Bishops should think twice before agreeing to recorded interviews with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), long-time political and social commentator Gerard Henderson said last week.
Mr Henderson, Director of the Sydney Institute (SI) and an occasional guest on the ABC’s Insiders program, said there was no conspiracy against the Church at the ABC, but an institutional mindset hostile to what the Church stood for.
“I don’t think any senior figure in the Catholic Church should do any recorded interviews with the ABC,” Mr Henderson told The Record.
“For any Catholics who support [Sydney’s] Cardinal [George] Pell, their local bishop or archbishop… it’s hostile terrain for them. If you think the former Fr Paul Collins should be Pope, then it’s not hostile territory. I think [Cardinal] Pell and the bishops probably do as well as they can do – I’m just saying you’ve got to watch out.”
While the Catholic Church had undoubtedly dealt poorly with sex abuse allegations in the past, he said, the Four Corners program did not delve into whether or not court officials or police had followed up on Fr F’s admissions of abuse.
He also criticised the program for not explicitly telling viewers that Cardinal Pell was a prelate in an entirely different diocese at the time of the alleged sexual abuse and its subsequent handling by Church officials. Describing himself as agnostic, Gerard Henderson said his comments were motivated by a basic sense of fairness.
“I have a deep respect for the Christian Churches and I just think a lot of this stuff is particularly unfair,” he said.
Gerard Henderson has long criticised the ABC for not having any conservative hosts, throughout its radio and television programming, and has previously criticised the national broadcaster for focussing on, what he claims are boutique causes, such as gay marriage.
In a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, Four Corners rejected the idea it had “dragged Cardinal Pell into a Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal”, saying the phrase it used, “Australia’s most senior Catholic”, was how he was described to them by Sydney’s Catholic Communications director.
The Sydney Institute, which Mr Henderson directs, regularly hosts talks by prominent politicians and academics from across the political spectrum, some of whom have been subject to Mr Henderson’s criticism.
“If you don’t personally attack people, if you just disagree with people … if you don’t go after their motives, if you don’t make anything up, then they don’t hold it against you,” he said.