In his Easter message, Cardinal George Pell made an oblique reference to sexual abuse in the Church when he referred to 'Christian failures to live up to Christian standards' and 'too many scandals and many victims'.
There is no doubt that most Australians dismiss such utterances as too little too late. Yet it is possible to look at them optimistically when set against actions of the recent past.
Less than two years ago, Bishop Anthony Fisher was widely criticised for describing those who focused on sexual abuse during World Youth Day as 'dwelling crankily on old wounds'. Earlier, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson had been criticised by his fellow bishops for his 2007 book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church in which he dealt frankly with sexual abuse.
The Catholic Church is fortunate that it has templates to work from, in the processes that have accompanied the formal apologies to wronged Australians made by the Prime Minister on behalf of all of us. These were the apology to the Stolen Generations in February 2008 and the apology to the Forgotten Australians in November 2009. These apologies demonstrate that reconciliation is possible.
On the morning after the Forgotten Australians apology, John Honner wrote in Eureka Street that they were 'all innocent', and there had been many living 'heroic, resilient lives, holding on to hope … struggling for recognition, respect, healing and compensation for over a decade'. In making the apology, the Prime Minister accepted that this was 'an ugly story' and that 'its ugliness must be told without fear or favour'.
Honner pointed out that there would be some who had been associated with the children's homes who would not like the judgment on which the apology was based. He suggested that the rationalists would say 'get over it and move on', the apologists would say 'it wasn't all bad', and the lawyers would say 'say nothing'.
The Stolen Generations and Forgotten Australians apologies were many years in the making. They began with angry dismissals, harsh treatment of whistleblowers, and lame admissions. Yet they achieved reconciliation.
With sexual abuse in the Church, it is likely that there are more people on board than we think. Some of the work has already been done. For years, Bishop Michael Malone of Maitland-Newcastle has laboured with abusers and victims, to the extent that it has taken a toll on his own health.
There have been gestures from other