AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times
December 15, 2014
Kristina Keneally
Last Friday the Australian Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council released a ground-breaking report on child sexual abuse. That morning, ABC’s Samantha Donovan interviewed the council’s chief executive Francis Sullivan and asked him if he had received any response yet from the Vatican.
Sullivan laughed and said, “No, not at all.”
“You’re laughing there?” said Donovan.
Sullivan replied, “Well, I think they’re all asleep at the moment … [awkward pause] … with it happening overnight.”
I know what Sullivan meant, but it is hard not to think that when it comes to child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, many in the Vatican are still asleep.
The Truth, Justice and Healing Council’s report publicly named two aspects of church practice as possible contributors to the sexual abuse of children by priests: obligatory celibacy and clericalism (that is, that only ordained men exercise power in the Church). Most Australians, Catholic or not, likely responded with the equivalent of “well, duh …. yeah”.
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