Catholic Hypocrisy Garry Linnell
Imagine a business where 7 per cent of its management team had been accused of child sex abuse.
Imagine an organisation in which it was proven – time and time again – that senior executives had deliberately concealed crimes, humiliated victims and provided shelter for suspected criminals.
Imagine, too, that the only product this business sold to consumers was something it could not even prove worked – or even existed.
This business would be in enormous trouble, right?
Now imagine that through some truly miraculous turn of events this company was still operating and that, despite a shrinking customer base and a shredded reputation, it decided to weigh into debates about important issues of public wellbeing.
We’d all laugh, right?
The hypocrisy and bloody gall would have us in stitches.
Yet here we are on the cusp of Australia’s long-awaited rollout of coronavirus vaccines only to find several of Australia’s largest businesses – err, sorry, religious institutions – sowing doubts in the minds of their followers about the ethics of the vaccination process.
Chief among these organisations muddying the waters is the Catholic Church, an organisation with an estimated wealth of $30 billion and which continues to enjoy tax-free status despite a Royal Commission finding that at least 7 per cent of its priests had been alleged child sex abusers.