Many Catholics were glued to the screen to hear their leaders respond to the royal commission. The optics were immediately better because Sister Monica Cavanagh rsj, president of Catholic Religious Australia, was sitting beside Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, and had a significant speaking part by reading their opening joint statement to the media conference.
The content of the conference was encouraging, despite the difficulty in hearing the probing questions posed by the media. The language of contrition was expressed powerfully and the primacy given to survivors was appropriate.
Also welcome was the thanks offered to the media by Coleridge, as he signed off, for the role of journalists in uncovering the national tragedy of child sexual abuse and the unforgivable cover up by the church, as well as for giving voice to the survivors. Too often church leaders have treated the media as their enemy and encouraged Catholics to do likewise.
Survivors have every right to say 'too little too late' to this belated response by the church leaders. Broken trust cannot be rebuilt quickly and in the case of many survivors may not be rebuilt in their lifetimes. The church must show survivors by its pastoral actions that it has learned. That will take many years.
The question of the seal of confession and, to a lesser extent, of voluntary celibacy for priests, is interpreted by the media and the wider public as proof that the church leadership is still resisting rather than embracing the recommendations of the royal commission and that they still don't get it.
That impression can only be allayed if the church's record in a decade's time can be shown to be impeccable in responding to the other 98 per cent of the RC recommendations. But already that 98 per cent has been shown to be a rubbery figure, dependent on counting in-principle support and/or referral to Rome.
The media conference also showed how discussion immediately turns to the universal (international) nature of the church, either through church explanations that some matters must be processed through the Holy See, or through media questions about Pope Francis and international developments. The Australian Catholic Church, to its detriment, is shown not be a national church, like the Anglican Church in Australia, but a branch-office church with all the impediments to freedom of independent action that follow.
"Cavanagh's hesitant response to media questions about the place of women in