The Tablet (UK), May 24, 2008
US cardinal aims to silence rebel Australian bishop
By Rocco Palmo and Mark Brolly
The
Australian bishop whose "devastating critique" of sex abuse in the Church
became a controversial bestseller last year has come under fire from the hierarchy
at the start of a month-long US tour.
On the eve of his first overseas trip to promote Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, retired Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson was "den[ied] permission" to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles by Cardinal Roger Mahony after a statement from the Australian bishops cited "doctrinal difficulties" in Bishop Robinson's "questioning of the authority of the Church".
In a private letter to the prelate leaked by an Australian website, Cardinal Mahony urged Bishop Robinson, whose book examined how the Church handled the sex-abuse crisis, to "cancel the entire speaking tour", which began last week in Philadelphia and includes stops in New York, Seattle, San Diego and Boston, where the US Church's sex-abuse crisis came to international attention in 2002. The cardinal noted that the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, had likewise insisted that Bishop Robinson not appear in America.
While Bishop Robinson is due to appear in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in mid-June, he did not seek permission to speak there. A week after Cardinal Mahony's letter, the author's 12 June engagement at a retreat centre in suburban Encino remained on his calendar. Critics alleged that the move by Cardinal Mahony - one reportedly echoed by bishops in other locales where the Robinson tour had been scheduled - had less to do with "safeguard[ing] the teachings of the Church" than the Californian prelate's desire to contain the fallout from the abuse scandals, which saw the Los Angeles Church pay $660 million (£334 million) to victims last summer.
The Church-reform group Voice of the Faithful protested over what it saw as an attempt to "silence" a "courageous Catholic".
Meanwhile Bishop Robinson has responded to a critical statement from the Australian bishops (The Tablet, 17 May) by citing "impossible restrictions on any serious and objective study'' of sexual abuse in the Church as the reason for his breach with his colleagues.
The Australian bishops distanced themselves from him over his attacks on compulsory celibacy for priests, the Church's handling of sexual abuse by clergy, its teachings on sexuality and the centralised focus on the Pope and Curia at the expense of the local Church. In his own brief statement Bishop Robinson said: "The statement of the Australian bishops is not unexpected, but it is disappointing. My book is about the response to the revelations of sexual abuse within the Church. Sexual abuse is all about power and sex, so it is surely reasonable to ask questions about power and sex in the Church.
"In their statement the bishops appear to be saying that in seeking to respond to abuse, we may investigate all other factors contributing to abuse, but not ask questions concerning ways in which teachings, laws and attitudes concerning power and sex within the Church may have contributed. This imposes impossible restrictions on any serious and objective study, and it is where I have broken from the bishops' conference. We must be free to follow the argument wherever it leads.''
Defying hierarchy, bishop urges change, Boston Globe, May 31, 2008, Michael Paulson