Assessing the Catholic Church's child abuse culpability

By Peter Kirkwood
Eureka Street
August 5, 2014

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=41791#.U-DEa_ldWSo

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse now under way around Australia will ensure this issue will have public prominence for the foreseeable future.

Indeed it was the impetus for the authors featured in this interview to write their recently published book, Reckoning: The Catholic Church and Child Sexual Abuse (jointly published by Eureka Street and ATF Press), their own thorough study of this thorny issue in the context of the Australian Catholic Church.

Damian Grace and Chris McGillion are eminently qualified to write on this topic, both with distinguished careers: Grace as an academic specialising in applied ethics and political philosophy, and McGillion as a journalist and author who’s devoted most of his career to writing about religion.

In the interview they talk about what they are trying to achieve with the book, the difficulties in being even handed with this issue, why it has taken the Church so long to come to grips with sexual abuse by clergy, and the effect and significance of the Royal Commission. They conclude in the second part of the interview by looking to the future, discussing how the Church might recover from this, and whether Pope Francis is a sign of hope in dealing with it.

Damian Grace has taught ethics, political philosophy, history of political thought and philosophy of religion over the past four decades. He previously lectured at the University of NSW, and is currently an honorary associate in the Department of Government and International Relations at The University of Sydney.

His research has centred on Renaissance political theory and applied ethics, and his publications include a wide range of academic papers, book chapters, and, co-authored with Stephen Cohen, the books Business Ethics (Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1995) and Ethical Theory and Practice in the World of Accounting (ICAA 2007).

Chris McGillion is a former religious affairs editor and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald. He has also written on religion for the prestigious British journal The Tablet and the National Catholic Reporter in the USA. He currently teaches journalism at Charles Sturt University.

Amongst his many books he was editor of A Long Way from Rome: Why the Australian Catholic Church is in Crisis (Allen & Unwin 2003) and co-wrote with John O'Carroll Our Fathers: What Australian Catholic priests really think about their lives and their church (John Garratt 2011).