BishopAccountability.org
	Akerman: Catholic Church Unfairly Treated Geelong Advertiser July 21, 2008 http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/07/21/16336_opinion.html THE Roman Catholic Church has played a huge role in the evolution of Australia's cultural environment. However, if one was a subscriber solely to the Fairfax newspapers or watched and listened only to the ABC, one could come away with the view that every child who received a Catholic education had been subjected to abuse at the hands of the Catholic clergy. But that is patently not so. While some children undoubtedly suffered miserably and horribly, it is notable that the ABC chose to prosecute the case of a man who was nearly 30 when he was attacked by a notorious priest some 26 years ago. A man, moreover, who has taken the matter through the civil processes and received court-ordered compensation. The importance of victimhood is as important to the taxpayer-funded broadcaster and Fairfax as maintaining the Church as the unforgivable perpetrator. One might also be led to believe that Australia was a bastion of prejudice against Roman Catholicism but that, too, would be untrue. While there have been sadistic and sexually-predatory brutes within the Roman Catholic Church, and one cannot but feel boundless sympathy for their victims, the good that has been wrought by the tens of thousands of men and women who selflessly gave their lives in service to their fellow humans through the Church's institutions is incalculable. In recent decades, many Australians have succumbed to the secular cult of victimhood, be they members of the so-called Stolen Generation, or those who have been panicked by fear-mongers into embracing the apocalyptic visions of the Jeremiahs of global warming. In clutching at the creed of negativity, they display their spiritual emptiness, their lack faith in anything. They cannot be blamed for this however, as the left-dominated State education systems have vigorously attempted to erase all aspects of spirituality from the school system. Unfortunately, the politically-active teachers union acolytes have no substitute to offer those seeking to fill their inner emptiness. The Church, for all its faults, does offer guidance in this search as the pilgrims now encamped in Sydney demonstrate, and in a society which has been encouraged by the left to despise family values as old-fashioned, it has quietly encouraged parents to take responsibility for bringing up their children with a sense of morality. As an extremely literate man who has devoted his life to exploring and translating many of humanity's philosophies, it is perhaps too much to hope that Pope Benedict's views at this time will be influenced at all by his brief exposure to our society. But perhaps, if the night sky clears, someone will show him the wonder of the Southern Cross and explain how it guided early European navigators and tell of its role in various Aboriginal myths. Faith, like humanity, is found in varying degrees around the globe but only those who travel below the equator can see and appreciate this great constellation.
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