Probe into child abuse attacks Catholic celibacy

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — An Australian inquiry into child abuse recommended Friday the Catholic Church lift its demand of celibacy from clergy and that priests be prosecuted for failing to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional.

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its final report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation. Australia’s longest-running royal commission has been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

The report heard the testimonies of more than 8,000 survivors of child sex abuse. Of those who were abused in religious institutions, 62 per cent were Catholics.

“We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades,” the report said.

Recommendations include that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference request that the Vatican consider introducing voluntary celibacy for clergy.

It said the bishops’ body should also request clarity on whether information received in the confessional that a child has been sexually abused is covered by the seal of secrecy and whether absolution of a perpetrator should be withdrawn until the perpetrator confesses to police.

Catholic clerics who testified to the royal commission gave varying opinions about what if anything a priest could divulge about what was said in a confessional about child abuse.

The commission’s recommendations, which with interim reports total 409, include making failure to report child sexual abuse a criminal offence. Clerics would not be exempt from being charged.

The law should exclude any existing excuse or privilege relating to a religious confessional, it said.

The Vatican didn’t respond to the specific recommendations in a statement Friday, though Catholic officials have previously rejected any link between celibacy and abuse and have reaffirmed the sanctity of the confessional.

In the statement, the Vatican said the commission’s report was “thorough,” and deserved to be “studied seriously.” And it said it was committed to helping the Australian church accompany victims in finding healing and justice.

Pope Francis’s former finance minister, Cardinal George Pell, testified in a video link from the Vatican in 2016 about his time as a priest and bishop in Australia. Pell this year became the most senior Catholic official to face sex offence charges.

Through his lawyers, Pell has vowed to fight the charges of sexual assault.