AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury
March 15, 2018
By Joanne McCarthy
AUSTRALIAN Catholic bishops face “make or break time”, say prominent Catholics urging the church to make public its first formal analysis of damning child sexual abuse royal commission findings.
Reform group Catholics for Renewal and prominent Catholic author Paul Collins say public release of the Truth Justice and Healing Council’s royal commission assessment report, delivered to bishops last week, is a test of whether Australia’s bishops have learnt the lessons of the royal commission and are prepared to include lay Catholics in decision-making.
Former priest and Catholics for Renewal president Dr Peter Wilkinson and vice president Peter Johnstone said their group had asked bishops and leaders of Catholic orders to regard the TJH Council analysis of royal commission recommendations as a church “white paper” for reform.
They called on bishops to release the report to Catholics and the broader community for comment and consider those responses before preparing the church’s formal response to royal commission recommendations to the Federal Government.
“Not to make that document available is just another sign of continuing secrecy by the bishops,” said Dr Wilkinson, who co-authored a five-year study into systemic reasons for child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.
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