A Sydney bishop minces no words.
Big news in today’s (or, technically, tomorrow’s) the Age of Melbourne :
THE Catholic Church is still not serious about confronting
sexual abuse, only “managing” it, according to the Sydney bishop
who headed Australian efforts to tackle abuse.
(…)
Bishop Robinson, 70, who was abused as a child, headed the
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference professional standards
committee for a decade until he retired because he was so
disillusioned in 2004.
(…)
He said the response of the church, especially the Vatican, to
the sexual abuse crisis did not go deep enough. “The most profound
factor about sex is that the church has had a morality for 2000
years based on offences against God and I find that quite
inadequate. I ask if we should move to a morality based on
relationships, on good and harm to people.”
Bishop Robinson said the Catholic Church centralised too much
power in the hands of the Pope. “The entire responsibility of the
church throughout the world to something as big as sexual abuse
depended too much on the response of one person.”
Read the rest right here.
Australia’s Gumbleton?
A voice crying in the wilderness…
….. and a voice destined to be one dying in the wilderness.
Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia has extensive quotes from the bishop’s report at:
http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/
Bishop Robinson holds the popes ultimately responsible for the unChristian handling of the crisis. He also questions infallibility as presented, as well as calling for a consideration of the celibacy issue and other hot button issues.
t’s perhaps unfortunate he mentioned infallibility. The other issues are clearly not matters of faith and morals. But it is clear that he thought that it is time for bishops to speak out against the Vatican when necessary.
Already the American press is on to the story.
If the Vatican ignores this, it’s deafer than I am.
Realistically, it would be a contradiction in terms for the Vatican to be humble about the sex abuse crisis. It could no longer be credible in saying how holy and untainted the RCC is, how other churches lack the wherewithal to have full communion with God. Grandiosity can never make it in the real world.
This is why bishops and the popes should be held accountable nonstop. That may get a Christian response.
The introduction to his book is the most enlightening piece on this painful issue that I have ever read.
The Vatican is closed to truth on so many fronts that it will inevitably indulge its usual attitude on this occasion.
It would be incorrect to call that attitude “turning a deaf ear” — “turning” implies a level of responsiveness that the Vatican does not attain. Nor could one accuse the Vatican of “stonewalling”, for that would imply a consciousness of being beleaguered that the Vatican does not have.
The only sensitivity that the Vatican has is a prima donnaish alertness to aspersions on its own infallibility, and its automatic response to that is to accuse the critic of heresy — just as in the past those who criticized the procedures of the Spanish Inquisition were more than likely to find themselves hauled before it.
There is no hope whatever that the Roman Curia, shored up by sycophancy and by the indifference of an uneducated laity, will undertake its own reform.
The Introduction is impressive–so simple, forthright, earnest, and sensible. I wish I didn’t agree with Fr. O’Leary about the book’s likely reception in Rome.
N.B. The full title of Geoffrey Robinson’s book is “Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus. It is published in Australia by John Garratt . ISBN: 1920721479
Amazon doesn’t list it, yet, but Barnes and Noble does, with a publication date of Aug. 28.
Compare Bishop Robinson’s comments with those of Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, offered to the Knights of Columbus in Nashville earlier this month:
“I hope that other institutions and social agencies will face this same [sex abuse] problem with their members, WITH AN EQUAL DEGREE OF COURAGE AND REALISM AS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS DONE. I wonder if the other agencies or institutions HAVE ALSO PROVIDED FINANCIAL CONSIDERATION FOR VICTIMS AS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS DONE; IF THEY HAVE TAKEN CARE OF THE VICTIMS and those who are guilty” (emphases added).
Context is everything. Maybe the good cardinal was engaging in “spin.” Maybe he was clueless. Maybe he was in denial. Maybe he was demonstrating arrogance.
Regardless, Bertone demonstrated the Vatican’s utter disconnect with reality. Just one more reason I’d like to see us Catholics shut Rome down — for good!!!
If Benedict stays on as bishop of Rome, they can have him. Otherwise, I’d like him to stay the hell out of the American Catholic Church.
I will have to withhold judgment until I at least see a review of this book, but it seems to me that the bishop is helping confirm what many of us feel about how the abuse crisis is being used to promote other agendas. If this and other newspaper articles on the bishop are confirmed by his book, it will be an opportunity to criticize a broad range of Church doctrines, teachings, and disciplines that have nothing to do with the abuse crisis.
Joseph, there is no such thing as the American Catholic Church – unless you are talking about the schismatic one (one whose doctrines seem more in line with your beliefs). There is the Catholic Church. How, exactly do you propose to “shut down” Rome? Would there even be a Catholic Church without the Holy See?
Sean, we have an American Catholic Church, a German Catholic Church, a Mexican Catholic Church, a Canadian Catholic Church, etc., etc. Only problem is: they exist in name only.
I’m not aware of any schismatic Catholic Church in communion with Rome, but I am fully aware of plenty of Catholic clergy and laity who are tired of Benedict, his curia, and all stuff Tridentine, “orthodox,” and supposedly “traditional.”
I propose to “shut down” Rome by fed up laity stopping feeding it with money and kowtowing — and by laity letting their bishops know in no uncertain terms that we expect our respective bishops to be (arch)diocesan bishops first and Roman doormats a dead last.
I think there could be a universal church — but not with the genuinely ahistorical influence that the bishop of Rome exercises over hundreds if not thousands of local hierarchs who genuflect to kiss the papal ring (and, God knows, what else!). It’s time for the world’s bishops — including the Roman bishop — to begin (nay, resume) practicing the historical idea of subsidiarity, to wit: the Vatican bishop stays on his turf, other bishops stay on their turfs, and all critical decisions with actual or potential universal impact are made in truly collegial fashion.
Time to subject the current “arrangement” to a new Inquisition.
5th September
This book sold out very quickly and is reprinting. Publisher John Garratt expects deliveries next Weds 12th Sept.
Much interest has been generated in UK by the coverage in last week’s “THE TABLET”