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	Faith Transcends Desperation The Australian September 10, 2011 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/faith-transcends-desperation/story-e6frg71x-1226133443820 FEW people are better placed to assess both the virtue and venality of the Catholic Church than Archbishop John Hepworth, who after 36 years in exile is seeking his peace with Rome. He was raped at 15, a month after entering Adelaide's St Francis Xavier Seminary to fulfill a childhood calling to train for the Catholic priesthood. After more than a decade of predatory physical and emotional abuse, he fled to England and drove trucks before defecting to the Anglican Church. In an extraordinary act of forgiveness and reconciliation, he is leading a breakaway faction of some 400,000 Anglicans who want to reunite with Rome and submit to the teaching of the church that served him so badly. Archbishop Hepworth's private story, revealed today by The Weekend Australian, is on one level a dispiriting reminder of human depravity and the church's institutional failure to exercise its duty of care. But it can also be read as a narrative of redemption, a story about courage, faith and hope on the part of a dedicated priest whose love for the church is not diminished by human failings. His story will make no sense whatsoever to the growing band of radical secularists who see religion as a dangerous throwback to a less-enlightened era. The separation of church and state, a founding principle of Australian governance, is not enough for them. They will not rest until religion is driven from the public sphere altogether, since, as Richard Dawkins maintains, religious faith has the characteristics of a mental illness. You do not have to be a signed-up member of the Catholic Church - or any other religion, for that matter - to recognise scientific rationalism has its limits when it comes to understanding human complexity, our ability to love and our appreciation of beauty. Nor do you have to bother God to realise that while religion is a private matter it is also a public good. One of the few heartening aspects of the English riots was to see people standing shoulder to shoulder to protect their communities and businesses and call for calm. Unless we missed something, none were communities of atheists; they were Hindus, Muslims and Christians united and inspired by faith. None of this disguises the fact that the official delays and denial that met Archbishop Hepworth's allegations are an all-too-familiar indictment of the church's failure to redress the wrongs of the past. It is encouraging to note, however, that the Melbourne process created by George Pell 15 years ago, which is independent of the church, resolved the relevant part of the case swiftly and efficiently. It is an indication that some in the church have learned from past mistakes. Other parts of the church have much to learn from it. We strongly reject the argument that these individual failings, terrible as they may be, are evidence of a culture so rotten that the church is beyond redemption. That argument - practically an article of faith for many modern progressives - does not recognise the broader contribution Catholicism has made and continues to make in Australia and around the world in the fields of health, education and charity or the personal peace many find through its ministry and liturgy. Archbishop Hepworth's step of faith in returning to an institution that failed him badly is one not everyone would be prepared to take. Only he can decide if it is the right one, but we recognise the message of hope it sends to the wider world about the true purpose and place of religion in a modern, secular society.
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