On 22 April 2013, Francis Sullivan, the CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council (“TJHC”) that represents the Australian Catholic Church at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, said: “The Australian community has been kept in the dark for too long.” Indeed it has, and since the setting up of the Royal Commission, the Australian Church has been open and frank about some its own failures. But on one critical issue, it has failed to be frank, and has continued the policy set by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2010 pastoral letter to the people of Ireland, of blaming negligent and misguided bishops for the cover up while ignoring the role of the Vatican and canon law on their behaviour.

In his statement to the Royal Commission tendered on 24 August 2015, retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, the architect of the Towards Healing protocol, said: “However great the faults of the Australian bishops have been over the last thirty years, it still remains true that the major obstacle to a better response from the Church has been the Vatican.”

You won’t find a word about that in the Church’s 206 page submission to the Royal Commission, dated 30 September 2013, described by Francis Sullivan three days later as “the most comprehensive document ever produced by the Church dealing with child sexual abuse” and as “a warts-and-all history, going back many decades.”

One might have thought that after Robinson gave his evidence, the Church might at least have acknowledged the biggest wart of all. But no, in a submission dated just three days later, on 27 August 2015, the Church repeats the same Benedictine refrain of blaming some in positions of authority for covering up, moving perpetrators around, and failing to report these crimes to the police. There is not a word about the role of the Vatican and canon law.

The submission makes no mention of the pontifical secret that canon law imposes on all allegations of clergy sexual abuse of children. It is true that Bishop Robinson had adopted a lax view of the restrictions imposed by it, saying that he considered that it only prevented giving the information to the media. That interpretation was never supported, and still is not supported in Rome or by any of the canonical authorities. His unsupported interpretation is understandable because on other issues he was even prepared to defy canon law where its response to child sexual abuse was inadequate.

There is one positive aspect to the Church’s latest submission. It had previously supported the system of “blind reporting”, where victims’ identities were concealed when they did not want the abuse reported to the police. Following the Protea Report of the NSW Police Integrity Commission, the Church now supports uniform legislation throughout Australia requiring all allegations of sexual abuse to be reported, irrespective of the wishes of the victim.

Uniform legislation will get the Church off the canonical hook, because in 2010 the Vatican announced a dispensation to the pontifical secret by requiring all civil reporting laws to be obeyed. This latest submission from the Australian Church is just as misleading as its 2013 one, because it says nothing about the current obligations under canon law to observe the pontifical secret in most Australian States and Territories where the dispensation does not apply because of the current lack of reporting legislation.

There is another relevant aspect of canon law, which the latest submission does not mention. On 22 February 2013, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (“CDF”) wrote to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (“ACBC”) about its Australian Church Guidelines which it had sent to the Vatican in accordance with the direction given to all Bishops Conferences in 2011 by Cardinal Levada. The CDF reminded the ACBC that the procedures under Towards Healing can apply to all other Church personnel, but the CDF has exclusive jurisdiction over clerics. When an allegation of child sexual abuse has been made against a cleric, the bishop is required under Canon 1717 to conduct a preliminary investigation, and then to send all the information to the CDF which will then instruct the bishop what to do.

The CDF’s letter is silent about the situation where those allegations have been forwarded to the police, and the police are conducting an investigation. Towards Healing provides that if a police investigation is being undertaken, then all actions under the protocol are suspended until it is completed. But the Vatican has not indicated what is to happen when the bishop is obliged to conduct a preliminary inquiry. On the face of it, the inquiry is to continue in parallel with the civil one. This poses an enormous potential for interference in a police investigation. The bishop or his delegates would have to interview the same witnesses as the police, and perhaps would do so before the police did.

There is a further problem: when the Vatican spokesman, Fr Lombardi, in 2010 announced the requirement to obey all civil laws on reporting, he said that such reporting should take place “in good time, and not during or subsequent to the canonical trial”. It seems from a recent announcement by the CDF in the case of Fr Inzoli in Italy that the pontifical secret applies once the preliminary investigation starts, and reporting to the civil authorities is thereafter prohibited: see https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=3524.

While the Australian Church advocacy of comprehensive national legislation on reporting is to be welcomed, the deafening silence on the effect of canon law in its latest submission is remarkable for an organization that now prides itself on being transparent and exposing its “warts and all” problems with child sexual abuse. The biggest wart of all is, and has always been, canon law.

Kieran Tapsell is the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (ATF Press 2014)

“the major obstacle to a better response from the Church has been the Vatican.”  

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

On Monday 24 August 2015, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson spent a day in the witness box at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He showed the integrity one would hopefully expect from a Christian bishop in focussing on the interests of children ahead of the institutional interests of the Church. He was there to assist the Commission in its understanding of the Catholic Church’s approach to the scandal of clerical child sexual abuse. Bishop Robinson was transparent in his formal statement, in his responses to questions, and in the multitude of accompanying exhibits. His evidence provides new and worrying insights into the decision-making processes of the Australian hierarchy and the Roman curia. It is clear from Robinson’s frank evidence that much of the institutional Church’s actions have been focussed largely on the reputation of the Church at the expense of the protection of children from sexual abuse.

Two of the exhibits are written advice to the bishops from Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, Australia’s first hospital ethicist, recently deceased, and commonly viewed in the Church as highly intelligent, of great integrity, and fully committed to Church doctrine. Tonti-Filippini’s advice, as early as 1 August 1990, made a damning assessment of the Australian bishops’ 1988 attempt at a ‘Protocol for dealing with allegations of criminal behaviour’. He criticised that protocol as concerned with ‘responsibilities’ such as the “defence of good reputation and image of individuals . . . and appearing to be impartial” (T-P’s italics), but “the need to protect victims of crime and to prevent further injury or injustice to them are not mentioned” (his italics). Similarly, he noted “the value of seeking to ensure that a criminal is brought to justice is not mentioned.”

In a further exhibit, a letter from Tonti-Filippini of 22 August 1996 some six years later, he objects that a Church spokesperson has been publicly “referring favourably” to the 1988 Protocol ignoring his earlier warnings, and that current responses were putting “the short term interests of the Church ahead of the care of the alleged victim.” He reiterated his advice as to “how damaging it would be when, as would be inevitable, this apparent legerdemain (trickery) were exposed.” This failure to act appropriately and quickly is repeatedly illustrated in Bishop Robinson’s evidence, as the institution is forced to respond to responsible exposure in the media. An example is the Holy See’s continuing opposition to criminal reporting of paedophiles, except where failure to report could risk prosecution of a bishop!

Bishop Robinson claimed in his formal written statement to the Royal Commission that, however much the Australian bishops failed over the last thirty years, “the major obstacle to a better response from the Church has been the Vatican.” Bishop Robinson stated clearly his dissatisfaction with the role of the Holy See in dealing with clerical child sexual abuse, both the poor governance including the demands of secrecy, and their appalling ignorance of the nature of the crime, even to the extent that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggested that paedophilia be eliminated from the list of the more serious crimes.

It seems clear that the Royal Commission is recognising that they cannot adequately deal with the Catholic Church’s failings in Australia alone in its complicity in the protection of paedophiles, without addressing the issue of the universal Church’s dysfunctional governance from Rome. Bishop Robinson has demonstrated the lack of public accountability and due process at every level of Church decision-making. This even involves unjustifiable conflicts between canon law and the civil law of legitimate democratic governments and, notably, a failure to listen to the people of the Church.

Bishop Robinson is particularly direct in his criticism of Pope St John Paul II’s response to clerical child sexual abuse and his failure to provide real leadership, noting “we still haven’t had that kind of leadership not even from Francis.” He illustrated the kind of leadership needed in a powerful ex tempore statement in his oral evidence:

Imagine that way back in, say, something like 1987 – to pick a date out of the air – imagine that (John Paul II) had come to the microphone in St Peter’s Square one Sunday morning, with a vast crowd in front of him, and said something like this . . . “I received a report during the week that shocked me the core. It tells of widespread sexual abuse of minors by priests and religious. . . . I call on every bishop in the world to act with me. We’re going to deal with these people. There’s no place for them in the church. We’re going to reach out to victims. We’re going to look at anything in the church which may have contributed and we’re going to get rid of it and I call on every bishop to work with me in this.”

Bishop Robinson’s clear inference was that Pope Benedict XVI could have taken similar action with an apology for not acting sooner. It is not too late for Pope Francis to provide decisive leadership: “to look at anything in the church which may have contributed”. This must include a commitment to radical reform of the Church’s dysfunctional governance – structure, clericalist culture and canon law – that has resulted in the criminal abuse of children throughout the world caused by the institutional Church itself.

Bishop Robinson is a witness of note, being a retired bishop who played a leading role in the development of the Church’s early response in Australia to clerical child sexual abuse. He has proven his own commitment to the protection of children and the exposure of the Church’s dysfunctional governance by public statements and writings. His two books on these issues are Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church and For Christ’s Sake End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church for Good. Bishop Robinson taught canon law at the Catholic Institute of Sydney and is a past president of the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand.

A question: Would any serving Australian bishops be prepared to further assist the Royal Commission understand the real nature of the Church’s governance rejecting, as Bishop Robinson has, the undoubted institutional pressures that arise from that dysfunctional governance and that resulted in the scandal of cover-up and protection of paedophiles.

 

Peter Johnstone is President, Catholics for Renewal,

The Catholic Church is really two churches these days. The first is the hierarchy. The second is rank and file active Catholics together with their priests. This second group is the real church. Over the last 35 years, now, they have heard what the hierarchy was saying and simply have not agreed.

They thought that communal penance services worked and confession didn’t. They continued to use communal services despite John Paul II’s forbidding of them. They knew that the time had come to contemplate ordaining married men – and women too. Many knew that re-married divorcees were going to Holy Communion and even encouraged them if formally asked. Many were pleased when parishioners they knew to be gay were ready to take an active part in parish life. They were embarrassed by Cardinal Pell’s public refusal of Communion to gay Catholics. Many knew priests who were celebrating the marriages of divorcees.

Many rolled their eyes when they read rules for receiving Communion in parish newssheets. Most accepted contraception as normal and respected the consciences of those who used it.

Many thought that knee-jerk reaction to new ethical situations was bad policy. IVF resulted from new research and so called for new ethics.

Many priests were disappointed with action in the Church abroad. They agreed with theologians who had been censured or sidelined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the former inquisition. All these theologians were streets ahead of their long faced inquisitors. Roman power play at its worst.

They thought that Liberation Theology looked right in South America, and that Basic Christian Communities may well be the answer in a clergy-deprived world. They thought that you found better leadership in USA from the women religious than from the bishops pursuing them.

Something was wrong. All these people were facing a Church which was in decline precisely because it would not seek new answers to new questions. Our world out there was changing. It was secular and pluralistic. The Church was just one institution among many. Its old privilege was gone. In this new climate it had to make its mark on society from a standing start. It needed leadership which could see this challenge and recontextualize its message. All this defensiveness, all this pre-occupation with sexual rules, was creating a community which was exclusive rather than inclusive.

Many open-eyed pastors believed that simply thinking like Jesus and believing in Jesus – basic Christianity – had something to say to this pluralistic world. But a Church preoccupied with its old formulas, its rules forged in a past cultural context, its institutional structure and total clerical control looked insular and passé.

Then along came Pope Francis. Clericalism is a cancer, he said. Reality is more important than the idea, he said. Get real! Adapt! The Church has a message to proclaim; a way of love, mercy and forgiveness to live. Embrace the world. Try to understand it; heal its wounds, give comfort in its sorrows. Don’t go lecturing it while nobody is listening. You have lost the high moral ground. Clerical privilege is over. The Christian confessional state is finished. Tribal Catholic affiliation is waning. Any new evangelization must start from scratch. Pope Francis is right. An inward looking Church will fail in its mission. How can we look outward again?

First step is to think over Pope Francis’ dictum that the reality is more important than the idea. For too long we have been forced to take the roadblocks listed above seriously – even when we knew they were obstructing the gospel. Talk about inward looking! Doctrinal arguments mean nothing to your average Catholic. They see the selectivity of moral outrage as part of the culture wars. They believe that personal sexual morality is better adjudicated by a sincere conscience in touch with contemporary cultural values. If the bishops are meant to be a moral beacon they have lost their mojo. It is time for us to get back to the reality.

Secondly, most of us believe that the core message of Jesus is very relevant to today’s Western World. So, alert to our world today, let us re-evaluate the priorities of our own belief. Odds are that you will think we have been wasting psychological energy on the wrong issues.

Thirdly let’s get rid of clericalism in our seminaries as Pope Francis wishes. Clericalism is more alienating today than ever. Spending years in the clerical hothouse of the seminary is not a good preparation for a hands-on pastor today. A seminary producing clerical graduates is on the wrong track.

Fourthly, we need to give real authority to those lay leaders we spot in our parishes. Devolve real power so that it is more and more in lay hands. This need is heightened due to the short sighted policy of importing priests of an alien culture. Authorising the laity to lead, preach, teach and celebrate is the only answer. It will happen eventually– so better to be prepared.

 

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic priest from Melbourne, who ‘writes a bit’.

We have yet to balance spirituality and sexuality in the Church especially in regard to women. Women’s leadership and spiritual influence will be compromised until we do, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner.

I thank my father for my friendship with Mary Magdalene.

I was a young woman when, after a brief illness, my father died of cancer. It was the first time I’d lost a loved one. I was devastated.

My gnawing grief for my darling Dad made me interpret well-meaning words of sympathy as hollow pious platitudes. God seemed nowhere to be found. I felt nothing of God’s comfort. Unbelievably naïve, I had expected God to shield me from normal human grief because I was a person of faith – I was a nun for heaven’s sake!

Many months after Dad’s death I went on a weekend retreat and the wise old monk who guided me suggested I read Chapter 20 of John’s Gospel and spend time with Mary Magdalene in the garden on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection.

The story is well-known and well-loved. A grieving Mary goes to the tomb. The body of Jesus is not there. Still weeping, she encounters a mysterious figure whom she mistakes for the gardener. He calls her by name. She re-discovers her Beloved. He tells her not to cling onto him but to go and tell the good news of his resurrection to his disciples. “I have seen the Lord,” she rejoices.

Something shifted in me as I spent time with Mary. Somehow, inchoately, I felt God calling me by name. Somehow God was present in my emptiness. Like Mary, I couldn’t cling onto a former idea of God. I had to, in Anthony de Mello’s words, “empty out my teacup God”. I had to find a new, more adult image of God. Instead of a Mr Fix-it God who did not honour my grieving humanity, I found a more mysterious God, a presence in emptiness, a bright darkness, a God who grieved with me.

I was grateful to Mary Magdalene but still didn’t really know her.

Years earlier I had seen Cecil B. DeMille’s movie, The King of Kings, where Mary Magdalene first appears as a bejewelled, breast-plated courtesan driving a chariot drawn by – what else but (?) – five plumed zebras! She is hurrying to meet her lover, Judas Iscariot, who she hears has become ‘distracted’ by some carpenter turned preacher.

I laughed at Cecil B. DeMille’s fertile imagination but still accepted uncritically the Christian tradition’s stereotype of Mary as the infamous scarlet woman who turned her life around upon meeting Jesus.

Scripture study over the years has led me to discover who Mary Magdalene is and who she is not. The more the real Mary Magdalene is allowed to ‘stand up’, the more significance she has for me, not only as a friend, but also as an icon of what women’s role in the Church is and could be.

Scripture scholars agree that there is not a shred of evidence that Mary was a prostitute. There are at least six or seven different Marys in the Scriptures and they get marvellously muddled.

Each Gospel writer portrays Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection and the first to announce this publicly. The definition of an apostle is one who has encountered the risen Lord and proclaims that Good News. In the earliest Christian tradition, Mary is therefore rightly celebrated, not as prostitute but as “Apostle to the Apostles”.

Mary was chosen for this special role because, I believe, she stood with Jesus in his suffering. Unlike the male disciples who, apart from the Beloved Disciple, fled or drew a weapon in the garden or denied Jesus, Mary endured the brutal horror of Jesus’ crucifixion.

She does not flee. She does not fight. She does not flinch. Like so many women after her, she gives practical expression to her faith in Jesus. She sits opposite the tomb till dark and then early the next morning comes to the tomb with spices to anoint the body.

We know that female community leaders and spiritual guides were not uncommon in the early Church. But as soon as the Christian community became part of the establishment, women became more marginalised. Patriarchy minimalized them.

Within a few centuries, Mary the “Apostle to the Apostles” was forgotten and Mary the former prostitute became entrenched in official Church teaching and in popular imagination.

As Mary Magdalene’s star waned, the other Mary, Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, shone. The two Marys demonstrate the Church’s tendency to either put women on a pedestal or relegate them and discount the legacy of their spiritual leadership.

Mary of Nazareth is firmly on the pedestal. Dressed in virginal blue, she retains her spirituality but is stripped of her sexuality.

Mary of Magdala, the relegated one, retains her sexuality but has been stripped of her spiritual influence. Her name, Magdalene, continues to be mythically associated with female sinfulness. She continues to be ignored as “Apostle to the Apostles”.

The institutional Church has an abject record of recognising women’s spiritual leadership. In the Catholic liturgical calendar there are about 200 feast days for holy men and women, and only one in five – 20 per cent – are women, and a quarter of those 20 per cent belong to Mary, the mother of God. The greater majority of the remaining women are either virgins or religious – hardly the profile of the majority of women in the Church!

We have yet to balance spirituality and sexuality in the Church especially in regard to women. Women’s leadership and spiritual influence will be compromised until we do.

Pope John Paul II loved putting women on a pedestal. He spoke often about women’s “feminine genius”, but preferred that they remain in the private sphere of kitchen or cloister.

However, there are positive signs with Pope Francis, who said in an address for International Women’s Day, that “a world where women are marginalised is a sterile world”.

“Women have the capacity to see otherwise,” he said. They “ask questions that men never think of”. Of course they do! Their experience is different. Their perspective and insight is different.

Women have tended to start from their own experience of God, rather than theory about God. This is what Mary Magdalene does. “I have seen the Lord”, she says, and tells the other disciples what her Beloved said to her.

Repeatedly Pope Francis has said that the Church needs women’s wisdom and contribution in all spheres of Church life including decision-making. The critical issue, however, is how to break the nexus between decision-making and ordination. Pope Francis acknowledged this in his first major document Evangelii Gaudium, but worryingly, has not as yet made any significant structural moves to rectify the situation.

For me, Mary Magdalene represents all the unrecognised but spiritually significant women and men in the Church. She invites me to enter Jesus’ suffering and not shirk. She calls me to encounter the Risen One in my prayer. She challenges me to be a Good News person who proclaims fiercely and boldly not herself, but the One whom she has seen, the One who sends her. She has much to teach us about God’s inclusive, incredible love for the relegated, the disparaged and dispossessed.

Mary Magdalene proclaims Jesus as Good News. She is Good News. She certainly is good news in my life. As we celebrate her feast on July 22, may she be so in yours.

* Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner is an adult educator, writer and facilitator. Patty is interested in exploring what wisdom the Christian tradition has for contemporary issues. She has an abiding interest in questions of justice and spirituality. Her formal tertiary qualifications are in arts, education, theology and spirituality.

This article was first published in The Good Oil, the e-magazine of the Good Samaritan Sisters http://www.goodsams.org.au/good-oil/mary-magdalene-friend-icon-model

 

Current Affairs. 

We were warned about events such as in the Ballarat Catholic Diocese. But they were even worse than what we expected. Bishops have been warned for a long time but they have ignored the warnings. See article below that I posted on 22 February 2013.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, formerly Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney (1984-2004) has consistently and firmly drawn attention to the damage that sexual abuse was wreaking on individuals and the integrity of the Catholic Church.

As early as 1997, when launching ‘Towards Healing’, Bishop Robinson called on Pope John Paul II to commission a church-wide study of clerical sexual abuse. He was ignored and increasingly side-lined.

Geoffrey Robinson has publicly said that he had suffered from sexual abuse. This made him more demanding of the Catholic Church in this area. He was also greatly influenced by the stories he had heard since 1994 when he had been appointed to the bishops’ national approach to what were called “Special Issues”. This subsequently became the Professional Standards Committee to develop procedures to respond to sex abuse complaints. This work culminated in ‘Towards Healing’. I am told by very well-informed sources that in this work on the committee he encountered both scoffing and disbelief from some bishops, including archbishops. He incurred the wrath of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Ratzinger personally for his supposed disloyalty and dubious orthodoxy.

Unfortunately for the Church, Bishop Robinson resigned in 2004, soon after he had finished his term on the Towards Healing committee. His resignation was for health reasons. He is now ‘Bishop Emeritus’.

After his resignation as Bishop, he commenced work on the book which he published in 2007 ‘Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church’. That book highlighted two things. The first was that sexual abuse was an awful but only one expression of the endemic abuse of power generally in the Catholic Church. Second he highlighted that if the sexual abuse crisis was to be effectively addressed, the Catholic Church needed to make fundamental and far-reaching changes. He stressed that sexual abuse was at the core of the Church’s ugly culture and anti-humane procedures. In such a situation he insisted that the process of scrutiny and reform must go wherever the truth leads.

In May 2008, after the publication of his book, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued a statement critical of the book and Bishop Robinson. The statement said

‘…The book’s questioning of the authority of the Church is connected to Bishop Robinson’s uncertainty about the knowledge and authority of Christ himself. Catholics believe that the Church, founded by Christ is endowed by him with a teaching office which endures through time. This is why the Church’s Magisterium teaches the truth authoritatively in the name of Christ. The book casts doubt upon these teachings. This leads in turn to the questioning of Catholic teaching on, among other things, the nature of Tradition, the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, the infallibility of the Councils and the Pope, the authority of the Creeds, the nature of the ministerial priesthood and central elements of the Church’s moral teaching.’

Take that, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, for telling us some unpalatable truths!

Before a proposed visit to the US shortly after the launch of his book he was asked by Cardinal Giovanni Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, to cancel his tour because ‘some bishops in the United States are concerned that you have been invited by some organisations that are not in communion with the Catholic Church’.  Bishop Robinson went ahead with the tour.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson has paid a price for telling the truth. In his own archdiocese of Sydney he commented ‘I have been excluded from a number of ceremonies usually performed by bishops. On the other hand, I have been overwhelmed by an outpouring of support from Catholic people’.

The world Catholic Church and particularly the Church in Australia owes Geoffrey Robinson a great debt for his integrity and courage in the face of clerical bullying. He still has a lot to contribute, perhaps more than anyone else I know in the Catholic Church in addressing its present crisis.

If only the bishops in Australia and Rome started listening to him way back in 1997 when he went public for the first time on the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

(I should add that I have not spoken to Bishop Geoffrey Robinson either directly or indirectly on these matters. I have only met him once and that was quite briefly and casually six or seven years ago.)

John Menadue

Current Affairs.

Catholic bishops keep telling us that they didn’t know and how sorry they are about the horrific events in Ballarat and in many other  parts of the Catholic Church before that. We all know how terrible these events are, but what have the bishops done  to address the opaque governance structures and cultural problems  that have contributed to this abuse. The Catholic Church is still run like an absolute monarchy. Sexual abuse of children is an appalling abuse of power but it is only one form of  abuse of power in a hierarchical and clerical system.In the selection of bishops for example the laity have little or any role at all.It is a rigged system.The laity who would know about sexual abuse are isolated and passive. There is a massive governance problem in the Catholic Church.

Kevin Rudd said sorry to the Stolen Generation but very little changed. The same is true in the Catholic Church.

Together with friends, I made a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This submission was on 11 November 2013. It focused on the lack of accountability, the abuse of power, the problems of governance and a clerical culture that contributed to current problems.

Our concerns were identified earlier by the Murphy Commission which was concerned with the Archdiocese of Dublin. That Commission found that the ‘structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated the cover-up’.

The Victorian Parliamentary Enquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations handed down its report ‘Betrayal of Trust’ on 13 November 2013. This report said ‘No representatives of the Catholic Church directly reported the crimes committed by its members to the police’. (p.170) The Committee found ‘that there is simply no justification for this position’. It said that in not once instance of the 307 cases involving the Diocese of Ballarat, Sale and Sandhurst did the bishops report directly to the police. That is extraordinary, even though the church cooperated once police enquiries were afoot.

The submission to the Royal Commission can be found in the following link.

https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/religion/html_files/Royal_Commission.html

 

The submission can also be found on the Royal Commission website under the item ‘Towards Healing issues paper’.

Current Affairs

On 28 May 2015, the convicted serial paedophile and former Catholic priest from Ballarat, Gerald Ridsdale gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse by video link from prison. Ridsdale is 81 years of age, and one might have expected him to have some memory problems. It is surprising, however, that he did not recollect ever living in the same house for a year with one of the few Australians to be made a Cardinal, George Pell.

In the course of the afternoon, the Chair, Justice McLellan asked Ridsdale if he was familiar with the principle of “mental reservation”. Ridsdale admitted that it was something they talked about “in the priesthood”, but he couldn’t remember “what it is now”. McLellan asked:
Q.     Do you remember that it might have something to do with justifying you not telling the whole truth when asked a question?
A.     No, I didn’t know that.

Mental reservation is usually more subtle than simply saying that you don’t remember something when you do. It involves giving an answer designed to deceive. Cardinal Desmond Connell, the former Archbishop of Dublin, explained “mental reservation” to the Murphy Commission, as deceiving someone without telling a lie: “….there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be ….”

The Catholic Catechism says it is permissible to use “discreet language” to avoid telling the truth which might create “scandal”. One such scandal is the role of six popes in ordering the cover up of clergy sexual abuse through canon law from 1922 onwards. Popes are absolute monarchs when it comes to canon law, and they are uniquely responsible for it.

There is an exquisite piece of mental reservation in the 207 page submission of September 2013 of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council that represents the Australian Catholic Church at the Royal Commission. Francis Sullivan, the Council’s CEO described the submission as a “warts and all history going back many decades”. It mentions canon law quite a lot, but makes no mention of the secret of the Holy Office under Crimen Sollicitationis (1922 of Pius XI, and revised by John XXIII in 1962) or the pontifical secret under Secreta Continere (1974 of Paul VI) or its application by Pope John Paul II in his decree Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela in 2001 and again by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2010 revision of it. These papal instructions and decrees prohibited Church authorities from telling anyone, including the police, about allegations and information on child sexual abuse by clergy. It is not surprising that there was a persistent pattern all over the world of Catholic bishops covering up child sexual abuse. In 2010, the Holy See agreed to a dispensation to allow reporting to the civil authorities, but only where there are civil laws requiring it. Very few countries have comprehensive reporting laws, and in Australia, only New South Wales and Victoria have them.

The Councils submission to the Royal Commission states on page 132, par 10: “There is nothing in the 1983 Code that is in conflict with any applicable civil law obligations relating to the reporting of allegations of child sexual abuse.”

That statement is true because the pontifical secret is not imposed by the 1983 Code, but by Secreta Continere, and Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela which do not form part of the code, but they are still part of canon law. Those who know nothing about canon law would think from that statement that the Church’s law does not – and never has – prohibited reporting to the police, because that is what “codes” generally are – collections of all the laws.

Even if the sentence read “there is nothing in canon law”, that would also have been true in September 2013 because of the 2010 dispensation. But it would still be misleading and not the “whole truth” because it was only true for the last 3 years of the “many decades” of the “warts and all history”, that the Council’s submission was supposed to cover.

There is another reason why it may not be the “whole truth”. On 15 July 2010, the Vatican spokesman, Fr Lombardi, when announcing an exception to the pontifical secret to allow reporting where local domestic law requires it, said that reporting had to take place “in good time, not during or subsequent to the canonical trial.” Now, it is possible that Fr Lombardi was only advising bishops about the best time to report. On the other hand, he could have been imposing a condition on reporting, so that once a canonical inquiry or penal trial starts, then the pontifical secret applies, and there can be no more reporting, irrespective of what the civil law says. This is a matter of some importance, because an allegation of one instance of child sexual abuse might come to the attention of the bishop, and is reported in accordance with the civil law, but the Church’s inquiry or trial reveals another 20 cases by the same priest. If canon law only allows reporting before the preliminary inquiry or penal trial starts, then the pontifical secret would prevent reporting of those other 20 cases.

In 2015, the Holy See seemed to confirm these limitations on reporting in the case of Fr Mauro Inzoli, accused of abusing dozens of children over a ten year period. He was dismissed by Pope Benedict in 2012, but Pope Francis reinstated him, and applied the practice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of allowing him to live a “life of prayer and penance” with restrictions on his public ministry. When the Italian magistrates wanted access to the documentation of his canonical trial, the Holy See refused, saying: “The procedures of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are of a canonical nature and, as such, are not an object for the exchange of information with civil magistrates.”

The Italian magistrates were seeking the production of documents produced “during the canonical trial” and their request was made “subsequent” to it. The reasons for refusing to produce them support the view that Fr Lombardi was indeed talking about a restriction on reporting.

If that is the case, the statement in the Truth, Justice and Healing Council submission is even more misleading. I suspect we are going to hear a lot more about “mental reservation” as the Royal Commission hearings continue.

Kieran Tapsell is the author of Potiphar’s Wife: the Vatican Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (ATF Press 2014)

Current Affairs.

There’s a special irony in the Australian Catholic bishops’ recent statement “Don’t Mess with Marriage” which is a defence of the institution against proposals to recognise gay marriage.

What are they defending? It’s not just the Catholic sacrament of marriage that is their focus of attention. They are worried about marriage as proposed under Commonwealth law. Over forty years ago when the Whitlam Government introduced the Family Law Act with no fault divorce that could be applied for twelve months after separation, it was denigrated as the end of marriage as we knew it and the ruthless destruction of the foundational institution of our society.

Today the bishops see the Marriage Act as the pillar whose extension to arrangements affecting gays will undermine a foundational institution of our society.

Am I missing something? Or is this one of the least prepared responses to a basic social change that affects people well beyond those that bishops are responsible for – those seeking a Catholic sacramental marriage? Even without any amendment to the Commonwealth definition of ‘marriage’, most marriages in Australia are not sacramental marriages.

As one who grew up in a Catholic family where the divorce of my parents was adjudicated under the burdensome processes of the previous law, the change introduced by the Whitlam Government was a welcome relief. When a relationship is over, it’s over and to string it out over five years meant the experience of blaming and abuse was daily fare.

Why do the bishops undermine their own credibility in this delicate matter when they can make no claim to speak for all Catholics, let alone all Australians, and their remit extends only to a particular form of marriage?

Within days of the release of this statement on marriage, the Archbishops (minus the one from Adelaide who is facing charges related to claims he did not report a sex offender priest) leapt to the defense of Cardinal Pell who is under pressure for his part in the debacle in Ballarat where Pell was a priest. What he knew and what did he do about what he knew are questions the Royal Commission is asking.

Long before any hearing, evidence, questions or testimony, the dogs were barking. But just to confirm the whole absurdity and before anyone has heard anything, the archbishops declare their support for Pell and tell everyone to stop picking on their mate.

I wonder how many of the archbishops thought about how such an intervention simply confirms the perception that the bishops constitute an old men’s club, out of touch with the community and its concerns?

There is also a deeper problem. How do people with so little sense of themselves outside ecclesiastical definitions, so oblivious to the world they are part of, get to leadership positions in the institution? The notoriously opaque process of episcopal appointments simply produces people to do jobs they can’t perform effectively or productively.

Behind that problem is the self-sustaining clerical culture, described by the present Pope as the “cancer killing the Church”, propped up by the Vatican court which he described as the “leprosy on the Papacy”. Whatever the declared purposes of the Church, the delivery of its message about Jesus and service to people, the reality of the operation is severely at odds with these declared purposes.

This system, in its present form, has been incubated over the last 450 years – since the Council of Trent in the mid 16^th Century. Convened to correct the abuses of the medieval Church, it is now the carrier of all that is counterproductive in the Church’s conduct – the way still so many in the Church’s leadership still presume the survival of Christendom, the way bishops are appointed and operate, the way priests are trained and acculturated, the way parishes operate.

What can one man – the present Pope – do in the relatively short time left to him? Not a lot. His current focus is on the most alienating feature of Catholic life today – the engagement with people whose relationships have gone sour. He hasn’t even reached the matter he describes as a “cancer” – clericalism – and how it is to be addressed by completely and operationally revising how ministry in the Church happens.

Facing such challenges, I take comfort in the observation of Archbishop Daniel Mannix in the recently released and best of nine biographies of this commanding figure: “When it’s all boiled down, being a Catholic comes down to a few very basic questions”.

But such a minimalist approach doesn’t distract me from the conviction that getting things right – or at least better than they are now – will take a lot of work over a long time. And it requires imagination and courageous leadership.

 

Current Affairs

A response to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s Pastoral Letter entitled “Don’t Mess With Marriage”, May 2015.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference issued this Pastoral Letter with three purposes in mind: to engage in the current debate about marriage equality; to present the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage; and to explain the position of the Church to the wider community. The letter does not succeed as it should on any of the three nominated purposes.

The letter is a curiously constructed document basically in two parts. The first part attempts to set out the Church’s views about marriage and marriage equality (“same sex marriage”); the second part provides a long list of undesired, and perhaps unintended outcomes, in other countries, of legislation which impinges on marriage equality. In essence, the Bishops re-state that marriage can only be between a man and a woman; that every child deserves to be raised by a mother and a father; that it would weaken the institution of marriage to share it with homosexual couples; and finally, they warn that marriage equality will lead to the erosion of long held freedoms of conscience, belief and worship.

In setting out the Church’s teaching on marriage and same sex marriage, the Bishops restate certain philosophical-theological argument about treating like with like, concluding that a heterosexual marriage is not like a homosexual marriage, and therefore the two should be treated differently, and certainly not be identified by the same term, ”marriage”. “To do so would be unjust” the Bishops argue. Much of this part of the Pastoral Letter depends upon the definition of marriage. The definition advanced by the Bishops is: “A covenant between a man and a woman, to live as husband and wife, exclusively for life, and be open to the procreation of children.” In entering the debate the Bishops have argued that supporters of same sex marriage are trying to re-define marriage. However, the same charge could well be brought against the Bishops.

In the mid-1960s, the Catholic Church held a Council known as Vatican11. The Church is still struggling to agree upon significant parts of the documents which emanated from that Council. In one document, the Council made an historic decision to change part of the church’s understanding of marriage. For centuries the Church had taught that there were two ends to marriage: having children (the primary end) and nurturing the love of the couple (the secondary end.) The Council removed the distinction between primary and secondary ends, thus rendering both ends as of equal significance. The Council went further acknowledging that “authentic married love “ was at the heart of marriage. Given this historic change, it is curious that in the definition of marriage provided by today’s Australian Catholic Bishops, makes no mention of the word” love”.

This is significant, because their limited definition forces the Bishops to resort to a justification of marriage, based on “difference and complementarity”. These terms are explained as basically biological or anatomical concepts, indicating that men and women have different sexual organs, and that there is a natural fit (complementarity), which is not possible for homosexual couples. One cannot deny this argument, but it is not sufficient in itself to support a full definition of marriage. Most people would accept that marriage is the result of love. The usual sequence is: two people fall in love; they decide to marry; they decide whether to have children or not, and if so how many. The basis of marriage is both a reality and a mystery: love. To deny this is unjust and illogical.

This leads us to consider the second aspect of the Bishops’ definition of marriage, namely having children (the Bishops use the religious term ”procreation”). Generally societies everywhere acknowledge that marriage provides a safe and suitable environment for the rearing of children. Again, research in the area of families tells us that a loving, nurturing, self-sacrificing family environment is what contributes most to the healthy development of young people. The Bishops argument is essentially that such an environment can only be provided by a mother and a father.

Unfortunately, we know that this not always true. We also know, from a smaller set of cases, that homosexual couples can provide, and can fail to provide, such an environment. Successful child raising does not appear to flow from the genders of the parents, but rather something that is achieved through the love of the couple raising the children. This further underscores the centrality of the significance of love in any definition of marriage. As Fr. Richard McBrien in his classic text Catholicism puts it: “Consummation (intercourse) without love, is without meaning.”

The Bishops also indicate that the notion of marriage equality as proposed, will de-stabilise marriage, and change retrospectively, the basis on which all existing heterosexual marriages exist. This is akin to saying that: “You can only make your candle glow brighter, by extinguishing the candle of another.”

The concluding part of the Bishops’ letter provides a long list of undesirable outcomes which they claim flow directly from accepting same sex marriage. These are prefaced by a statement warning that “freedom of conscience, belief and worship will be curtailed in important ways.” In fact all the examples are cases of either poor legislation or its interpretation/application, or of both. It is indeed unfortunate that such incidents as those mentioned by the Bishops occurred, and the Bishops are right in drawing to our attention the need to be clear on how any new piece of legislation is framed in relation to existing legislation .The Australian Human rights Commissioner, Tim Wilson, makes an astute observation in this regard. He says: “ Conservatives rightly debate whether any change to marriage could lead to a slippery slope, particularly opening the door to polygamous marriage. But the two are not comparable……… The present push for same sex marriage has gained support precisely because it is a fulfilment of conservative expectations about the role of stable relationships as an essential building block of society, and a form of private social welfare through mutual dependency.”  Creating fear, by listing examples as the Bishops do, is not a defensible tactic.

If we are to have a mature debate about the topic of same sex marriage or marriage equality, then all parties should show a willingness to listen compassionately and genuinely to the other’s experiences. Love not fear should be the guiding principle of the debate. The parties should be seeking a common solution, not a partisan victory. All this is part of the long evolutionary journey of our understanding of marriage. The term is resilient, and has shown an irrepressible ability to be modified and accommodating, in surprising ways.

Garry Everett is a Catholic layman. He has been an adult educator for more than 40 years. He has a strong interest in Church, Theology and Scripture.

Current Affairs. 

Human sexuality is a complex and fragile thing – far greyer than black or white. It is best tended to by gentle, wise, and humble hands.

There hasn’t been much gentleness or wisdom surrounding the same sex marriage debate.

Like most issues of public importance, we tend to be led to the voices of fear that inhabit the extremes, and both extremes certainly have fiery preachers who are skilled at trotting-out the emotive and incendiary; all taken-up with alacrity by a mass media and consumer market that revels in confrontation – confrontation that is too often devoid of intellectual rigour, dispassionate reasoning, and wisdom.

Those for same sex marriage have cleverly positioned themselves under the canopy of equal rights, of marriage equality: “Thus, if you oppose us, you are not only homophobic, but support continued discrimination as well.”

While those against counter with the not so clever approach that involves wielding a bible as though it were a hammer: “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”.

No wonder there is little mutual respect.

There are many layers to a good debate, to prosecuting a good argument. The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, held to three: logos (reason), pathos (emotion) and ethos (credibility); each complementing the other in striving for wisdom and truth. In the case of same sex marriage, however, discussion has tended to gravitate towards the pathos only, hence the emotion and pique.

Each of us comes to life matters informed by different experiences and realities: gender, sexuality, atheism, belief, politics, religion, family, humanism, anger, fear, and so on. If each is honoured with a voice, then, in time, logic-pathos-ethos are given room to gently sort out the wheat from the chaff, and the common good is more likely to emerge.

“If we are to understand someone else, we must know of what they are afraid,” so said English philosopher, Iris Murdoch.

No one can tell me who to love

So, what are the fears and assumptions that underpin those who support same sex marriage? Fundamentally, they centre on discrimination, on challenging and eradicating social and institutional prejudice. Thus, marriage is laid-out before us as a civil rights test: Are you for equality, or for continued discrimination?

American writer Andrew Sullivan speaks for many when he says: “The Constitution guarantees the right to marry to murderers, to prisoners, to people with a history of neglecting their children, to people who have married 10 times … If all these people have a fundamental civil right to marry, as I think they do, we do too.”

What Sullivan and others say has power because they are emerging from a longstanding and documented history of marginalisation, brutally so in many instances; one that is still quite pervasive. And churches of all persuasions need to reflect on their contribution to this injustice.

Given this painful historical backdrop, the civil rights approach is both compelling and persuasive. After all, who wants to wear the responsibility of saying yet another “No” to those who have been marginalised and refused entry into much of the mainstream for so long?

Same sex marriage is a bridge too far

And what about the fears and assumptions that underpin those who oppose same sex marriage? Most tend to be shaped by religious affiliation – e.g. fidelity to scripture and dogma, the fear of secularism (modernity) eroding traditional values, and the rights of children to be raised by their biological parents.

In regards to the latter, Canadian ethicist Margaret Somerville also speaks for many:

“By institutionalizing the relationship that has the inherent capacity to transmit life, marriage symbolizes and engenders respect for the transmission of human life.

“Advocates of same-sex marriage argue … that the inherently procreative relationship between a man and a woman means that opposite-sex couples who cannot or do not want to have children should be excluded from marriage; or, more extremely, that only a man and a woman who produce a child should be allowed to marry.

“Even if a particular man and woman cannot or do not want to have a child, their getting married does not damage this general symbolism. The reproductive potential of opposite-sex couples is assumed at a general level and is not investigated in individual cases. To do otherwise would be a serious and unjustifiable breach of privacy.”

Critics of these generally faith-based voices tend to dismiss them as out-dated, conservative, and intolerant: “Just more prejudice from believers fearful of difference, fearful of change.” The inference being that those who support same sex marriage embrace difference and, in so doing, are better able to tread the path of tolerance which is more readily countenanced within open-minded modernity.

Yet, as the Dominican priest and author Timothy Radcliffe muses, “Is modernity so very tolerant after all? Lots of sociologists like Richard Sennett, argue that modern society is so fluid and mobile that we fear to really engage with difference. We have to pretend that we are all the same.”

Whatever one’s take, in order for this debate to move beyond the superficial noise and emotional peaks and troughs that prevail, it behoves us all to listen with humility, even to positions that are antithetical – yes, even repelling, to ‘my worldview’.

So where to from here?

While the refrains, “marriage equality” and “no one can tell us who to love,” are compelling pathos, they are more sound bite than substance, and should not be allowed to stifle our collective grappling. Marriage is far more than just an expression of love between consenting adults; as for the accusation that it is inherently discriminatory until available to same sex couples, well, that also needs a lot more attention and rigour than is currently the case.

Similarly, the issue cannot be hijacked by the intellectual mediocrity of those purveyors of religious bigotry and fundamentalism who retreat from reason and compassion, thus, undermining thoughtful, credible, and respectful debate. The same sex community has been shunted and bullied and belittled by irrational fear-mongers and brutes for too long.

Australian journalist and author Paul Kelly invites us beyond the pathos to consider some of the ramifications that might otherwise go unnoticed:

“The intellectual truth … is that this project is about changing the concept of marriage as the core institution of our civilisation. It needs to be addressed at this level.

“The proposal is to strip from the law the idea of marriage as a union between a man and a woman and substitute two people. This means the removal of the concepts of motherhood and fatherhood from law … in favour of parenthood. Once enshrined in law, the education systems from primary schools upwards will teach your children the ideology of marriage equality, namely equality of homosexual and heterosexual unions, as the foundation for cultural norms, and a philosophy of family that is dictated by constantly evolving social behaviours and fashions.

“This is a vast change in Australia’s secular and cultural values … [a] change [that] will institutionalise a new division: the state’s concept of marriage will stand in conflict with the church’s concept of marriage.”

To discriminate v discrimination

“In whatever context it arises, and always respecting the appropriate manner of its expression, love between two persons, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured and respected.”

(Cardinal Basil Hume)

A discriminating person is a person who can detect differences. In its basic sense to discriminate is to recognise and acknowledge difference. The problem arises only when we discriminate in order to advantage some and disadvantage others. Then we speak of discriminating against certain groups or certain people. This misuse of discrimination endangers all our institutions. Recognising and acknowledging difference is basic to medicine, as without it diagnosis would be little more than guesswork. It is basic to law, as without it verdicts would be arbitrary. It is basic to the whole scientific endeavour. The problem does not lie with discrimination (we should recognise differences), but with the purpose behind discriminating, and what it is used for.

When we reflect on the fact that committed relationships are at the heart of a healthy society, we realise how important it is to respect, encourage, and celebrate the giving and receiving of love between heterosexuals and same sex couples. We must also dialogue with the hope of deepening our understanding of experiences that are foreign to us. The loving commitment of same sex couples to each other needs the kind of protection and support that heterosexuals have taken for granted.

Surely we can achieve this while recognising that the two forms of union, heterosexual and same sex, are different, and significantly so. All societies, including our own, acknowledge the importance of heterosexual unions for the very continuance of the society. We call it ‘marriage’, and, as acknowledged earlier, while not every heterosexual union leads to procreation, the union, of its nature, is geared to it. This is not true of same sex love.

Of course, a same sex couple can love and care for children whose nurturing is a fruit of their love. Children, however, do not come into existence as a result of their sexual union. And surely, as much as is possible, children have an inherent right to be nurtured by their biological parents?  If this has merit, one needs to consider the potential for same sex marriage to further entrench the separation of children from their natural parents, a separation that is becoming more and more prevalent thanks to new technologies, a prevailing individualism, and a collective infatuation with the self: “If I want it, I should have it; that’s my right.” The danger is children can become commodities to meet the social and emotional whims of adults; something for which we are all responsible.

For the sake of the child and ultimately for the dignity of all, it needs to be clearly understood that one does not have a right to a child, whatever underpins one’s aspirations for parenthood.

The committed love between same sex couples must indeed be “treasured and respected”, and while it is also a creative and nurturing reality for those involved, it has neither the biological complementarity, nor pro-creative capacity, that is inherent in a heterosexual union. It is a different expression of love and it should be treated and honoured differently. Thankfully, in relation to legal protections, same sex couples have been afforded what is justifiably their civil rights. 

“But,” as former Chief Rabbi of the UK, Jonathan Sacks says, “our compassion for those who choose to live differently should not inhibit us from being advocates for the single most humanising institution in history. The family, man, woman, and child, is not one lifestyle choice among many. It is the best means we have yet discovered for nurturing future generations and enabling children to grow in a matrix of stability and love …

“Those who are privileged to grow up in stable loving association with the two people who brought them into being will, on average, be healthier physically and emotionally. They will do better at school and at work. They will have more successful relationships, be happier and live longer.”

 

Peter Day is a Catholic Priest in Canberra.

 

The Melbourne Age said on Sunday 3 May that the Catholic Church was attracting more trainee priests.

SBS had a similar article.

Both are factually wrong. The last big year of seminary entries was 1968. Recruitment dropped steadily for 20 years and has been steady for the last 35 years.

Corpus Christi College is Victoria and Tasmania’s Catholic Seminary. It is typical of all Australia’s seminaries. Have a look at its entry numbers.

For 35 years Corpus Christi has averaged 9 entries a year. Only a third of them stay till they get ordained. That results in 3 or 4 ordinations a year.

Corpus Christi College should be ordaining at least 12 a year if it wants to have a ratio of one priest for each 5000 Catholics.

Because numbers have been so steady for the last 35 years you are entitled to predict it’s not going to change. Change the way the Church is run – or die out.