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Philip Wilson has been sentenced to 12 months' detention for concealing child sexual abuse. It's very likely that he will appeal his conviction and sentence. An appeal may well succeed, but that's not the end of the matter. This has been a six-year saga relating to events which occurred more than 40 years ago. Emotions are running high.
The contrast between success and failure shows that successful independents and minor parties cannot just be based on major party disillusionment, creative election campaigns, or attractive candidates, but also on deep listening to and engaging with their communities which enable a positive and grounded alternative to be offered to voters.
General apologies don't go far enough. Compensation is necessary, but also not enough. The reputation of the church would now be higher if there were more obvious signals of accountability by those in charge. The offer of resignation made as a group to Pope Francis by the entire Chilean hierarchy is a breath of fresh air.
The banking royal commission has already come to resemble the earlier child abuse royal commission. To observers who share a personal and public-spirited interest in the decent functioning of institutions, the similarities invite reflection on why two apparently different forms of institution should behave in such similar ways.
Mohandas was a lawyer and a saviour, who took his beatin's and refused to eat; Mahatma won, the Union Jack was flaggin’, then one of his own dropped Gandhi at his feet. Jesus was a rabbi and a dreamer, who talked and stirred and gave up carpentry; Mary cried as spearpoint slid past femur, godson egressed into mystery.
In a recent article I remarked that in the Catholic Church clericalism is a pejorative term. Some readers criticised me for focusing on individuals and not the more insidious culture of clericalism. The criticism was justified, and in this article I shall reflect on the culture and its byproducts.
Redress is not compensation. It is about acknowledging the harm caused and supporting people who have experienced child sexual abuse in an institution to move forward positively in the way that is best for them.
Archbishop Fisher's Easter warning was in part responding to the findings of the royal commission and in part to some of the submissions to the Ruddock panel on religious freedom. Being on the panel, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on particular submissions at this time. But I was shocked by the Archbishop's shrill tone.
In the Catholic Church clericalism is the whipping boy of choice. But what it embraces is less clear. It is a pejorative word, used by people of others but never of themselves, and is normally defined by reference to examples of it. It is worth pausing to reflect on clericalism and its significance for church and society.
'Instead of a church walking humbly with its God, it found an arrogant church, that placed its own reputation above the interests of victims, and did so knowlingly in a way that would cause further harm to many of those victims.' Robert Fitzgerald of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse addresses the Catholic Social Services annual conference in Melbourne, February 2018.
When the bishops and religious decided to establish CPSL they understood that a new approach was needed. In a Church that will take many years to recover from the child sexual abuse crisis, something different had to happen. The safety and protection of children and vulnerable people in the Church is everybody's business.
'The place of religious and comprehensive world views in legislating, ethical decision making, and good medical practice informed by prudential resource allocation' — Remarks by Fr Frank Brennan to first year medical students at the University of Notre Dame Australia, 30 January 2018.
97-108 out of 200 results.