Friday, August 24, 2007
ANOTHER LIBERAL BISHOP SPEAKS OUT
From the Australian "The Age":
THE Catholic Church is still not serious about confronting sexual abuse, only "managing" it, according to the Sydney bishop who headed Australian efforts to tackle abuse.
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson says the Catholic Church needs to reverse 2000 years of teaching on sex and power as part of radical reforms from the Pope down.
While it refuses to look at some fundamental teachings — including sex outside marriage, women priests, homosexuality and papal power — the culture that produced and protected abusers will continue, he says.
These explosive claims — unprecedented for a bishop — are in a book to be launched tomorrow: Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.
Bishop Robinson, 70, who was abused as a child, headed the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference professional standards committee for a decade until he retired because he was so disillusioned in 2004.
Calling for the most radical changes since Martin Luther started the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Bishop Robinson says the Pope has failed the church, and the church has failed its members.
"I'm aware of how radical the call I'm making is. I'm looking for a very different church," he told The Age.
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