IMAGE: CNS Photo/Robert Duncan
By Junno Arocho Esteves
ROME (CNS) — In the wake of historic
allegations of sexual abuse and cover-up in countries around the world, the
Catholic Church is experiencing the same challenge that has brought a reckoning
to those who used their authority to abuse or silence victims, said an
Australian archbishop.
Allegations such as those
raised against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington,
represent a “major shift” within the culture of the church, Archbishop
Mark Coleridge of Brisbane said June 21. Abuse survivors are “willing to
speak and they are believed,” and the church has new processes of
investigation, he added.
“It’s not unrelated to
the #MeToo phenomenon; there’s something going on in the culture. And one of
the elements of that cultural shift is that people are prepared to speak up in
a way that they would never have done before,” he told journalists
following a four-day conference in Rome on safeguarding and child protection.
The Anglophone Safeguarding
Conference, held at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University June 18-21,
reflected on the theme, “Culture, an enabler or barrier to
safeguarding.”
Among the speakers at the
conference was Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, head of the Pontifical Gregorian
University’s Center for Child Protection, and Bishop Gilles Cote of
Daru-Kiunga, Papua New Guinea.
While local cultures can
influence how the church in a particular area handles abuse cases, there are
aspects of church culture that have hindered progress in addressing allegations
of sexual abuse, Archbishop Coleridge told Catholic News Service June 21.
“One word that’s used to
describe a large and complex phenomenon within the culture is clericalism. In
other words, authority geared to power and not to service,” he said.
“In many ways, what happened in the Catholic Church was that our strengths
became our weaknesses.”
An example of those strengths
was that closeness that Catholic clergy and religious shared with families.
However, he said, it was precisely that which, “in certain situations,
gave them access to the children who were abused.”
Nevertheless, Archbishop Coleridge
said that just as strength can become a weakness, a weakness can also become a
strength.
“I believe that the
agony we are passing through this time in fact is a purification of the church
that has already made us stronger. It’s kind of a searing grace that we never
saw coming, and we certainly wouldn’t have chosen. But somehow, God is in the
midst of it all, purifying the church and calling us to what we are intended
be,” Archbishop Coleridge told CNS.
Following the conference’s
conclusion, Father Zollner told journalists that allegations such as those
raised against Cardinal McCarrick are signs that now “things are
tightening up and that the thoroughness of the approach reaches now even the
highest levels.”
Cardinal McCarrick, retired
archbishop of Washington, said June 20 that he would no longer exercise any public
ministry “in obedience” to the Vatican after an allegation he abused
a teenager 47 years ago was found credible.
“A few years ago, we
probably wouldn’t have so easily (seen) that headline,” Father Zollner
said in reference to news about Cardinal McCarrick. “The church —
step-by-step, too slow but more and more consistently — comes up with or lives
up to what the norms are.”
Archbishop Coleridge agreed
with Father Zollner, adding that “what’s happening with Cardinal McCarrick
focuses on episcopal accountability” and that while progress has been
made, “we have more to do.”
As president of the
Australian bishops’ conference, Archbishop Coleridge stressed that although collaboration
with local authorities is critical in confronting abuse and cover-ups, measures
that compromise religious freedom and the rights of conscience are not the
answer.
Laws requiring Catholic
priests to break the seal of confession in some cases passed the Australian
Capital Territory’s Legislative Assembly in Canberra June 7.
The proposal, he said,
“is poor public policy” that will not make children safer and amounts
to a “renegotiation of the relationship between church and state.”
He also said that following
many cases of abuse, “there is a thirst for the church’s blood” as
well as a “desire to punish the Catholic Church and a desire to show the
Catholic Church who is in charge.”
“In other words, it’s
almost being said implicitly. ‘For a long time, you tried to tell us what to
do. Now, because of what’s happened, we will tell you what to do.’ So, it’s a
kind of a public humiliation of the church but it is one that we have brought
upon ourselves. So self-pity doesn’t take us very far,” Archbishop
Coleridge said.
– – –
Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju
– – –
Copyright © 2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.
