Culture has become a popular word to analyse organisations whose members do bad things: football clubs whose players dismantle bars and their patrons; political parties whose members are paraded before courts; and churches in which sexual abuse has been rife.
The culture of an organisation comprises the shared attitudes, values, patterns of relationship and practices that make it more likely that members will act in particular ways. In an army unit where there is a culture of binge drinking and contempt for women, more incidents of sexual assault may well occur than in other units where these features are absent.
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's recent book on the culture of the Catholic Church carries on his critique of the factors that have contributed to clerical sexual abuse of children and to denial and concealment of it. The aspects of Catholic culture that he believes conducive to it include: a relationship with God dominated by fear; immaturity; compulsory clerical celibacy, an exclusively male caste standing over the church; a lonely way of life; a cult of privacy and secrecy; a compulsive need to defend the actions and attitudes of the Pope.
Together these things made it more likely that priests will be tempted to abuse children, will have the opportunity to do so, will abuse with impunity, and have their actions denied and covered up by others.
If this is the culture, how can it be changed? Robinson's answer is to call for a new Church council that includes an equal number of laypeople, with women proportionately represented. Its one topic would be to identify the aspects of the Catholic culture that encouraged sexual abuse and to make the changes necessary. He together with Bishops Pat Power and Bill Morris have initiated a petition endorsing this proposal.
Robinson's analysis of harmful aspects of Catholic culture and endorsement of a Church council as the remedy are persuasive. He has the personal authority that comes from himself having been abused, and from giving many years to persuading Catholics to attend to the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, to recognise their responsibility to them, and to begin to institute effective safeguards.
A Church council could lead Catholics to address the harm done to people by the sexual abuse of children and to endorse structural changes. It may be a necessary condition for addressing the evil of clerical sexual abuse.
But a council focused on sexual abuse may not alone