Catholic witch hunt over paedophiles a warning

By Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
June 02, 2014

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/catholic-witch-hunt-over-paedophiles-a-warning/story-fni0ffxg-1226939040080

WE must stop this vindictive witch-hunting, and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox is just the zealot to warn us why.

Fox triggered a royal commission after telling the ABC’s Lateline in 2012 that paedophile Catholic priests were being protected.

He claimed a Catholic mafia in NSW Police had rigged “sham” investigations into Hunter Valley priests that were “set up to fail”.

Alarm bells should have rung, not least because Fox’s claim was so improbable.

As I noted after his second interview to Lateline a week later, there was also something too gleeful about Fox’s denunciations of Catholics generally and Cardinal George Pell, particularly.

Three times Fox denigrated the cardinal as “Mr Pell” and he mocked his church’s “antiquated rules”.

Host Emma Alberici did not question his rudeness, but lauded him as a hero.

“Now, it took obviously so much courage for you to come here,” she gushed.

“But the rest of us in society want to be encouraged by the idea that others like you will also see fit to speak publicly and tell it as it is.”

Fox glowed. It seemed to me he had a Messiah complex.

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Indeed, last week the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate his claims dismissed him as “an unsatisfactory witness”.

“Fox had developed what amounted to an obsession about both the Catholic Church and alleged conspiracies involving senior police,” its report said.

His claim that a “Catholic mafia” existed within NSW Police was “wholly unfounded” and other parts of his evidence were “implausible” and “deliberately untruthful”.

“He had become a zealot.’’

How did the ABC not sniff this out? Was it too keen to attack the church, too?

Note a telling exchange of emails between Fox and Lateline the night before his first interview.

Urged Fox: “If we can string it out and drip-feed, it will only give us longer coverage and a much better impact.”

Replied Lateline: “No worries, Peter. Whatever you want.” Lateline even offered to send Fox the program’s script before it went to air “so you can take out anything you don’t like”.

Yes, the commission of inquiry did find some Catholic clerics didn’t properly report cases of sexual abuse. None was Cardinal Pell.

Here’s the warning: The terrible sins of some clerics has licensed a hate campaign against innocent Catholics. Every witch hunt is the same — denouncers feel holier the wilder their claims.