AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
Reading reports in the Herald about the royal commission’s probe into child sexual abuse in the Newcastle Anglican diocese has made Topics feel sick to the stomach.
The reports about top brass in the clergy knowing nothing and not recalling crucial events were shocking to say the least.
“I Can’t Recall,” the Herald’s headline said last Friday, preceded by “I Knew Nothing” the day prior.
This is serious stuff, no doubt. But this amnesia has an almost absurd comic aspect to it.
This is why the headlines made Topics immediately think of Sergeant Schultz. Anyone who watched the TV show Hogan’s Heroes would remember Schultz – the portly prisoner-of-war camp guard at Stalag 13.
John Banner played the big-hearted Schultz in the show, which ran from 1965 to 1971.
Afraid of being entangled in trouble, Schultz often turned a blind eye to the prisoner’s tricky transgressions.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.