AUSTRALIA
Pearls and Irritations (blog)
January 3, 2021
By Michael Kelly
[For more about the impact of Bishop Robinson, see: Case Study 31: Retired Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; Australian bishop testifies on prevalence of child sex abuse in the church, by Kieran Tapsell, National Catholic Reporter, September 10, 2015; and ‘I was abused too’: The bishop who fought for sex abuse victims, by Anne Lim, Eternity News, December 15, 2017.]
Saying farewell to Bishop Geoff Robinson as we did when he died on December 29, 2020, is saying goodbye to one of the few Australian Catholic bishops with his integrity and reputation for honesty and championing the defence of the weak and the abused still intact.
He was outstandingly intelligent and compassionate. He lent his considerable knowledge of Church law to ease the burden of those who suffered the effects of failed marriages. He focused on what is essential in Christianity by his very accessible, popular commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels. His commentaries were well appreciated by preachers and believers of all denominational allegiance
While our paths overlapped from time to time, it is what he will be best remembered for most – caring for and promoting the rights of children abused by Catholic officials, including priests – that brought about a very significant intersection of our paths in 1997.
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