Australia Royal Commission report on sexual abuse

[Anomaly]

Thoughts on the various findings and recommendations?

ie:

wide spread abuse by clergy and teachers, the majority by Catholics.

recommend mandatory reporting by all agencies, including if learned via Catholic Confession

suggestion for Catholic Church to consider ending mandatory celibacy based on findings that it is a contributing factor, though not necessarily a cause. 

Reportedly, there are over 400 Recommendations.   These in particular are of more interest to Catholics, so don’t just respond the Church is being singled out.  

[Era Might]

While I'm not a supporter of an entirely celibate priesthood, there's no such thing as "mandatory celibacy." It's not like Catholics are destined from birth to be celibate. Some people choose to enter the priesthood. I think celibacy is problematic for a number of reasons, but it's arbitrary to point it out as a "contributing factor" to sex abuse. I think a bigger issue is that priests can tend to be young and have no context on life.  The word "presbyter" originally referred to an elder. Being celibate doesn't help, nothing gives more context than the illusions and trials of human relationships (some priests have this before they enter). But, marriage is its own institution that holds people back from actually experiencing life, I don't think marriage by itself makes people self-aware. The bigger issue is that the priesthood is an institution, a profession, it's not tied organically to the community, priests belong to their own community, and that hierarchy was at its heights in the middle of last century, and that helped the culture of abuse, corruption, cover-ups by higher-ups, etc.

[cappie]

This a good article 

Has Australian commission weakened the reformers on sex abuse?

https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2017/12/15/australian-commission-weakened-reformers-sex-abuse/

[Anomaly]

Not such a great article.  From what I read, the commission recommended the Church consider married priesthood, not recommending ending celibacy.   Big difference and it’s counterproductive to fixate or mischaracterize one of the recommendations and risk/allow it to be an excuse to reject everything else recommend.  That mischaracterization seems to be the conclusion of the writer.  

It’s almost beyond belief that the Church has failed to adequately address this issue after many decades of widespread public knowledge.   That in and of itself, illustrates an institutional lack of understanding, or worse, lack of willingness by those who hold positions of power in the Church.   The Church will probably make the changes, but it seems not until it self inflicts more needless damage to itself and the faithful.  Especially considering the current trend of teachers and celebrities committing abuse we see in US news, the Church has missed a chance to be an example of how to enact institutional reforms to protect the vulnerable. 

[Era Might]

Cardinal Law dead at 86. I met him on a visit to the Seminary, about a month before the abuse stories broke.

[A Yearning Heart]

Just terrible in so many ways and on so many levels.  

There has been a lot of focus on the recommendation to make changes to confession and mandatory reporting (to police) for priests who receive confessions from an abuser or hear a child make a statement of being abused. 

I know the sacramental nature of confession means the priest can't go and tell someone about what was said in it, but how can that also work with the need to safeguard children?  

I don't know if abusers even go to confession, but if they did, what could be done? Withhold absolution until the penitent reports themselves to police? Ask the child to speak to them again outside the confessional?