Sin, Spin and Sex Abuse in the Church and Military

By Michael Mullins
Eureka Street
July 15, 2012

www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=32055


Church leaders have a responsibility to protect the reputation of the institution of the Church. They are also custodians of a very high moral duty to protect the most vulnerable in their care, including sexual abuse victims.

It is a common criticism that they have previously given priority to looking after the reputation of the institution over the needs of sexual abuse victims, who have suffered further as a result.

On the other side, many critics are not obviously concerned about the rights of the Church's 'good people' and positive values represented by the institution.

It appears they wish to see the needs of victims addressed in isolation.

There is goood reason for suggesting the needs of victims are more important than those of the institution, but it is not helpful in the long term to assign priority to one or the other. Because the sexual abuse problem is endemic, the long term common good requires a more wholistic strategy.

Last week the Australian Defence Force (ADF) was subject to similar criticism following the release of the damning DLA Piper report into sexual abuse over many years. Just as Catholic Church leaders were accused of harbouring past abusers by not reporting them to the police, media headlines highlighted the DLA Piper report's revelations that 'un-prosecuted rapists' remain in 'senior positions in the armed forces'.

This is quite significant because the ADF has always had the capacity to deal with its own through the court martial system, which allow criminal sanction. By comparison, the Church has only been able to inform civil authorities and defrock priest perpetrators.

Retired Major General Jim Molan commented at The Drum on Thursday on the 'not inconsequential' issue of the reputation of the ADF. However he insisted that protecting the reputation of the ADF 'must never hamper justice for victims', who are 'the first priority of action'.

It is pleasing that he puts the needs of victims ahead of the reputation of the ADF. But it is a flawed strategy to consider reputation and the rights of victims as two unrelated challenges that must be addressed separately. Increasingly it appears that we're talking about a problem that is endemic and not confined to a rogue element.

Molan explained that the ADF 'needs to remain the most respected institution in Australia, as it was in a recent survey, to attract people and funds to do its job'. Separately, he argues, it 'can respond empathetically to each individual abuse case without accepting that this puts a stain on all the ADF and all that it does'.

Contrary to Molan's argument, we believe that it is necessary for the ADF to accept the 'stain' before it responds empathetically. The very act of accepting the stain will demonstrate the ADF's capacity for strength, honesty and justice in the way that it goes about confronting serious internal issues. This is a much more effective way of ensuring its good reputation for the long term than a slick public relations expertise, which is the common quick fix for reputational damage.

A contrite ADF that acts righteously within will always be in a better position to prosecute just wars than an organisation with an apparently good reputation that is founded on hubris or spin.

If Molan's views reflect those of the ADF leadership, the Church is ahead of the ADF, in that the Church has moved in recent years towards accepting that the sexual abuse problem is endemic and not merely the result of the behaviour of rogue priests. A major turning point came when Pope Benedict XVI told reporters in 2010 that the problem was 'the sin inside the Church'. Implicitly he was saying that acknowledging the institutional Church's sin — or stain — is the precondition for forgiveness and reparative justice for abuse victims.

If — and only if — this attitude filters down to local dioceses, the Church can expect to be able to offer justice to sexual abuse victims, and rebuild its reputation at the same time. A joint lesson for the Church and the ADF.