Keywords: Clergy Sexual Abuse
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 12 November 2012
39 Comments
Those paying close attention to media coverage of clergy sexual abuse might find Cardinal George Pell’s defence of the Church hard to swallow. But the weekend’s resignation of the BBC director general over mistakes in investigative reporting should cause us to treat the genre with a degree of scepticism, even though the media helps us to empathise with victims.
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RELIGION
- ANDREW HAMILTON
- 25 October 2012
66 Comments
Being a Catholic priest during public enquiries into sexual abuse within the Church is a bracing experience. Infinitely less hurtful than being the victim of abuse, of course. But it prompts musing about the ways in which evil actions work out in a group and affect the individual members of the group and its perception by others.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 23 April 2012
27 Comments
Victoria's parliamentary committee has much it could learn from Ireland's Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse, which identified the 'don't ask, don't tell' culture under which bishops did not talk about it even among themselves and were unaware of how widespread the problem was.
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RELIGION
- Andrew McGowan
- 16 September 2011
29 Comments
Sexual offenders among clergy and church workers have often used their privileged status to act as though they were above the law. By using parliamentary privilege to name an alleged perpetrator, Senator Nick Xenophon has acted in a way that is, ironically, all too similar.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 16 June 2011
33 Comments
Benedict uses large theoretical constructs to reflect on the condition of Western societies and the Church. This can simplify complex realities and provide a focus for reflection and conversation. But the weaknesses of this approach are revealed when he blames bad moral theory for sexual abuse by the clergy.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 02 June 2011
21 Comments
The media said the US Catholic Bishops' John Jay report blamed the 1960s sexual revolution for church sex abuse. More significantly, it implied that the roots of the sexual abuse crisis instead lie in the shallow Catholic culture of earlier decades.
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RELIGION
- Neil Ormerod
- 23 March 2011
32 Comments
I received a letter from a former student. Ten years ago, he had suddenly vanished without warning or further communication. Now he was about to reveal the reasons for his disappearance. It was the sort of story I had heard often before.
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EUREKA STREET TV
- Peter Kirkwood
- 10 February 2011
Lay Catholic theologian Neil Ormerod's approach was strongly coloured in the early 1990s when he and his wife Thea became activists on behalf of survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
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EUREKA STREET TV
- Peter Kirkwood
- 03 September 2010
The annual Blake Prize for Religious Art has never been far from controversy. Works honoured this year include Sydney artist Rodney Pople’s Cardinal with Altar Boy, which is a provocative painting dealing with clergy sexual abuse. Its setting is the interior of a beautiful baroque church, and it portrays a headless prelate dressed in ecclesiastical finery, with an altar boy in his lap.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 May 2010
23 Comments
Many Catholics complained Carl Williams was allowed burial in a
Catholic Church. Some victims of sexual abuse were angry that bishops and priests glorified the funeral
of a priest who had been charged with sexual abuse.
These responses reflect a changing
understanding of funerals in the Church.
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RELIGION
The crisis facing the Church arising out of sexual abuse is arguably the most serious challenge it has faced since the Reformation. Issues such as authoritarianism, compulsory celibacy, the participation of women and the teaching on sexuality cannot be brushed aside.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 14 January 2010
6 Comments
The case for Polanski's avoiding extradition has generally received a
sympathetic hearing. The
same sympathy is not generally shown to clergy who have
been tried for less serious acts committed just as many years ago. October 2009
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