U.S. Media Ignored Australian Church Burnings in Easter Week, Actress Cheering Them

April 26th, 2015 7:24 PM

Religion bloggers in America this week noticed that three Australian churches were badly burned in Holy Week – the week leading up to Easter Sunday. There was no media coverage in the United States – nothing on television (no ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, PBS, or Fox) no National Public Radio, and no print (no Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, or USA Today.) Imagine if three mosques in Australia were torched.

When the third went aflame, Australian actress Rachel Griffiths, best known for Six Feet Under and Brothers and Sisters, expressed.....happiness. The church, along with Griffiths' old parish St. James in Brighton, was burned and linked to a pedophile priest named Ronald Pickering. Via the Australian ABC News:

"I was quite elated, like many of my generation, when I heard the news," she said. "It's always been a difficult building for us to drive past because there's been so much tragedy and complicated feelings, I guess.

"We've all attended many funerals of boys that we now know were abused by [Father] Pickering ... and other perpetrators in the parish - at the actual church that it occurred in."

The priest at St. Mary's Church in Dandenong, Father Declan O’Brien, said he did not know if the suspected arson attack was linked.

"I can understand people being angry, I just don't get why even if they're angry it's justifiable that you'd attack a church building," he said. "I just can't comprehend that right now, I really, really can't."

Some of the church's estimated 3,000 parishioners said they were devastated and angered by the suspected arson attack.

Sharon Fonceca, who has worshipped at the church for more than 20 years, said it was the worst possible time for a fire, just days before Easter.

"Terrible because they are attacking our priests - what for when some of them haven't done anything?" she said.

"You find them [pedophiles] all over, they're not only the priests. Why should they take it out on all the priests, it's not right ... some of them haven't done anything."