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I received a letter from a former student. Ten years ago, he had suddenly vanished without warning or further communication. Now he was about to reveal the reasons for his disappearance. It was the sort of story I had heard often before.
He was horribly contorted. His head was bent over his right shoulder as if being crushed down. The angle of the head concealed the right ear and enforced a distortion of his mouth and right eye. You don't stare at such afflicted people so I gazed elsewhere until he was on the move.
The crisis facing the Church arising out of sexual abuse is arguably the most serious challenge it has faced since the Reformation. Issues such as authoritarianism, compulsory celibacy, the participation of women and the teaching on sexuality cannot be brushed aside.
In his Easter message, Cardinal George Pell made an oblique reference to sexual abuse in the Church. While most Australians dismiss such utterances as too little too late, it is possible to look at them optimistically when set against actions of the recent past.
Pope Benedict's letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland released this weekend is a watershed in the way the Church speaks on abuse committed by priests and religious. The Pope's letter would have been better received, not just in Ireland but throughout the world, if he had added a few extra paragraphs.
Bishop Bathersby and Fr Kennedy are pastoral, down to earth men. If there had been more dialogue between them, and between Cardinal Pell and Bishop Robinson, the Catholic Church would be more the Church Jesus would want it to be. March 2009
Much can be achieved in cooperation with friends who don't necessarilyshare the same faith or any faith at all. If you're homeless, who careswhether an atheist, a Christian or a Buddhist provides shelter?
Nikki Gemmell, an agnostic, isn't afraid to confront uncomfortable themes in order to glean a glimmer of understanding. Religion and science may not have the selling power of sex, but each have indelibly shaped individuals as well as history.
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book is an invitation to put fear behind us. Given the treatment it has received by people who should have known better, it has become an icon; a call to conversation without fear.
Bishop Bathersby and Fr Kennedy are pastoral, down to earth men. If there had been more dialogue between them, and between Cardinal Pell and Bishop Robinson, the Catholic Church would be more the Church Jesus would want it to be.
'Lee and Christine Rush are your average Ozzie couple, except that their teenage son Scott is on death row in Bali having been convicted of being a hapless drug mule. It will not go down well on the streets of Jakarta if Australians are baying for the blood of the Bali bombers one month and then pleading to save our sons and daughters the next month.'
The Australian Catholic Bishops argue that Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book on sexual abuse questions the authority of the Church to teach definitively. But Bishop Robinson is right when he calls for reflection on the factors within Catholic culture that foster abuse.
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