SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald
By Kevin Donnelly
Author Anna Krien’s recent condemnation of the church’s apparent hypocrisy (The Age, 17/10) in arguing that heterosexual marriage is best for children while being guilty of failing to address historical child abuse appears convincing.
A closer reading, though, reveals it for what it is.
While Krien’s argument is emotionally persuasive she fails to provide a rational argument linking the two. Yes, the church clearly opposes same-sex marriage but to simply dismiss its arguments because of its failure to address paedophilia is wrong.
Firstly, the Catholic Church has long admitted it failed to protect children and that it did not do enough to bring the guilty to justice and to properly recompense victims.
Francis Sullivan, the head of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, describes this as “a massive failure on the part of the Catholic Church in Australia to protect children from abusers”.
In 1996 when then-archbishop of Melbourne George Pell implemented the Melbourne Response it, notwithstanding a number of shortcomings, represented one of the first attempts to properly address the issue.
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