It's hard to think of anybody who would not have welcomed Pope Benedict's apology for sexual abuse, when he delivered it in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, on Saturday morning. By contrast, nobody could have been justifiably pleased to hear an exasperated Bishop Anthony Fisher refer on Wednesday to those 'dwelling crankily ... on old wounds'.
Yet in a way, Bishop Fisher's comment was as fortuitous as it was unwittingly honest. It reminded us that reconciliation with victims and their families is still very much a work in progress. It revealed where we're up to. It might be far short of where many would like it to be, but at least he came clean, in a manner of speaking. Together with Pope Benedict's words of apology, Bishop Fisher's unpremeditated comment has provided a starting point from which we can move forward.
The next stage is set out in the current issue of the New York Catholic Worker newspaper, where managing editor Matt Vogel has a commentary on the Pope's recent apology to abuse victims in the USA. Vogel points to honesty, and then examination of conscience, on the part of bishops, as the precondition for reconciliation.
Putting forward the Sacrament of Reconciliation as an appropriate lens through which to understand how to move ahead with the kind of work for reconciliation called for by the Pope, he says:
A crucial part of any Christian response must be forgiveness, but forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting, ignoring or wiping away the past as though it didn't happen. On the contrary, forgiveness requires naming and remembering that which is to be forgiven so as to be able to be reconciled.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did just that during his apology to the Stolen Generations in February when he specified the 'laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians'.
He probably did not realise it, but he was following the principles that underlie the Sacrament of Reconciliation, when he said:
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
Indigenous Australians had turned their backs on an exasperated John Howard. It was his successor Kevin Rudd who took the great leap forward. For the Church, the 'great leap forward' is yet to be taken. But the starting point is now clear.
Michael Mullins is editor of Eureka Street.