Church must cough up every paedophile priest record

If the Pope really wants to rid his church of the paedophile priest scourge, then he has an easy path to some level of rehabilitation, writes Shane Budden. Whether he’ll do it remains the question.

‘The Church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whosoever has committed such crimes. The Church will never seek to hush up or not take seriously any case.”

So sayeth the Pope, a bold and bombastic statement pregnant with implications of action. This time, says he, they’ll get it right and do whatever it takes to end the scourge of child rape in the church.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard big commitments that meant nothing many times in the past, and from all sections of society. Remember Bob Hawke’s decree that no child would live in poverty? John Howard’s “never-ever” GST? Kevin Rudd’s “Greatest moral challenge of our time” (or indeed, pretty much anything Rudd said)? All bold, all bombastic, all bull, er, rubbish.

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Cardinal George Pell arrives at Melbourne County Court yesterday. Picture: Michael Dodge/Getty Images

Sure, you might say, but those are politicians, this is the Pope, God’s personally selected spruiker of his will, not some huckster trying to get elected. He’d be straight with us, right?

Make no mistake, the Pope is a politician, head of a church whose business is bums on seats. He might not have to run for re-election, but he is judged (in this life and the next, should there be one) by the church’s ability to fill pews, and he is petrified — because the only thing his church is filling at the moment is prison cells.

Despite the hoop-la around his latest gab-fest, it is pretty clear that he has little appetite to change, and that he and his church remain in denial, wilful or otherwise.

Now that Pell’s “priests will be priests; get over it” attitude has failed following his being found guilty of sexual abuse (a finding Pell is appealing), the Pope has switched to the, “don’t pick on us, everybody’s doing it” excuse. The thinking seems to be that since not every child rapist is a priest, priests aren’t a problem; this ignores just how attractive and facilitative to paedophiles his priesthood is.

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Pope Francis earlier this week during the last day of a global child protection summit. Picture: Vatican Media

After all, nobody ever questions a priest’s lack of desire for a partner, the way they might with a member of the laity who lived on his own and sought no obvious companionship well into middle age. Priests also have the perfect excuse to hang around with children — in the absence of parents — and toddle off to camp and other overnight activities without raising the questions that it would of any who had not taken holy vows. Some paedophiles may even think that becoming a priest will rid them of their sexual attraction to children.

The real appeal of the priesthood, however — the one thing the Pope cannot confront since it is the foundation of his and every other church — is the moral authority given to priests by their congregations.

Priests are the last word on what saves your soul and gets you into heaven; they are believed by parent and police, and invested with an unquestionable honesty and moral authority. Children who report abuse are disbelieved by their own parents because of the mystical and unchallengeable awe in which priests are held. To believe that priests are capable of evil things is, for many Catholics, a challenge to their very faith. All too often those Catholics have stood with their faith, and not the children (even when the victims are their own flesh and blood).

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Interim Director of the Holy See Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti, arrives to read a statement about the conviction of Australian Cardinal George Pell. Picture: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

In short, it’s the religion.

If the Pope is serious about this issue, then he has an easy path to some level of rehabilitation. Cough up every record the Church has on paedophile priests, including where they are now; mandate that priests report confessions of paedophilia; and concede to his flock that priests are employees of God, not vessels of holy purity. They should not have moral authority over children, and must be limited to simply guiding the faithful in ritual observance; and if he wants anyone other than paedophiles to join the priesthood, allowing them to marry and accepting women into their ranks is essential.

Yes, some of this will get the Church sued, and rightly so — perhaps right down into the poverty it preaches.

While the end of the gold robes and private jets might put the pampered priesthood’s noses out of joint, it is hard to imagine Christ having any difficulty with it.

Shane Budden is a lawyer and freelance writer.

Originally published as Church must cough up every paedophile priest record