Pope urged to sack all who cover up clerical abuse

The Pope should demand the resignation of every bishop who has failed properly to deal with cases of child sexual abuse, according to one of the Australian Church’s most outspoken internal critics, writes Mark Brolly.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson admitted that hundreds of bishops would have to stand down if Francis took his advice. Robinson, a retired auxiliary from Sydney and himself an abuse survivor (though not by a cleric), said there needed to be “death and resurrection” in the Church to restore its credibility.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Good Friday, Bishop Robinson also called for an end to obligatory priestly celibacy and for women to serve at every level of the Church. He said Catholic teaching on sexuality must be “looked at again from the beginning” — including homosexuality.

The 78-year-old bishop, the author of two books about the Church’s attitude to sex and power, helped set up the Towards Healing sexual abuse protocol for the Australian bishops 20 years ago. He maintained that it had never operated as he intended and was seen as looking after its own. He hoped the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse would change that.

Meanwhile, Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, urged political leaders to discuss national redress for child sexual abuse survivors.

n Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, whose 26 years as head of the Ballarat diocese until 1997 coincided with many cases of child sexual abuse, died on 4 April, a few weeks after he gave evidence to the Royal Commission by video from Nazareth House nursing home in the city.