CathNews
Published: September 09, 2012
BY MICHAEL MULLINS
In his homily at St Joseph’s Newtown yesterday, Sydney priest Peter Maher pointed to the role of the “culture of clericalism” in sexual abuse. Publishing the text on his blog, he said there’s an absence of “any form of dialogue that might privilege the victim’s stories. Yet this is the first step in healing and reconciliation”.
[It] has left the vulnerable unprotected and unhealed by a leadership too willing to be hoodwinked by the doctrine of a priesthood that places priests above other human beings and what they call “the good of the church”. …
Church representatives are still trying to address this tragic abuse from a position of power … I think it’s time to be more real and recognise that it is primarily an institutional failure: a failure to recognise that unfettered clerical power created a climate in which on-going abuse could go on unabated.
At v2catholic.com, David Timbs analyses Cardinal Raymond Burke’s exercise of clerical power and his conviction that “external forces of evil have infiltrated and dangerously contaminated ecclesial life”. Timbs’ explanation:
Cardinal Burke’s approach to Law strongly reflects that of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic mentality. Culturally these peoples have been historically and perversely fascinated with and dominated by the power of laws and regulations.
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