AUSTRALIA
Catholic Outlook

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Royal Commission has begun the so-called Catholic wrap-up. The three week final hearing focuses on not individual cases but the contributing factors and the deep causes of child sexual abuse and cover up in the Catholic Church in Australia over the last 60 years. All of the serving archbishops and several bishops including myself had to appear in front of the Commission and give our testimony in the witness box. It was not exactly like the Nuremberg trial. But in many ways, it was unprecedented.

It was a threshold moment and a transition point of profound significance for the Church in this country. Admission of systemic dysfunction, catastrophic failure and criminal negligence on the part of Church authorities of all levels gave credence to an institutional pathology. What is required for the Church to rid itself of this cancerous illness moving…