Catholic Church in Australia Links Celibacy to Child Abuse

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney, and Nick Squires
Telegraph
December 12, 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/11289629/Catholic-Church-in-Australia-links-celibacy-to-child-abuse.html

Four percent of Australian priests are said to be paedophiles Photo: ALAMY

Priests’ vows of celibacy may have led to paedophilia, the Roman Catholic Church in Australia has said, in what is believed to be the first such admission by Catholic officials worldwide.

A group advising the Australian Church on how to deal with thousands of cases of child sex abuse said celibacy may be psychologically damaging for some priests.

“Obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse in some circumstances,” said a 44-page report from the group, called the Truth, Justice and Healing Council. The group, which is supervised by some of Australia’s senior archbishops, does not necessarily reflect the views of all the clergy.

Its conclusions were quickly dismissed by the Vatican. “We certainly don’t take the issue lightly, but are these claims [by the Healing Council] based on a serious, long-term psychological study?” a senior Vatican source said. “We know that most sexual abuse of children takes place within the family, and family members are by their nature not celibate — they could be fathers or uncles,” he argued.

The Healing Council report criticised the “closed environments” of some religious orders and dioceses.

“Church institutions and their leaders, over many decades, seemed to turn a blind eye, either instinctively or deliberately, to the abuse happening within their diocese or religious order, protecting the institution rather than caring for the child,” it said.

Francis Sullivan, the council’s chief executive, said the group was not calling for an end to the celibacy vow but for an acknowledgement of its risks and potential psychological damage.

He said the disclosures from the inquiry had shocked many Catholics and the Church needed to examine “how individuals who have chosen to be celibate, how they can remain healthy and not begin acting out of a dysfunctional sense of self”.

“We’ve got to ask the question about whether celibacy was an added and an unbearable strain for some,” he told The Australian newspaper.

“It doesn’t mean that celibacy needs to be eradicated — let’s not turn the Church on its head — but we are saying you can’t have an honest and open discussion about the future without having an honest and open discussion about celibacy. We are placing celibacy on the table.”

Australia is in the process of conducting a far-reaching commission into child sex abuse which covers not only the Catholic Church but institutions ranging from ashrams to the Scouts.

Catholicism is Australia’s single biggest religious domination, representing about a quarter of the population, and has been heavily criticised for its handling of child sex abuse, including cover-ups, denials and failures by the Church leadership to address the issue.

There have been thousands of cases of child sex abuse involving church officials in Australia, including 620 in the state of Victoria alone since the 1930s.

The former Archbishop of Sydney, Mgr George Pell, told a parliamentary inquiry last year that celibacy “might be a factor in some cases” of abuse by priests. However, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne has defended the vow, saying celibacy was “a very high ideal”.