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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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The Dominion Post
March 10, 2004

Catholics and the past
Letter to the Editor
by Brian Harmer, Normandale

Jim Scott (Letters, March 6) suggests that abuse within the Catholic Church should disbar it from speaking out on Treaty issues. As a Catholic, I readily confess to being shamed by the actions of a few members of my church. The victims of such vileness deserve all the support and reparation we can give them.

But my heart also goes out to the majority of good men and women in the church -- bishops, priests, nuns, brothers and lay people who, despite having lived their lives well and faithfully in accordance with the gospel, have been tainted by those actions.

The abusers referred to by Mr Scott do not characterise the whole church. Grave crimes such as these must of course be deplored, and the guilty brought to justice.

That does not mean that the rest of the church, including its bishops, are absolved from their obligation to speak out against injustice. What Mr Scott describes as a "sound workable direction" is little more than a rationalisation to make us feel better about our continued failure to abide by the terms of the agreement under which we became a nation.