Time for a Catholic Spring?
By Emma Crowe
[with audio] Retired Sydney bishop Geoffrey Robinson is calling for a 'Catholic Spring'. Speaking to Hamish Macdonald on 702 Drive on the day of the launch of his new book*, Robinson joined former New South Wales Premier, Kristina Keneally in a frank and open discussion about the need for ordinary Catholics to help confront the Vatican on the issue of child sexual abuse. Bishop Robinson, 75, believes that real change can only come from a groundswell movement of ordinary Catholics, working together to take their views to the top. 'Some bishops are much better than others and some of them are dragging their feet, but they do not have the authority to change the things that I'm looking to change. Only the Pope or a council of the church would have the authority to do that'. Kristina Keneally, well known as former Premier of New South Wales, is a committed Catholic. She believes that the response to allegations of abuse would have been very different had there been women and parents in the leadership of the church. 'As a parent, as a mother of two boys who are being raised in the Catholic faith, you know, I sometimes despair - and I know other parents do as well - of a church that on the one hand has so many good things to say to young people and on the other hand seems to have so grossly violated young people. As a Catholic, I want to see the Church ensure that this doesn't happen again' She talks about a moment when her son saw something on the news about abuse in the church. He asked what it was about and Keneally tried her best to explain. Her son said, 'Well the Catholic Church wouldn't have done that'. She said, 'well, in fact, they did do that'. Geoffrey Robinson was himself a victim of sexual abuse as a child. He emphasises that he was abused by a stranger - not by a priest or anyone in his family - but he talks about how it affected him. 'It stayed in the attic of my mind for fifty years. I knew it was there, but I'd never taken it down and looked at it. There was no help given to you in those days. It was only later, when I took it down from the attic, looked at it and named it for what it was - sexual abuse'. So what would a 'Catholic Spring' look like? 'We're not talking about tanks on the streets', says Robinson, 'but we are talking about people power, trying to give a voice to the lay people of the church, all the people who are worried about their children and would defend them like tigers'. Geoffrey Robinson is backed by two other Bishops: Bill Morris of Toowoomba (removed by the Vatican because, according to Robinson, they didn't like some of the things he was saying) and the recently retired Pat Power of Canberra. Their petition is at www.change.org/forchristssake You can listen to the whole interview here. * Geoffrey Robinson's book is called 'For Christ's Sake: End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church... for Good'.
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