AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
Press Release 966
The Opus Dei Saga
On ABC Four Corners
3 February 2023
The ABC’s ‘Four Corners’ opened its 2023 series with a program on the Opus Dei schools in Australia. Yet even before the program went to air on Monday 30 January 2023, the media were abuzz with reports from past students from the two Sydney schools linked to Opus Dei . The schools, including Tangara School for Girls, Redfield College, Wollemi College and Montgrove College are independent and affiliated with Opus Dei.
Most of the program centred around students who had suffered from the teaching of sex education at the schools and the processes followed by Opus Dei members to recruit students to the organisation.
Even before the program went to air however, Premier Dominic Perrottet confirmed NESA, the NSW authority had been asked to investigate "broad concerns" about the curriculum at the schools, broadcast by the ABC's Four Corners program on Monday.
However, for DOGS, perhaps the most interesting fact in the ABC report was that Mr Perrottet is an alumni of one of the schools, Redfield College, where he was school captain in 2000. And so was his finance Minister! It was mentioned in passing that other members of Parliament are also adherents of the Opus Dei Catholic sect. This line of enquiry however, was not followed up.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell also admitted that "broad allegations" had been made about "teaching to the curriculum".
Mr Perrottet said any allegations of impropriety would be investigated and the curriculum always needed to be followed but added "it's not a crime to be Catholic".
"We live in the most tolerant country almost anywhere in the world and we respect people who practice faith, who don't practice faith," he said.
"I am a strong believer in parental choice when it comes to education."
But one of the ABC investigative reporters behind the program, Louise Milligan, was threatened, anonymously by a mystery Redfield school graduate from a 'prominent family' after he allegedly threatened her over her investigation into the ultra-conservative Catholic group and its alleged links to schools.
DOGS view on the matter is as follows:
The ‘State Aid’ to private schools experiment has failed in all the ways we predicted back in 1964
- It has created social and religious divisions in our once cohesive community
- It has poured public money into sectarian schools
- It has undermined our democratic society through the infiltration of our political parties of ‘old boy’ networks. The Opus Dei scandal is only the latest example of this.
- It has poured billions of dollars into private schools with a little or no accountability.
It is time to follow our own nineteenth century example as well as that of Finland and return to a position of strong public schools that are publicly funded a independent schools that are independent of public funding.
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