The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Probe into child abuse attacks Catholic celibacy
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — An Australian inquiry into child abuse recommended Friday that 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 17-volume report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation. Australia’s longest-running royal commission — which is the country’s highest form of inquiry — 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 percent were Catholics.
“We have concluded that there were catastrophic fail- ures 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 cel- ibacy 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a child has been sexually abused is covered by the seal of secrecy and whether absolution of a perpetrator should be withdrawn until the perpetrator confesses to police.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 commis- sion gave varying opinions about what if anything a priest could divulge about what was said in a confes- sional about child abuse. The commission’s recommendations, which with interim reports total 409, include making failure to report child sexual abuse a criminal offense. Clerics would not be exempt from being charged. The law should exclude any existing excuse or priv- ilege 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 sanc- tity of the confessional. In the statement, the Vatican said the commission’s report was “thorough,” and deserved to be “studied seri- ously.” And it said it was com- mitted to helping the Austra- lian church accompany victims in finding healing and justice. finance Pope minister, Francis’s Cardinal former
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 offense charges.
Through his lawyers, Pell has vowed to fight the charges of sexual assault.
The commission found that the church’s responses to complaints and concerns about clerics in Australia were “remarkably and disturbingly similar.”
The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, said many of the commission’s recommendations “would have significant impact on the way the Catholic Church and others operate in Australia.”
He said the Vatican is already giving “serious consideration” to questions raised by the commission about the extent of the seal of the confession and whether child molesters who did not confess to police could be absolved.