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Accusations of Abuse in
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The Press
June 29, 2002
It's not a case of Catholic bashing
by Cate Brett
Picture
this: an eight-year-old pyjama-clad boy paddling down a hushed corridor in
pursuit of a promised treat. Instead, he is forced to gratify the frustrated
sexual needs of a 28-year-old religious brother in whose care he has been
placed.
For any parent the image, drawn from a
journalists embroiled in this
investigation has been) it is doubly so.
Today, as coverage of this unfolding tragedy continues in The Weekend Press,
sections of the church hierarchy and concerned lay people are questioning our
motives in pursuing this story with such vigour.
Are we unfairly targeting -- and tarnishing -- the order of St John of God in
particular, and the Catholic Church in general, when paedophilia and child
abuse are apparently rife in numerous institutions and professions?
Are we not in danger of undermining the good work of thousands of compassionate
priests and religious brothers who have selflessly served their communities,
and in the case of St John of God, ministered faithfully to society's
untouchables -- the drug addicts, the prostitutes, the destitute, the mentally
disturbed, and the terminally ill?
In short, isn't the secular media guilty of sensationalising what is, in fact,
a relatively small problem?
Not according to the
Since then the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has adopted a new
charter binding all American dioceses to a "zero tolerance" of
clerical sexual abusers. If approved by the
Extraordinarily, as it now emerges, zero tolerance of sexual abuse by clergy
has not been the norm for the Catholic Church.
As the contagion spreads to a range of Australasian Catholic Orders (
And despite all the chest beating and promises of better processes and a new
openness -- echoed this week by
Except, that is, for a suspiciously new- found enthusiasm for outing the
homosexuals whom the
The "gayasisation" of some sectors of the
priesthood is not a new phenomenon, but the
If the issues weren't so grave and the stakes so high there would be a
delicious irony in all this: a church which has maintained it's priestly power
base by a policy of exclusion -- no women, no married men, no sexually active
human beings of any description -- now risks defining itself out of existence
by blocking from entry all those with even an inclination towards homosexuality
regardless of their commitment to celibacy and the priestly vocation.
Writing in the London Tablet, a British Catholic weekly, former Dominican friar
Mark Dowd offers an explanation as to how the church may have arrived at this
impasse. "Those who are concerned about the disproportionate numbers of
gay men in the priestly life need look no further than the heady cocktail of
the
"If a young homosexual man takes these words to heart does not the
priesthood appear to offer him, perhaps unconsciously, the promise of a life
which will guarantee abstinence and a way of dealing with the marriage
question?"
But understanding the rise of homosexuals within the Catholic hierarchy does
not offer a sufficient explanation for the explosion of sexual abuse cases --
no matter how neatly the
In her detailed exploration of how Christchurch's Brother Bernard McGrath --
and perhaps as many as 20 brothers like him -- were able to continue to offend
against multiple victims in multiple settings, Yvonne Martin examines the abuse
of personal and institutional power within just one Catholic religious order.
Also in this weekend's Mainlander, Geoff Collett
interviews Australian academic Dr Muriel Porter on her study of clerical
marriage and celibacy.
Porter argues that while the incidence of sexual abuse of children across all
denominations, and in all walks of life, shows that abolishing celibacy will
not extinguish abuse by clergy, hard questions must be asked of an institution
so fixated on celibacy.
"The very existence of the celibacy law signals that there is a deep and
dangerous pathology undergirding the sexual power
games indulged in by the clergy ...
"Whatever modern church leaders might say about celibacy, marriage, and
women, their predecessors for most of the past 2000 years have been openly
contemptuous of human sexuality, and in particular women's sexuality ..."
Some clergy and lay people are hopeful that this current crisis will offer an
unprecedented opportunity to unpack these issues.
Holding the church to public account for its trespasses against the likes of
the eight-year-old boy at St John of God may be a small first step in what will
inevitably be a painful process for all.
Whether those who cling grimly to the power within the Catholic Church will
recognise this potential in time to salvage Christianity from the ashes of the
institution remains to be seen.
Cate Brett describes herself as a fallen Catholic.