There are a number of potential explanations for an allegedly conservative NSW Premier presiding over a government that isn’t remotely conservative. One is that Dominic Perrottet is ruled by the leftist Moderate faction and its unelected lobbyist-controllers, and has to do as he is told. Another is that the Premier is a conservative in name only. That he doesn’t actually believe in the things he says he does. A third explanation is that he is a conservative (of sorts) but believes that to stay in office he has to lead a leftist government – fully green, Covid statist and woke – and so keep the millennial-led electorate happy. A fourth explanation is that the Premier is simply over-compensating, fearing being typecast as a big C Conservative and determined to avoid it.
But there is actually a fifth potential explanation for the NSW Premier’s unexpected ideological trajectory. One which may surprise many. It is at least a plausible hypothesis that Dominic Perrottet leads a leftist government because of his connections to the Catholic prelature (or “sect” to its enemies), Opus Dei.
It is well known that Perrottet “has links” to the dreaded Opus Dei. He went to school at Redfield College, a Pared (Opus Dei connected) school. Other members of his large family have been involved with Opus Dei organisations.
The leftist corporatist media were keen to so describe the then newbie Premier. As the left-leaning Catholic newspaper Eureka Street pointed out:
The Sydney Morning Herald’s first opinion piece after Perrottet became the frontrunner to take over from Gladys Berejiklian framed his ascendence through his religious commitments, with Stephanie Dowrick describing him as ‘a highly conservative Catholic with views that represent the most extreme end of a rigidly male-dominated institutional church.’ Dowrick considered it critical Perottet not be made Premier to contain the ‘growing representation of highly conservative Christians in positions of great power’ in Australia. The last comment obviously references [then] Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Christian Pentecostalism, a part of his political identity much scorned but rarely fully explored, in a manner repeated in much of the response to Perottet’s assumption of office.
The ABC News online Perrottet ‘explainer’ suggested that his ‘family ideals are fierce’, citing his being one of 13 children, and having 6 children with his wife, Helen. The number of children has been given pointed attention, much of it beyond the legitimate questions about how the Premier will manage work and family life. This to say nothing of the grubby social media commentary that followed the recent announcement of a seventh child.
Perrottet’s school, attended two decades ago, was also highlighted, that ABC ‘explainer’ and other news sites initially claiming it was run by Opus Dei. Though the online piece now acknowledges that the school is independent with an Opus Dei chaplain, and though the prelature is no longer described as a ‘sect’, it is still described as having ‘historically been accused of secrecy, elitism and misogyny.’ Dan Brown’s job done.
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/public-faith-and-perrottet
Such a characterisation is nothing more or less than was expected. And more than a little ironic in the claim of Catholic patriarchy given the Premier’s recent obsession with getting more Liberal women into the Parliament (at considerable cost at a number of levels).
One member of the Twitterati, Margaret Morgan, clearly not a fan of either The Dom or of the Catholic Church, claimed:
I am not one to condemn a politician for his or her religious beliefs. But when those religious beliefs are of the extreme right and when that politician has no qualms about them driving their policy positions, they need to be called out.
A “journalist” with the Byron Bay Echo went so far as to state:
Bugga! Just when we don’t need to expect the Spanish Inquisition, out pops its wolf-in-sheep’s clothing remake: Opus Dei. New Premier, Dominic Perrottet is closely affiliated with this extreme, conservative, secretive and politically influential, Catholic organisation.
Perrottet’s early statement that freedom is innate to us all and not a gift of government sounded promising. That implies we have inalienable rights, beyond the prerogative of government to deny, to exercise choices for our own lives, provided they do not trespass on the rights of others. Perrottet’s record shows the opposite. He opposed the decriminalisation of abortion, and marriage equality and intends to oppose voluntary euthanasia. As Premier, Perrottet will have more than his one vote to influence ‘conscience votes’ by Liberal MPs.
This is typical of right-wing sleight of hand. It resonates with the Taliban’s proclamations that women have rights – within the misogynistic prison of Sharia law!
The following paraphrases Wikipedia: Opus Dei supported repressive, right-wing regimes including Franco and Pinochet. Franco’s regime included Opus Dei members, and its founder, Josemaria Escriva, wrote to Franco rejoicing ‘as a priest and Spaniard that Spain’s Head of State should proclaim that Spain accepts the law of God according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, a faith which will inspire its legislation’.
According to Opus Dei whistleblower and former priest, Vladimir Felzmann, Escriva remarked that ‘Hitler had been “badly treated” by the world’ and he further declared that ‘Hitler couldn’t have been such a bad person. He couldn’t have killed six million (Jews). It couldn’t have been more than four million’.
Very much worth quoting in full, such is its unintended humour.
https://www.echo.net.au/2021/10/perrottet-opus-dei/
These risible, undergraduate, Dan Brown-level “analyses” of Perrottet and of Opus Dei get it hopelessly wrong, of course. Gerard Henderson has previously called them out.
https://thesydneyinstitute.com.au/blog/premier-perrottet-is-so-much-more-than-just-his-faith/
But this isn’t to say that Perrottet isn’t an Opus Dei premier. And that this might well explain his Government’s colour. The one thing never mentioned about Opus Dei is its utter fidelity to the Pope, and the priority given to this core element of its prelature. Not only Popes in general but each and every Pope. Including the current misfit, who no one on God’s Earth could accuse of being “far right”. You will often get silence from Catholics in response to questions and comments about the current incumbent. But not from members of Opus Dei. From this corner of the Church, you will only ever get a vigorous defence of the man. Despite all that he has done to destroy the Barque of St Peter.
The Vicar of Opus Dei in New York has stated:
Love for the Holy Father is part of our DNA. We pray for him every day. We learn from him.
“As head of Opus Dei in the United States, I want to affirm that all of us in Opus Dei support the pope and his work as pastor of the universal Church.”
“We support the pope, we pray for the pope. He needs our prayer, he needs to feel that support.”
“We are very much on the wavelength of the Holy Father…We love the pope, and the pope loves and respects Opus Dei, too.”
“We are all united with the Holy Father, in his message of mercy and love for the poor, imitating Jesus in this world today, being missionary disciples.”
Opus Dei views Pope Francis in the exact same way it has viewed every Pope since Opus Dei was founded in 1928: Support for the Pope and his teachings; affirming the Pope as the Vicar of Christ on Earth; loyalty to the Pope; and, perhaps most important, prayer for the Pope.
https://www.quora.com/How-does-Opus-Dei-view-Pope-Francis
Pope Francis, of course, is ultra-leftist, globalist, green, Covid statist, feminist and beyond woke. No one bar Blind Freddie would dispute that. Perhaps The Dom sees himself and his Government as doing the Pope’s work. Or, at least, it is how he justifies his Government’s papal-level leftism.
The correlations are impressive, upon examination.
Francis appoints leftist Bishops. Perrottet appoints leftist ministers.
Perrottet’s Government is the greenest in Australia, by a fair stretch. Indeed, it was so recognised by the World Wildlife Foundation. Outflanking Daniel Andrews in energy policy takes some doing. The Pope says climate scepticism is a sin.
Perrottet is rabidly in favour of promoting women, as we have seen. He seems intent on prolonging the NSW Liberal Party’s almost constant state of civil war in order to get his way. Pope Francis wants women priests (though he knows he cannot get this one through just now).
Perrottet sat quietly at the Cabinet table while his predecessor got the army to patrol the streets of curfewed, locked-down, max-vaxxed Western Sydney. As Premier, he allowed the unvaxxed to be excluded from retail outlets for nearly two months. He sits atop a Government that sacked thousands of its workers for being unjabbed. His Health Minister continues to promote mRNA products that have been proven to kill and maim people. They are being given to children who do not need them. For his part, the Pope is practically on the Board of Pfizer. He and his Bishops didn’t bat an eyelid when governments the world over closed down the churches. Nor did the Pope or his Bishops raise any objections when research of Covid “vaccines” and their manufacture was conducted using cells from aborted foetuses. Even Pared schools sacked staff who refused to be jabbed on moral grounds. It is a funny old world.
The Premier’s “personal” opposition to abortion and euthanasia didn’t stop him readily agreeing to a conscience vote that all but guaranteed that these vile measures were passed on his watch. He hardly even bothered to turn up to express his “personal” opposition. The current Pope is of the view that pro-life Catholics should tone it right down. He recently had a pro-life American priest laicised, that is, sacked.
The journos who think Perrottet is dangerous because of his conservative Catholic beliefs often point to his alleged economic liberalism. Not something shared with the Pope, of course. But this is a myth. He appointed a mad leftist as his Treasurer. His policies are not noticeably fiscally conservative, either now or when he was Treasurer. His is a big Government. He hasn’t been remotely libertarian. See under Covid fascism.
The question for our times might well turn out not to be – “is the Pope a Catholic?” (we know he isn’t) – but rather, is the Premier a papist? It seems that he is, after all, and not remotely in the ways that lazy, ignorant, ideological journalists believe. Just like the Pope, the Premier doesn’t seem able to find a left-wing cause he doesn’t go out of his way to pursue. A strong case can be made for the close alignment of Premier and Pope, and therefore a plausible explanation for why our “conservative” Premier isn’t.
Paul Collits
30 December 2022
But he is a catholic by the strict meaning of the word..........he just isn't a roman catholic !