WELLINGTON (NEW ZEALAND)
La Croix International [Montrouge Cedex, France]
August 16, 2024
By Dr. Christopher Longhurst
The New Zealand Royal Commission’s final report condemns Catholic Church leaders for failing to address abuse and neglect, despite past promises of transparency. Their lack of accountability and evasion of responsibility suggests that the current bishops should reconsider their positions.
Based on the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care’s final report, Catholic Church leaders have brought great shame on the New Zealand Catholic Church. Their lack of accountability and transparency in responding to pervasive abuse merits serious condemnation.
The Commission found that “Catholic Church leaders have not been accountable or transparent to their congregations and the broader community about the nature and extent of abuse and neglect by their members.” (199) Given such a finding, perhaps it would be best for the local Church and New Zealand society if those church leaders—the bishops, tendered their resignations to the pope.
The Commission’s use of the words “have not been” is telling. The scope of investigation into abuse in the care of the Catholic Church included experiences up until today. Therefore, testimony on the current church leaders’ response has informed the Inquiry.
However, over 22 years ago, the New Zealand Catholic bishops published their Pastoral Letter on abuse, stating, “We give you an assurance of our commitment to confront this problem with openness and transparency.” However, the Inquiry found that this commitment was not honored.
Episcopal accountability
Then, in the wake of the final report’s publication, the same church leaders made another commitment, this time “to ensure that the findings and recommendations of this significant Inquiry are not lost or confined to words in a report.” (24 July 2024) But given their former commitments on issues so vital as keeping children and vulnerable people safe and healing the abused were not met, why should we continue to believe them?
Supporting the Commission’s findings is the fact that earlier this year, the New Zealand bishops and congregational leaders commissioned an independent assessment of how they have complied with national safeguarding policy and responded to abuse complaints. The assessment was carried out by the international firm GCPS Consulting. Key interest groups, such as survivor support networks, were advised that an executive summary of the findings would be published on the church’s Te Rōpū Tautoko website. However, that website issued its last statement recently without publishing the report. Inquiries into the whereabouts of the report have resulted in no response. Therefore, even in this instance today, it seems that church leaders have not been able to be accountable or transparent.
Regarding episcopal accountability in the Catholic Church, only a pope can hold a bishop to account. Catholic survivors in New Zealand recently appealed to Pope Francis three times, in September 2022, again in March 2023, and again in June 2023, asking him to hold New Zealand bishops to account and respect his own calls for openness and transparency in dealing with survivor complaints. They also asked Pope Francis to help dismantle the local church’s system of coverup and denial that is harming so many people. Regrettably, those letters did not receive a reply.
Inadequate attempts
This means that, in effect, there is no accountability for abuse in New Zealand’s Catholic Church. As Gloriavale leaver Rosanna Overcomer stated, “When people in positions of power have no accountability, they create a path of hurt and destruction. Systems left unchecked don’t improve; they deteriorate.” (217)
The problem raised by the Commission regarding the bishops’ failure to provide a proper system to prevent further harm (199) can no longer be deflected by statements such as “we’ve changed and will continue to change.” In a public interview with Radio New Zealand (RNZ) on July 26, Archbishop Paul Martin, leader of New Zealand’s Catholic Church, attributed the abuse to “the culture of the time.” However, the Commission found that “the church leadership has made minimal and inadequate attempts to understand the fundamental and broader systemic factors that have influenced abuse. This has meant the church’s prevention of further harm has been limited at best.” (200) Therefore, it would seem misleading to continue to use “the culture of the time” as an excuse today.
Furthermore, it seems disingenuous of Archbishop Martin to make such a comment after the fact that the Inquiry was “unaware of any consideration by the church of the systemic causes” of the pervasive abuse (198).
More surprising may have been Martin’s reply to the RNZ interviewer’s question regarding the Commission’s recommendation that global religious leaders of institutions where the abuse occurred apologize. “Will you write to the Pope and ask for a formal apology to be issued to the victims and survivors?” RNZ asked. Martin replied, “We need to talk about that.”
Required changes
Surely, Church leaders who display such a lack of courage and empathy have no place in leadership roles. Not only do they stain the good character of Catholic laity and innocent clergy, but they also bring the institution into further disrepute.
In light of such morally impoverished leadership, surely it would be better if the New Zealand Catholic Bishops reconsidered their positions. Evidently, they are not capable of making the required changes. Not only have they proven unwilling to be held to account, but they have shown themselves to be entrenched in their own power and privilege, as demonstrated by their immediate response of setting up another committee comprised of themselves to respond to the Commission’s findings.
By such repetitive misbehavior, they are keeping us all at risk, endangering more children and vulnerable people in the care of New Zealand’s Catholic Church. Therefore, they themselves must be changed. They must resign.
Dr Christopher Longhurst, a Catholic theologian, serves on the executive of the Association of Practical Theology in Oceania, and is lecturer in theology at TeKupenga Theological College of Aotearoa New Zealand.