Abuse probe indicts priest celibacy
AUSTRALIA: The Catholic Church could make celibacy voluntary after evidence that celibacy is a factor in child sexual abuse within the church, if a royal commission’s recommendation is taken up.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has also recommended that the Vatican be asked to change canon laws to call child sexual abuse a crime rather than a moral failing.
Other recommendations that:
❚ Catholic priests no longer have any role to play in the employment of principals and teachers in Catholic schools,
❚ Australian Catholic bishops request the Holy See to amend canon law so that all bishops are across Australia are required to report child sex allegations to authorities, including police, and not just bishops in New South Wales and Victoria, where bishops can be charged with an offence for not reporting,
❚ Australian bishops take the lead by requesting the Holy See to lift time limits on church investigations of child sex allegations.
The commission has called on Australian governments to pass laws making it mandatory for clergy to report child sex allegations disclosed during confession, so that religious requirements do not ‘‘exempt persons in religious ministry from being required to report knowledge or suspicions’’ formed during confession.
‘‘The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should consult with the Holy See, and make public any advice received, in order to clarify whether: a) information received from a child during the sacrament of reconciliation that they have been sexually abused is covered by the seal of confession; b) if a person confesses during the sacrament of reconciliation to perpetrating child sexual abuse, absolution can and should be withheld until they report themselves to civil authorities,’’ the commission said.
The commission has made 409 recommendations to protect children from sexual abuse, after chairman Justice Peter McClellan handed over the final report of the five-year inquiry to GovernorGeneral Sir Peter Cosgrove yesterday.
It has recommended that the Jehovah’s Witness organisation abandon its application of a twowitness rule in cases involving complaints of child sexual abuse, and revise its policies so that women are involved in processes related to investigating and determining allegations of child sexual abuse.
The royal commission has also recommended that the Jehovah’s Witness organisation no longer require its members to shun people who leave the organisation because of child sexual abuse.
The commission has recommended an independent oversight body in each state and territory to be responsible for monitoring and enforcing new child safe standards.
It says the Australian government should also develop a new national framework for child safety in collaboration with state and territory governments, to implement ‘‘long-term child safety initiatives, with appropriate resources, and holding them account’’.
In response, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, said yesterday the bishops would take the royal commission’s recommendations seriously and present them to the Holy See.
But he said the seal of the confession could not be broken, even if priests faced the prospect of criminal charges for failing to report child sexual abuse.
‘‘My sacred charge is to respect the seal of the confessional,’’ he told reporters.
‘‘I revere the law of the land and I trust it, but this is a sacred spiritual charge before God which I must honour, and I have to try and do what I can do with both.’’
– Fairfax to