Weekend Wrap for 5 February 2023

John Frew: Labor abandons public education.
"The evidence to support the existence of a two-tiered system is clear and freely available. Families with incomes above $100,000 send their kids to private schools, 40% to Independent and 21% the Catholic yet only 5% of families who have an income less than $25,000 attend private schools and these are predominantly Catholic. Private school enrolments have increased by 70% since 2012 when Gillard’s resolve collapsed when she was confronted by the private school lobby. The total failure of Gillard’s attempt to reform funding is evident. Over the last 20 years Government funding for the private sector has risen 98.7% compared to 53% increase for public schools, the majority has occurred in the last ten years." (25 Jan 2023)
Read more at Pearls & Irritations

Neil Foster: Removing fences: the ALRC Consultation Paper on Religious Educational Institutions and Discrimination Laws.
"The Australian Law Reform Commission has now released a Consultation Paper for its current reference on “Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws”. The paper, while formally acknowledging the importance of religious freedom and parental rights, will be a serious disappointment to those involved in religious schools and colleges. It effectively recommends the removal of protections enjoyed by religious educational institutions which have been designed to safeguard the ability of these organisations to operate in accordance with their religious beliefs." (29 Jan 2023)
Read more at Law and Religion Australia

Miles Pattenden: Pope Francis’s "sin–crime distinction" and the history of Christian sexuality.
"Last week, Pope Francis weighed in once again on the Catholic Church’s seemingly interminable debate over homosexuality. I wrote last year about the late Cardinal George Pell's disagreement with German bishops on the matter – an incident which the pope himself let quietly slide. Yet the pope has now criticised the criminalisation of homosexuality as 'unjust'." (30 Jan 2023)
Read more at ABC Religion & Ethics

Louise Milligan, Mary Fallon and Stephanie Zillman: Power and purity.
"Four Corners has heard stories from dozens of former students of Tangara and its brother school, Redfield College, which are both affiliated with the small-but-powerful Catholic organisation known as Opus Dei. In interviews with more than 30 alumni and some parents, more disturbing practices have been alleged. Students say they were told that watching pornography caused holes in the brain, girls were discouraged from getting a life-saving cancer vaccine, pages on the curriculum were ripped out or redacted from text books, homophobia was rife and there were persistent attempts to recruit school students to Opus Dei. Many former students say their schooling left them with psychological damage. After Four Corners contacted the New South Wales premier about these allegations, Dominic Perrottet immediately asked the NSW Education Standards Authority to launch an investigation into the schools." (30 Jan 2023)
Read more at ABC News

Paul Gregoire: Go to Hell Pell: CARR’s April Holcombe on Protesting the Cardinal’s Funeral.
"Since Cardinal George Pell died of a cardiac arrest on 10 January, campaigners against institutional child sexual exploitation and abuse within the church have been tying coloured ribbons to the fence outside of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral in support of youths who have suffered at the hands of the clergy. Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR) further points out that Pell was also one of the most ardent conservative political commentators over recent decades, as he campaigned against LGBTQ rights, marriage equality and reproductive freedom. ... Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to CARR co-convenor April Holcombe about the harms caused by the former Sydney archbishop’s reactionary campaigning, the fact that the protest is also against the conservative elite in attendance and the destruction Pell left in his wake." (31 Jan 2023)
Read more at Sydney Criminal Lawyers

The Age (Editorial): Church must acknowledge Pell’s tainted legacy.
"Ahead of the public viewing of [Cardinal Pell's] body, a small group calling itself Loud Fence tied blue, yellow, red, purple and orange ribbons to a gate as a symbol of solidarity and silent protest against the Catholic Church’s response to institutional child sexual abuse. ... For the church to then send security guards to cut the ribbons away, apparently at the instruction of the cathedral’s general manager, spoke volumes. It was insensitive. It was petty. It was tone-deaf. It suggested the church, despite mountains of evidence about the damage caused by its plague of paedophile priests, still could not bring itself to engage civilly with those it had damaged for life." (1 Feb 2023)
Read more at The Age

Simon Hunt: As George Pell departs, every ribbon tells a story the church tried to silence.
"As people arrived one by one to put up ribbons at St Mary’s Cathedral over the past week, Ballarat child abuse survivor Paul Auchettl would quietly approach them. Every person had a story about their own experience of abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church, or stories of abuse suffered by someone they loved. Children would emerge from the faces of 60-year-old men and women, and Auchettl would guide them through the release that the tying of a ribbon would bring, like a contemporary shaman. Every day the fence would be picked “clean” of the presence of abused children that each ribbon represents. It was this removal that most deeply troubled Auchettl and his fellow Ballarat survivor Trevor Coad, who accompanied him to Sydney." (1 Feb 2023)
Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald

Sonia Hickey: Protesting Pell’s Legacy of Enabling Child Sex Offences.
"As George Pell’s body lays in state at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney in preparation today’s mass, there are tens of thousands of ribbons being tied to fences surrounding the church. The ribbons are intended as a reminder of those who suffered sexual abuse as children by Catholic priests. The Church keeps removing the ribbons. It’s a small act, but a defiant one at a time when emotions are running high. And, for many Australians, it is this kind of arrogance and defiance that sums up the Catholic Church’s continued response to the collective voice of victims of child sexual abuse, which seems to suggest the Church wants to pretend these victims don’t exist." (2 Feb 2023)
Read more at Sydney Criminal Lawyers

Jordan Baker: As Pell the man is laid to rest, Pell the martyr rises.
"Among mourners at Cardinal George Pell’s Requiem Mass, grief was imbued with defiance. ... Despite stark findings from the royal commission about Pell’s failure to protect children from paedophile priests, many believed they were mourning a visionary targeted by non-believers for his faith." (2 Feb 2023)
Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald

Margot Saville: Perrottet is no slave to his ‘Catholic gut’, but religion does cross into politics.
"A gratuitous attack on Premier Dominic Perrottet’s Catholicism has spotlighted the problematic relationship between religion and politics in this country. Clubs NSW boss Josh Landis was roundly condemned – and sacked – for saying the premier’s gambling reforms were driven by his 'Catholic gut', insinuating his religious faith was influencing policy. I was one of the many people profoundly concerned about Perrottet’s religious background when he ascended to NSW’s top office. The school he attended had links to Opus Dei, and I considered him to be an extremist and out of touch with mainstream Australia. But, like many, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by his actions in the job." (2 Feb 2023)
Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald

Kirsten Tona: The Sins of the Georges.
"For a man like Pell, only other men of great power are of interest. The little people are just that, little. He reveals his identification with power and dismissal of those who lack it again, in his testimony to the child sexual abuse Royal Commission, when he justifies his reason for glossing over the dangerous sexual proclivities of certain priests, moving them from parish to parish when the complaints got too loud, rather than confining them away from children. 'It was a sad story,' he tells the Commission from his comfortable sinecure in Rome, 'and of not much interest to me.'" (4 Feb 2023)
Read more at The AIMN

Belinda Jones: Blurry new report sheds little light on contentious school Chaplaincy Program.
"Many students, parents and non-school-based stakeholders complained that the NSCP is not secular and they held strong views on the importance of governments and public schools remaining secular. Said one parent (or guardian): 'The role is a great idea. Just make it secular.' The NSCP, in its current form, is untenable and requires a massive overhaul to make it functional, equitable and fit for purpose to meet community needs and manage associated risks before the Federal Government recommits to new agreements with states and territories." (4 Feb 2023)
Read more at Independent Australia