguised attempt to hide their pathetic bias and give the impression they are even-handed, its approving readers feel no such constraint. They know what the objective is. Society cannot attain full equality unless the pernicious influence of the Catholic Church is destroyed.

Returning to my comment of 28 November, I wondered whether the Age would be uncomfortably prodded by the unmasking (at their own hands) of their naked political motives. Silly me. Of course, they weren't. The bashings, the slashings, the sexual assaults, the gang rapes, the violent robberies and the drunkenness besetting Melbourne during the week and reaching a deadly climax on the weekend - none of that will cause the Age or McKenzie to deviate from the task. McKenzie is, if nothing else, tenacious. So last Thursday, 3 December, he exposed us to his brilliant investigative skills by unearthing some shattering news that was yet more evidence for the nastiness of the Catholic Church and their horrible clerics. What was that news?

In a lengthy report in which he rehashes his exertions in the Pavlou case, he reveals in an atmosphere of gee-whiz-oowah that the 'Church's chief sexual abuse investigator in Melbourne has for the second time tipped off a priest that he is the target of a covert police inquiry.' What an outrage. Fancy telling someone accused of a crime that they are actually accused of a crime. And a priest into the bargain. We can't have that, can we? We all know that every priest is a paedophile, don't we, and it's just a question of catching them in the act. The police must have a free hand to do so.

The reason they must have a free hand, McKenzie tell us, is to stop possible collusion and destruction of evidence. This is thin and full of assumptions about the particular people they're dealing with. Collusion with whom? That's right, with other paedophile priests, of course. The diocesan offices and suburban presbyteries are like the back streets of St Kilda or Kings Cross, full of seedy people every ready to frustrate the motives of the righteous. But let's have a look McKenzie's account of the investigator's response:

The barrister [O'Callaghan QC] has defended his conduct, saying the priests had a ''natural justice'' right to be informed that he had stopped his church-sponsored investigations because police had begun their own inquiry....

Mr O'Callaghan told The Age that even if police asked him to keep secret the existence of their inquiry - which he said they had not - he would refuse. ''I would not consent to such a course because of my duty to keep both parties [the priest and the complainant] in respect of the investigation I had been conducting fully apprised of relevant matters,'' he said.

From the beginning of McKenzie's report one gets the impression that the 'Catholic Church's chief sexual abuse investigator' has gratuitously 'tipped off' the priest - as someone very partial would do for a friend. Here we have the bias I constantly refer to. O'Callaghan makes the point that there is a question of natural justice in the mix. Just when do McKenzie and the police think it right to tell someone they have been accused and under investigation? But a further point here, an important one surely, is that O'Callaghan was already talking with the priest about the charges. You would have to be pretty stupid, if you were inclined to be collusive and destroy evidence, not to have already done so. It's ridiculous to imply that being apprised of the police investigation the accused priest (already in conversation with the Church's investigator) would suddenly think to collude and destroy evidence.

Once again we have here a typical fake report by the Age about a matter that would not get two words if it did not involve the Catholic Church and a Catholic priest. It is measure of the political atmosphere we live in here in Victoria that a newspaper that pretends to have moral authority can so be so blithely and openly motivated by prejudice.

Note: My satire on the way leading figures in our liberal democratic society deal with moral and political issues is at the printers and (hopefully) will be ready shortly before Christmas.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com