Catholic Church Needs to Beg for Our Forgiveness and Cardinal George Pell Should Be First in Line Says Angela Mollard
Telegraph
SOME stories never leave you. They settle in your bones and you revisit them, year after year, as if time might bring fresh insight or healing. Such is the case with B’s story. I was lying on her bedroom floor when she told me, feet propped on her bed. She took a deep breath. During her teenage years, she told me, someone close to her family had sexually abused her. She’d kept it secret but the perpetrator was about to get married. She was concerned: what if he went on to have a daughter? My friend didn’t want to confide in her parents, to destroy their lives. As a practising Catholic she’d decided to tell the priest at the church she attended. Priests were dependable, she reasoned. Problem solvers. Conduits to God and wisdom. The priest said he’d think about how best to handle it. And so she waited. And waited. “Has he done anything?” I’d ask as we drank tea. She’d shake her head. What we didn’t know was that the priest had a secret of his own. At the same time he was sexually assaulting a teenager, a girl he’d groomed from the age of 12 and who he’d continue to abuse for six years. In 1994, seven years after my friend had confided in him, the priest was found guilty of sexual assault and jailed for four years. What shocks is the church is still running. Still hiding. Still unwilling to raise its sacramental hands and say, simply: “We did this. We’re sorry.” Ironically, he’d been a chaplain to the police and a key figure in drafting guidelines on how the church should handle sex abuse cases. Twenty years later that the Catholic Church is still infected with such ugly secrets is no surprise. Poison in any institution is not flushed away by a sprinkle of holy water but a full transfusion of policies and personnel. No, what shocks is the church is still running. Still hiding. Still unwilling to raise its sacramental hands and say, simply: “We did this. We’re sorry.” It’s time this once-revered institution adopted the military principle of command responsibility. Codified by the Geneva Convention, it’s a straightforward doctrine of hierarchical accountability whereby commanders take responsibility and meaningful action when faced with breaches by their subordinates. It’s the top brass saying: “The buck stops with me.” Command responsibility is powerful, honest and a galvanising force as potently illustrated by our army chief Lieutenant-General David Morrison in June at the global summit on wartime sexual violence.
Following on from his address last year where he told sexist members of the armed forces to “get out”, Morrison upstaged even Angelina Jolie by encouraging militaries to change their culture. Failure to do so, he said sternly, would “do nothing to distinguish the soldier from the brute”. You don’t need a uniform to employ command responsibility, just an acceptance that with leadership comes liability. It’s Ian Narev admitting his bank needs to compensate victims who fell foul of his dodgy financial planners. Metaphorically, command responsibility is about stepping down from the lectern and moving among the people. It’s an acknowledgment that the integrity of any institution lies in the hearts of those who work for it. How then to explain the repellent words and utter lack of sensitivity by Cardinal George Pell, a man so enamoured with being God’s banker and upholding Brand Catholicism that he couldn’t fly from Rome to Melbourne last week. Like a toddler hiding behind his mother’s skirts, he cowardly appeared via video link where he made the sickening analogy that the church bore no more responsibility for the behaviour of its clergy than a trucking company might for the conduct of its drivers. For an institution built on pastoral care and that cornerstone of faith — “love one another” — it must have been further insult to the victims of sexual abuse. Anthony Foster, the father of two abused daughters — one who committed suicide, the other permanently disabled from being hit by a car while drinking — is right when he describes Pell as having “a sociopathic lack of empathy”. For an institution built on pastoral care and that cornerstone of faith — “love one another” — it must have been further insult to the victims of sexual abuse. The opposite of command responsibility is surely command failure and Pell has shown himself to be a shining example. His church — and, yes, it is his church — has concealed crimes, protected perpetrators and moved clergy so that communities like Victoria’s Doveton have endured one abusive priest after another. Yet when courage triumphed over shame and victims finally spoke they were served with legal letters, not compassion. The extraordinary movie Calvary grips with the suspense of whether a priest will die for the sins of another father. It’s a compelling tale, the title an indication that the church has always, and will always, have crosses to bear. As Pell would do well to recognise, it’s how you shoulder those crosses that matters. And my friend? She’s OK. Happy, married, raising her children in the faith she still upholds. I have no idea how she forgives a church that betrayed her. But faced with a lack of command responsibility she’s done the next best thing and taken command herself — of trust, of life and those who walk through it. I’m not taking the piss, it’s good to wee in sea AMID all the joyous news about Sonia Kruger’s baby you may have missed the other exciting announcement this week — that it’s officially OK to pee in the sea. Who among us hasn’t pretended we needed to “cool off” only to stand waist deep in the waves splashing away while emptying our bladder into the ocean? Oh, just me? Well, for all you secret sea slashers there is no need to feel ashamed because according to the American Chemical Society your contributions to the ocean are good for marine life. With the calendar flipping into spring tomorrow, I know it’ll be heartening news for parents. Just make sure your little darlings can distinguish between the ocean and a pool.
Why can’t all women be like Sam Armytage? FOR the love of some decent television can we please get Sam Armytage on The Bachelor? I know it’d be a mashup of different networks but goodness knows the show needs a girl with some gumption. Roped into watching it by one of my daughters — “darling, I’ll buy you an iPhone 6 if you promise to never audition for one of these shows” — I’m appalled by the petty strops, pouts and amateur dramatics. On the grounds that most men are looking for smarts, independence and a sense of humour, Sam, who has admitted she’s only had one date this year, should be a shoe-in. While she’s there she can teach the Bachelorettes how a grown-up acts on a date.
OH Meghan Trainor I know you’re the new poster girl for body acceptance but there is so much wrong with your No. 1 song I Don’t Know Where To Start. Loving the pastel-toned video and cute hip-shimmy beat, and good on you for calling out Photoshopping. But there’s no need to skinny shame to make your point. Being thin doesn’t make you a bitch it just makes you thin. Moving on, I’m very happy your Mama has told you boys “like a little more booty to hold at night”. Because that’s what our bodies are for right? Pleasing men? Come back to me honey when that booty is helping you climb mountains or complete a triathlon or dance all night. Finally Megs, it’s not all about the bass (metaphor for bum). It’s all about the brain.
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