LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet
July 17, 2018
By Christopher Lamb
Bishop Peter Comensoli said the abuse crisis was ‘paramount’ and required a response at every level in the Church
The new Archbishop of Melbourne says that seeing the Church as an institution rather than the “people of God” allowed for “great evils” to be committed and has pledged himself to rebuilding trust in light of the clerical sexual abuse scandal.
Bishop Peter Comensoli, who will take up the leadership of Australia’s largest Catholic diocese on 1 August, said the abuse crisis was “paramount” in everyone’s thinking and required a response at every level in the Church.
Devastating findings by a recent royal commission found that 4,444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse against the Church, many of them covered up by bishops who had pursued a strategy of protection of assets against legal claims.
But speaking to The Tablet during a phone interview from Australia, the bishop explained that protecting the institution rather than its people was a counter-witness to the Gospel.
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