STANWELL PARK (AUSTRALIA)
Pearls and Irritations [Kingston ACT, Australia]
August 31, 2026
By Kieran Tapsell
In response to Why do problems with church governance persist?
Transparency in the Catholic church
The lack of transparency in the Catholic Church reflects the famous line of the Sicilian aristocrat in Giuseppe de Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard: “If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” In 2019 Pope Francis abolished the pontifical secret over child sexual abuse but retained what he called “office confidentiality” for canonical proceedings. In 2020, in response to the Australian Royal Commission recommendation to publish the judgments in the Church’s disciplinary proceedings, the Holy See said that it would do so on a case by case basis, but that it had an obligation to preserve the reputations of all persons involved in canonical proceedings. “All persons” includes the perpetrators, and that is exactly what has happened. The Church only publishes the results of its disciplinary proceedings where the case has become notorious in the secular press as with Cardinal McCarrick and Bishop Saunders. In other cases, the canonical decision is kept in the bishops’ secret archive and is not even sent to Bishops’ Conferences. The pontifical secret has gone, but the cover up continues under another name, “office confidentiality.” The leopard has not changed its spots.
— Kieran Tapsell from Stanwell Park