LISMORE (NSW, AUSTRALIA)
Lismore Echo
August 30, 2018
By Ally Foster
“Why are so many priests paedophiles?”
This was just one of the tough questions posed to a group of priests as part of ABC’s program You Can’t Ask That, where each episode the Australian public get the chance to ask burning questions to different groups.
This week the spotlight is on priests and, along with their sex lives and how they feel about the gay community, one of the main questions Aussies wanted an answer to was about why child abuse is so prolific in the church.
Reverend Roger Dyer, from the Anglican Church in Ballarat, said it was the power that comes with the priest position that attracted paedophiles to the church.
“Priests aren’t paedophiles. Paedophiles get access to the priesthood and inculcate that within the priestly community for their own selfish ends and purposes,” he said.
“People have seen the way priesthood is being presented as a powerful position – and indeed it was in the past – and that’s where these people used it.”
He said abuse has been allowed to become so rampant because the church was more worried about protecting its image than facing the problem.
“I’ve had four parishes in succession where there’s been abuse,” Rev Dryer said.
“I don’t think there was a child that went through Wallsend parish that hadn’t been affected by Peter Rushton.”
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