AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times
November 16, 2014
Ross Peake
Senior reporter for The Canberra Times
Sacked Catholic Bishop Bill Morris will campaign for the ordination of married men, during a book signing tour to Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.
He says he was treated unfairly and deprived of natural justice by the late Pope Benedict who had a “closed door approach” during a private meeting in Rome.
“I experienced a monologue, there was definitely no dialogue,” Bishop Morris said from Brisbane on Sunday.
“My disappointment was that he [Pope Benedict] didn’t listen to me.
“He repeated exactly what had been given to him and what was given to him had been wrong.
“The facts were wrong, the interpretation was wrong and therefore his take on that, accusing me of doing something that I didn’t do on the grounds of the advice he was given [was wrong].” …
He told Pope Benedict during the meeting in 2009 of a sex abuse case at a Toowoomba school but the Pope dismissed the bishop’s request to stay at his post to deal with it.
Bishop Morris said the atmosphere within the Catholic Church was changing under Pope Francis who encouraged dialogue.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.