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Catholic Archbishops Split over Reporting of Abuse Heard in Confession

By Clare Blumer
ABC News
February 23, 2017

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-24/royal-commission-into-sex-abuse-catholic-archbishops-on-celibacy/8299912

PHOTO: Archbishops Denis Hart, Philip Wilson, Timothy Costelloe, Anthony Fisher and Mark Coleridge. (AAP: Julian Smith, Dan Himbrecht, Paul Miller. Supplied: Catholic Church)

Sydney's Catholic Archbishop says reporting abuse to authorities that he heard about during a confession would be like "bugging the confessional".

The five Catholic archbishops of Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide were giving evidence alongside each other for the second day running at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The church leaders were quizzed by senior counsel Gail Furness about how they might deal with a fictional child called 'Sally' reporting abuse to them in a confessional.

There were mixed responses from the archbishops.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said: "I respect that child whose trust in adults is already terribly damaged."

"Even little children have spiritual rights, if they come to confession and it all tumbles out, whatever is in their heart, they know whatever they've said, they've said to God, and it won't be repeated.

"I know that people that aren't part of the Catholic tradition ... this sounds strange. But to us it would be like bugging the confessional."

Archbishop Fisher said he would try to persuade 'Sally' to talk to authorities outside the Seal of the Confessional, but if he could not persuade her, her discussion would remain confidential.

His stance was also supported by the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart.

But Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson said that since the royal commission he had been studying it further and the Seal of the Confessional only applies to sins confessed.

"It seemed to me to be plausible in those circumstances that if a child told you this was happening to them, they're not confessing a sin, they're just giving you some information about what's happening to them and in that doctrine, it would be possible then to do something about it," he said.

Victims thought 'God's representative' abused them

Much of the morning's discussion among the panel of archbishops was dominated by the power dynamic between priests and their parishioners, also known as the laity.

It was becoming very high-level theological discussion, until commissioner Andrew Murray brought the room back to the dark heart of what the hearing was about.

"We have been told in private sessions that at the moments of abuse, that the child at the time — because of what they had been taught — thought they were being abused by the representative of God, so it has immense and immediate meaning with respect to child sex abuse," said Mr Murray.

"That's about the most horrible thing I could ever hear. It's just awful that people could behave like that," replied Archbishop Wilson.

Mr Murray said: "We've heard that many times."

Celibacy 'a gift'

Archbishop Hart, who is the president of the Bishops Conference, asked that potential priests avoid joining the church if they could not embrace celibacy.

"Celibacy seen as a burden runs the risk of turning in on oneself and would feed any immaturity or lack of balance in the person," Archbishop Hart said.

"If they just go to the priesthood and they don't think of all that's implied and they're not educated or supported to see what's implied, then we're in dangerous territory.

"The only legitimate way in which celibacy can be lived is lived as a gift with someone who freely and totally embraces it, and given that celibacy is necessary for ordination I would say to anyone if you can't see celibacy as not putting something aside, but as embracing, in imitation of Christ, a love of a whole range of other people rather than a particular commitment of marriage, please, please don't go forward to the priesthood."

Archbishop Hart, alongside his four colleagues, admitted that celibacy was a factor in the child sexual abuse seen in the church, although they would not say it was the cause.

"In a person who hasn't got the capacity to embrace celibacy…where there are weaknesses there then I'd have to admit that the capacity or probability of abuse is certainly increased."

Archbishops shy away from managing performance of clergy

PHOTO: Senior Catholic archbishops swearing on the Bible for a royal commission session. (ABC News)

Ms Furness pushed the leaders on their plans to make their clergy accountable, like employees usually are, but met some resistance from the leaders, who gave evidence they had widely differing strategies in each archdiocese.

Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge was questioned by Ms Furness over his past public statements that parish priests could not be monitored, or be forced to undertake performance reviews.

"I can't force a priest to do [performance reviews] ... I can lead a horse to water but I can't make it drink," Archbishop Coleridge said.

Later, he conceded: "I appreciate more clearly now than I did ... that I have more sanctions available than I thought."

Sex offenders still supported by church

The archbishops were each questioned about how they supervised church members who had been convicted of child sexual abuse offences.

Each leader had a different response.

Archbishop Fisher said the church still had a responsibility to provide financial assistance to abusive priests, whether or not they had been laicised.

"Normally that is the case. They continue to be supported, and that would include assistance with housing and other kinds of assistance," Archbishop Fisher said.

Most of the archbishops agreed they had no way of fully supervising convicted offenders in the church.

"At the moment, those who have been taken out of ministry are either in a religious community, hopefully being well supervised by their own religious superiors," Archbishop Fisher said.

"They might be living with another priest, they might be living in the community ... I can't pretend we have remotely sufficient supervision for me to be assured that they're not misbehaving again."

The Archbishop also expressed his inability to supervise priests turfed from the church for child sex offences who later "disappeared".

"I can't supervise them all," he said.

The church leadership also expressed they were unable to effectively monitor priests' use of pornography, with Archbishop Timothy Costelloe arguing that "techsavvy" users would find a way to avoid detection.

 

 

 

 

 




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