AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
Joanne McCarthy
7 Feb 2017
THE Catholic Church’s troubling views on human sexuality were a major factor in the child sexual abuse crisis, and led the church to commit “soul murder” of abuse victims, a Catholic priest has told the royal commission.
“Sometimes those murdered souls stay dead,” said American Dominican priest and church critic Dr Tom Doyle, who was applauded after slamming the church’s “very stultified comprehension of human sexuality”, and presentation of priests as “higher beings”.
Dr Doyle described clericalism as a “virus that has infected the church” where “it is believed that the church men, the priests, the bishops, are in some form or way sacred and above ordinary people, and because of this sacredness, because of their importance, they must be held as more important and protected”.
It enabled priests accused of child sexual abuse to feel they would be protected by the church when allegations were raised, Dr Doyle said.
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