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It is appropriate to attend to the complex patterns of sin that are involved in abuse and its consequences. This kind of gaze resists the temptations to deny or to minimise the extent of sexual abuse and the harm done by it.
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
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.
Eventually the Vatican will have to stand in solidarity with the victims of abuse. The Church is capable of acting well and badly. To separate individuals from the Church diminishes the responsibility of the whole body.
Sheik Hilaly compared rape victims to 'uncovered meat'. Bishop Anthony Fisher stated parents of abuse victims were 'dwelling crankily on old wounds'. Unequal criticism of the remarks suggests sexual assault has been appropriated as a cultural or sectarian wedge.
Pope Benedict's apology to abuse victims included a directive to the local church to extend compassion and justice. The Church's 'Towards Healing' protocol is not a cheap substitute for criminal prosecution or civil liability.
Media coverage before a big event, be it World Youth Day or the Beijing Olympics, always focuses on defects and ideological conflict. Controversies regarding state funding and anti-annoyance laws aside, the young people celebrated WYD in their own way.
It's hard to think of anybody who would not have welcomed Pope Benedict's apology for sexual abuse. By contrast, nobody could have been pleased to hear an exasperated Bishop Anthony Fisher refer last week to those 'dwelling crankily ... on old wounds'.
The Australian Catholic Bishops argue that Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book on sexual abuse questions the authority of the Church to teach definitively. But Bishop Robinson is right when he calls for reflection on the factors within Catholic culture that foster abuse.
As long as the Church seeks to manage rather than confront, the devastating effect the sexual abuse scandal has had on the Church will continue and will cripple other activities.
We have learned that the damage caused by sexual abuse often continues for decades and into future generations. We can hope that Government interventions will make a long-term difference, but such complex issues cannot be reduced to a simple absolute: ‘the child must come first’.
It has become unpopular to invoke cultural and individual factors to explain the appalling conditions of Australia's Indigenous population. Some of the pronouncements emanating from government and other quarters are patronising and couched in terms that suggest that Indigenous people are wilfully recalcitrant.
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