Bishop Barron praises Mary MacKillop’s efforts to renounce clerical abuse

BRISBANE (QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA)
Catholic Leader – Archdiocese of Brisbane

November 27, 2020

By Joe Higgins

In light of the McCarrick Report, detailing the abuse of disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Los Angeles auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron appeared on his Word on Fire podcast and praised a name familiar to Australians.

Host Brandon Vogt asked Bishop Barron about how to understand the abuse crisis from a historic lens and how saints had responded to similar crises in the past.

Bishop Barron mentioned the great reformers like St Francis of Assisi and St Ignatius Loyola, and said Australian St Mary MacKillop came to his mind “very powerfully”.

“She (St Mary MacKillop) brought this issue to light and she suffered enormously for it,” he said.

“(She was) facing a Church that was in many ways problematic and dysfunctional, but she brought this issue forward.”

Bishop Barron lamented how many Catholics fell into resentment with the Church over the abuse scandals and other scandals too.

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