AUSTRALIA
The Conversation
James Boyce
University Associate at University of Tasmania
The statistics attached to the Interim Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have confirmed what many people suspected – that while child abuse has been widespread in Christian and secular institutions, the Catholic Church is dramatically over-represented.
Of the 1,033 faith-based institutions reported to the Commission, 68% were Catholic. Even when state-run and private sites are included, the figure is 41%.
The Commissioners report that they want to “find out why there have been a significant number of perpetrators in certain institutions”. Given the extent to which our Government has handed over responsibility for publicly-funded education, health and social welfare services to the Catholic Church, so should we all.
This is not a matter of Catholic bashing but of civic responsibility. There is no question that Catholic schools and welfare institutions are now essentially shaped by professional and secular values, but this is still not uniformly the case. Grappling with the Church’s self-evident problem cannot be an in-house chat.
What is distinctive about the Catholic Church that might have fostered child abuse? The grim stories coming out of Ireland and other countries have meant this question has been part of the Western conversation for more than a decade. Compulsory celibacy, the priestly pedestal, and a cloistered culture have all been widely discussed, but what has received much less attention to date is the Church’s core ideology of childhood.
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