Post by pim on Nov 14, 2012 16:07:27 GMT 11
In light of the current public attention on priestly paedophilia within the Australian Catholic Church, the fact that Gillard has (correctly!) ordered the setting up of a Royal Commission, and the argy bargy about terms of reference and time parameters, it's timely to look at it from a different angle.
Right now w have George Pell and Tony Abbott both arguing that the Royal Commission's terms of reference shouldn't just focus on the Catholic Church, but that it should cast a far broader net. There are counter arguments that just as one should guard against terms of reference (TOR) being too narrow, so too should one guard against TORs being too broad. How to achieve a "Goldilocks" balance within the TORs is going to be a challenge for the Gillard Government. If Gillard is bold and courageous on this she'll do what's necessary to get at the truth. If she's craven and pusillanimous she'll play a minimalist game.
There is data (no link, sorry - relying on imperfect memory) that shows that the overwhelming majority of cases of priestly paedophilia occurs within the Catholic Church and that if the data is accurate then the Royal Commission (RC) will end up reflecting that in its deliberations. I'm cynical enough to believe that both Pell and Abbott are insisting on TORs that are broader than just the Catholic Church with damage control in mind. Let them. Abbott can't oppose this RC and he can't afford to be too bloody minded about the TORs. He does not want to go into an election with Gillard saying that Tony Abbott went against both the Gillard Government and public opinion by putting his loyalty to the Catholic hierarchy ahead of the interests of children. So Gillard is in a position to play hard ball here.
But looking at Australian Catholicism itself, those of you who were, like me, brought up Catholic (and my Catholic Primary School years were spent in Sth Grafton, Geopol and Zombie, so I remember the church and the convent school quite well. I understand that convent school was moved quite a few years ago. Dunno where. It used to be behind the Catholic church. My older siblings went to St Mary's College on the other side of the Clarence) will recall that the local parish priest was inevitably Irish. The parish priest in Sth Grafton was a Monsignor McGuire, an irascible Irishman who'd thunder from the pulpit about "the Protestant Revolt". They don't make 'em like that anymore. My point is that Australian Catholicism was and still is overwhelmingly Irish. Not so many Irish priests as there used to be when the Australian Catholic clergy was overwhelmingly Irish, but the culture and the attitudes are still there.
This is important given the 9 year high level enquiry in Ireland that uncovered a deep-rooted, widespread and appalling culture of clergy phyically and sexually abusing children that had been occurring for such a long time - generations in fact -, reached so far up in the hierarchy and was so shocking in its scope that it's shattered the moral authority of the Catholic Church in Ireland. What I think is a line of enquiry that the RC could follow here in Australia is the extent to which the scale, scope, depth and breadth of child abuse which is being exposed within Australian Catholicism is due to its Irish origins.
The Catholicism that was exported to the New World as Catholics emigrated during the 1800s and 1900s to North America and Australasia was of the Irish variety. To what extent did the Irish export the culture of priestly predatory behaviour on children along with their Catholicism?
Right now w have George Pell and Tony Abbott both arguing that the Royal Commission's terms of reference shouldn't just focus on the Catholic Church, but that it should cast a far broader net. There are counter arguments that just as one should guard against terms of reference (TOR) being too narrow, so too should one guard against TORs being too broad. How to achieve a "Goldilocks" balance within the TORs is going to be a challenge for the Gillard Government. If Gillard is bold and courageous on this she'll do what's necessary to get at the truth. If she's craven and pusillanimous she'll play a minimalist game.
There is data (no link, sorry - relying on imperfect memory) that shows that the overwhelming majority of cases of priestly paedophilia occurs within the Catholic Church and that if the data is accurate then the Royal Commission (RC) will end up reflecting that in its deliberations. I'm cynical enough to believe that both Pell and Abbott are insisting on TORs that are broader than just the Catholic Church with damage control in mind. Let them. Abbott can't oppose this RC and he can't afford to be too bloody minded about the TORs. He does not want to go into an election with Gillard saying that Tony Abbott went against both the Gillard Government and public opinion by putting his loyalty to the Catholic hierarchy ahead of the interests of children. So Gillard is in a position to play hard ball here.
But looking at Australian Catholicism itself, those of you who were, like me, brought up Catholic (and my Catholic Primary School years were spent in Sth Grafton, Geopol and Zombie, so I remember the church and the convent school quite well. I understand that convent school was moved quite a few years ago. Dunno where. It used to be behind the Catholic church. My older siblings went to St Mary's College on the other side of the Clarence) will recall that the local parish priest was inevitably Irish. The parish priest in Sth Grafton was a Monsignor McGuire, an irascible Irishman who'd thunder from the pulpit about "the Protestant Revolt". They don't make 'em like that anymore. My point is that Australian Catholicism was and still is overwhelmingly Irish. Not so many Irish priests as there used to be when the Australian Catholic clergy was overwhelmingly Irish, but the culture and the attitudes are still there.
This is important given the 9 year high level enquiry in Ireland that uncovered a deep-rooted, widespread and appalling culture of clergy phyically and sexually abusing children that had been occurring for such a long time - generations in fact -, reached so far up in the hierarchy and was so shocking in its scope that it's shattered the moral authority of the Catholic Church in Ireland. What I think is a line of enquiry that the RC could follow here in Australia is the extent to which the scale, scope, depth and breadth of child abuse which is being exposed within Australian Catholicism is due to its Irish origins.
The Catholicism that was exported to the New World as Catholics emigrated during the 1800s and 1900s to North America and Australasia was of the Irish variety. To what extent did the Irish export the culture of priestly predatory behaviour on children along with their Catholicism?
