The Eighth Deadly Sin
Okay, so it’s not possible to limit the number of the Church’s most heinous sins to seven! Though I guess this one actually comes under the wider heading of no. 3 (see blog entry 30/4/08), it’s almost bad enough to give it an “8th sin” listing on its own – re-employing an abusive priest. Now in this instance (see The West Australian, p.3, 5/5/08 and Townsville Bulletin here) the abuse was confirmed “on the balance of probability” by an internal church investigation, the victim was offered compensation, and the priest had long since resigned from the priesthood, since when he has been working as a uni professor (not an unusual career move for an ex-priest). Criminal charges failed to proceed due to the age of the complaint.
But now the church employs him as director of their welfare agency, with duties including counselling child abuse victims, in Townsville – far removed from Perth, where the abuse happened and the victim lives. And the Archbishop of Perth says he can’t do a thing about it; it’s the Townsville archbishop’s decision. Well, sure – it is. But a) doesn’t Queensland have Child Protection laws, and b) how does anyone hold the Townsville archbishop to account for his choice?
And therein lies the fundamental problem of dealing with the church – they are widespread enough to make it very difficult to find out if an abusive priest has simply been moved somewhere “out of sight, out of mind” of the victim, and they are very nearly completely non-accountable. When even other archbishops can say “I can’t do anything about it” (whether true or not), what hope does a victim have?
Oh, and perhaps it’s just coincidence that the guy’s brother-in-law is WA’s Attorney-General…