AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Christopher Knaus
Tuesday 7 February 2017
The archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, has said he does not believe that celibacy is a causative factor in child sexual abuse within the Catholic church.
Coleridge has also said he has little idea how many priests are breaking their vows to celibacy and believes that he, as a bishop, has no right to ask them about their sexual lives.
“The relationship between a bishop and a priest, or a bishop and any other human being, is a very delicate one,” he said.
“There are certain things that I am not entitled to know. I’m just trying to even imagine how that would work out practically, how I would discover the details of a priest’s sexual life?”
The issue of celibacy again came before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Wednesday, as commissioners attempt to understand the root cultural causes that allowed child abuse to occur and be covered up at such a staggering scale.
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