AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY March 16, 2014
MAITLAND-Newcastle Catholic Bishop Bill Wright has stunned parishioners by urging a community to forgive a ‘‘repentant’’ priest because ‘‘there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than 99 just people’’.
Bishop Wright, named as a possible replacement for Cardinal George Pell in the Sydney archdiocese, reinstated Father Des Harrigan to Taree in September last year despite noting the likelihood of ‘‘concern and distress’’ among some parishioners about the priest’s conduct.
In a letter of ‘‘reinstatement and support for Father Des Harrigan’’ read out at all Taree church services in September, the bishop asked parishioners to ‘‘look at these matters not with the mind of those who demand nothing less than perfection from anyone professing to be Christian, but according to the mind of Christ who teaches us there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than 99 just people’’.
‘‘Where people fail to live up to the expectations of their position but are forthright in acknowledging their responsibilities and truly repentant, our faith tells us there is forgiveness and we are given second chances,’’ Bishop Wright wrote.
In a statement last week, the diocese noted Father Harrigan ‘‘chose to refrain from entering schools and giving homilies’’ after his evidence to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry in July about owning adult male pornography. The diocese confirmed he had also been the subject of complaints about his ‘‘temperament and style’’. Father Harrigan has not been the subject of any child sexual abuse allegations.
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