AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street
Michael Mullins October 28, 2012
The Jimmy Savile scandal in Britain shows the Catholic Church is not alone among trusted public institutions that have been undermined by their own culture of silence and denial.
The late Jimmy Savile was the legendary BBC entertainer whose sexual abuse of more than 300 young women was recently revealed amid accusations that the BBC suppressed its own reporting of the abuse because it feared tarnishing its brand.
Colm O’Gorman is an Irish activist who founded the clergy sex abuse victim support group One in Four. He wrote in The Tablet at the weekend of the hypocrisy of the BBC and his own involvement in the public broadcaster’s investigation and reporting of abuse crimes in the Church.
When [a powerful institution] either discovers serious wrongdoing within its own ranks, or indeed is itself guilty of wrongdoing, it often acts to cover up such corruption in an effort to protect its reputation and its authority.
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