AUSTRALIA
Catholic Herald

November 30, 2017

By Natasha Marsh

In 2017, the Church has endured an abuse crisis, lost a same-sex marriage vote and failed to stop euthanasia. Can it recover?

This Sunday marks the beginning of a new year (Year B, to be precise) in the Church’s liturgical calendar. That may be a relief for Australian Catholics, who will be glad to say goodbye to 2017 a few weeks early.

The year opened on a hard note, with the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, in its fifth and final year, holding a three-week “wrap-up” session on the Catholic Church in February. The results were shocking and sickening, and were splashed across the news daily. While the vast majority of abuse was historical (between 1950 and 2010) these reports cast a chill on all good-hearted people – Catholic or not.

Many faithful Catholics were further…