The Wrong Path to a Church's Redemption

By David Penberthy
The Daily Telegraph
November 12, 2012

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-wrong-path-to-a-churchs-redemption/story-e6frezz0-1226515340912

THERE is a textbook study in how not to handle allegations of systematic child sexual abuse and it was written by the retired Anglican bishop Peter Hollingworth.

The mistakes made by Hollingworth cost him his job as governor-general. They are now being repeated, arguably to an even graver and more offensive degree, by Catholic Archbishop George Pell.

Hollingworth's biggest misjudgement in the scandal surrounding his knowledge of and response to child abuse in his church was to go on Australian Story and declare that a young female victim of abuse had actually instigated the sexual contact herself.

George Pell had his own Hollingworth moment on Sunday when he declared that he wants the NSW Police to wade through the total number of child abuse cases on their books so that the public can get a sense of what proportion of such cases involve the Catholic Church. This was his quote in full:

 

"We'll try and find out from the police how many cases of child abuse they have on their books - I believe it is thousands - and how many of them relate to Catholic priests and teachers. I suspect it will be very, very small indeed."

It's an extraordinary and arrogant request. What Pell is basically saying is that the cops should waste their valuable time tallying up the number of cases so he can justify his institution's shameful inaction. Save for an easy apology and some hush money for victims, the key and continuing problem with this scandal is the church's dissembling about the extent to which paedophilia was either covered up or even enabled with the transfer of known offenders from diocese to diocese. This is the point. It's not just the abuse, but the cover-up of the abuse.

And it isn't ancient history either, as Pell likes to imply with his suggestion that the apology drew a line under the affair. The policeman who has now gone public to document the extent of the abuse has pointed to the fact that the current Catholic Bishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson is one of three priests accused in an official police witness statement of covering up the crimes of Father Denis McAlinden, an Irishman who came out to Australia in 1949 and for the next 40 years was shifted from parish to parish whenever his aberrant behaviour came to the attention of the hierarchy - although Wilson has not been charged and denies any cover-up.

Years ago the American comedian David Letterman made the droll observation that the Catholic Church in the United States had a tough anti-abuse policy - three strikes and you're transferred. If many a true word is said in jest - not that any of this is remotely funny - Letterman's barb accurately summarises the woeful if not wilful negligence of the church on this issue.

George Pell's attempts to downplay the extent of the problem is undermined by the figures which are already on the public record. Again, these figures go not just to the extent of the problem, but the nature of the cover-up.

In the Hunter Valley alone these are the figures, courtesy of the ABC interview with Chief Inspector Peter Fox: 400 known victims of child sexual abuse by clergy, 11 clergy charged and convicted since 1995, six Catholic teachers convicted since 1995, three priests currently on trial, first priest charged this year with concealing the crimes of another, 12 priests involved in substantial compensation claims.

In Victoria Monday the victims' rights group In Good Faith revealed that a staggering 18 priests had been shunted around Victoria and to other parishes in Australia and overseas by church leaders despite being widely known as paedophiles.

Just a little blip, hey, Your Holiness. Even if the cops give Pell those stats - and they shouldn't waste a second of their time doing so - his argument can be distilled down to the assertion that other people interfere with kids too. This from the self-styled moral guardian of the wider community.

One other thing - if the church is going to be serious about this issue it should examine the question of celibacy, in the same way it is looking at the question of whether the confessional should continue to be off-limits for the reporting of crimes. So much of the problem would seem to stem from insisting on the nonsense that you cannot be close to God if you engage in physical pleasure. No wonder these blokes are so bent out of shape.

A few years ago the federal government staged an intervention in Aboriginal communities because some black people can't be trusted around kids. The church on the other hand gets tax-free status, millions of dollars in government funding, and the ability to influence public policy, such as its successful insistence on deciding under law who should and shouldn't be allowed to get married. I'm not saying there should not have been an intervention in those shocking Aboriginal communities. What I'm interested in is hearing an intelligent argument from George Pell as to why there shouldn't be a royal commission into his own institution.