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1. Very disappointed in the Australian Bishops' Statement. I noticed Bishop Morris wasn't part of the criticism

   Posted By: Nev Hunt

2. Mature persons and institutions are expected to face and take responsibility for their actions and abuses and then strive to make corrections and changes to ensure 'bad things are not repeated'.
   
   That is what growing up or maturity is - taking responsibility for actions taken -regardless of outcme to ensure wrongdoing is avoided or prevented in the future.
   
   The Catholic Church, which I love deeply, has a management institution that is built like a primary school system that does not encourage faithful maturity but encourages and rewards conformity and compliance to trained elders (Clergy) without recognising or acknowledging the learned and matured laity it has within the Church (the faithful) congregations and gatherings. It treats its faithful as little children of primary level maturity. (How many adults seek their parents hand (as they did as kids) when they cross a busy road?)
   
   I am disappointed that the church leaders, like past Australian Governments, refuse to say "Sorry" to those we (significantly) offend and ensure the systemic causes are removed to assure the victims past offences will not be repeated by new offenders as well as repeat offenders.
   
   Yet at the opening of every Mass there is reconciliation for sins of commission and omission. Institutional sin also needs to be acknowledged.
   
   I have read Bishop Robinson's book from cover to cover on Confronting Power and find it very insightful about the seeds and roots of abuse in power (of which sexual abuse is only a symptom) and conclude that the purpose of the organisation is NOT to develop Christian Maturity but to keep members at a primary "pray. pay and obey" level of faith. The majority of the institutional catholic church do not encourage its people to think and act for ourselves nor to take responsbility for our actions. Maybe that is one of the causes of declining attendances - being treated as children rather than encouraging people to become adults in faith and understanding.
   
   MFW

   Posted By: Michael Waterhouse

3. Of course Geoffrey Robinson is correct - and courageous... the questions need to be asked - and faced! Patriarchal Clericalism is not Trinitarian, because it does not reflect equal relations among Christ's faithful, created male and female in God's image, and all of us sharing a common Baptism.

   Posted By: Fr Terry Herbert MSC

4. I have a problem with Bishop Robinson's basic contention that if sex abuse is about sex and power, then the cause is (probably - surely) to be found in the attitudes to sex and power in the Church.
   Sex abuse is obviously about 'sex' and adults use their 'power' as adults to fulfil this perversion.
   There are priests, religious and lay workers who have this perversion and have sought to satisfy it by the abuse of children and youth.
   The percentage of sex abusers in the Catholic Church is no higher than in other Christian denominations or in other professions, and fewer by far than the percentage of abusers in families - some statistics suggest one in five girls and one in seven boys.
   Would Bishop Robinson argue that the reason for sex abuse in families is due to the structure of authority and attitudes to sex in families?
   Would he argue that sex abuse in military families, or the families of police personnel is because of the strict authority structure and attitudes to sex in the military and police services?
   Would he argue that the high proportion of sex abuse in public schools (statistics from the USA) is because of the authority structure in the school system?
   If so, will he call for reform of all the above?
   Children and youth are abused by adults who have a sexual perversion, and instread of controlling it seek to satisfy it by using their persuasive power as adults over vulnerable children. This is true surely of every instance of sex abuse.
   There may be reason to call for the reform of the use of authority and attitudes to the precious gift of sex in the Church. I question whether an honest and well considered starting point is the abuse of children.
   

   Posted By: Fr Ronan Kilgannon

5. All I can say is that I have always found Bishop Geoffrey Robinson to be a man of great intregrity who is passionate about Church. Keep singing "the song" Geoffrey!

   Posted By: Lorraine Murphy

6. The reported refusal of the American Cardinal to allow Bishop Robinson to speak about his book : "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church" is in line with the official Church's attitude since the book was published. Only God knows how long it will be before the matters Bishop Robinson seeks to promote discussion and action, get to be openly discussed in the approved Catholic media and other fora.
   
   In the meantime World Youth Day is coming up and what a wonderful thing it will be if His Holiness the Pope goes even further here than he did in the US by lamenting the fact that at least one of the reasons for the inability of Catholic schools to inculcate the Faith and adherence to Catholic teaching in their pupils is the continuing fallout from the sexual and other abuse suffered by so many of those who have been through them.
   
   Denis O'Leary

   Posted By: Denis O'Leary

7. Although the subject is extremely distasteful, and a terrible blot on the Church's handling of things; this matter MUST be openly dealt with and discussion-no matter how unpleasant - is neccesary. It will not go away by keeping silent.
   

   Posted By: Stan

8. Even after all that's happened, I still can't believe that the Australian Bishops could be so - well - stupid! In fact, I don't think they are. Perhaps they've felt compelled to utter disapproval in order to protect Bishop Robinson from a much greater blow from Rome? Oh, please let it be so! Or maybe they're just protecting themselves....In any case, isn't it interesting that they didn't address a single one of the arguments Bishop Robinson put forward in his book. They just buried their heads in the sand, muttering "You're wrong, you're wrong " as they did so. Which may go to prove he's right! Listen, or die!

   Posted By: Joan Seymour

9. This is really wonderful. To be banned by His Eminence of Los Angeles is the equivalent of being defeated in Cricket by the State of California.
   
   Bishop Robinson's statement is patently disingenuous and misleading, not to mention insulting to victims of sex abuse, and indeed to all orthodox catholics. He is trying to misuse the indignation against sexual abuse to further his own heretical theological agenda. What exactly is he trying to say, that the only good people in the world are heretics, or that orthodoxy is intimately linked to abuse?

   Posted By: Kiran

10. It is surprising but not unexpected that his BROTHER Bishops and the clergy in general do not enjoy or agree with what Bishop Robinson has to say in his ground breaking book. He is actually writing about ALL abuse sanctioned by the ordained clergy and about time too. Rosemary Keenan

    Posted By: Rosemary Keenan

11. God bless Bishop Robinson. I seem to recall other prophetic voices in the Church's history who were howled down by others in the establishment...Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena etc. What a tragedy that so few of our own bishops have such courage. May the Holy Spirit grant all of us such strength and courage.

    Posted By: Rock

12. As Bishop Robinson has stated, "it is reasonable to ask questions about power and sex in the Catholic Church, and many Catholics continue to ask these questions and to seek answers. Has the Australian Church learned nothing from the American experience? What is the church afraid of? They remained silent when the Bishop's book was first published, choosing it seems to ignore it ..... now this statement - issued apparently whilst the Bishop is overseas. Were all the Bishops signatories? It would be interesting to know

    Posted By: Janet Godsell

13. How could anyone not admire the integrity and courage of this bishop who loves his church and is prepared to question, simply question, what so many laity also question. Is he not a spokesperson for many of us who also love our church and are concerned about the abuse of power and sex?

    Posted By: leo

14. The ban on Bishop Geofrey Robinson by Cardinal Mahony should not come as a surprise. It was Cardinal Mahony who appealed the attempt by the Los Angeles County District Court to gain access to Church documents relating to sexual abuse. The supreme court refused the appeal and the archdiocese had to comply with the subpoena from the Los Angeles County District Attorney to produce letters to the former priests and notes from counselling sessions conducted by the Church. The Los Angeles archdiocese is faced with a record-breaking $660 million settlement for 508 victims of sexual abuse. If the settlement is approved it will save Cardinal Mahony being forced to testify about how the Church dealt with abuses spanning the 1940's to the 1990's.
    No doubt Cardinal Mahony would be feeling uncomfortable with Bishop Geofrey in town. Perhaps he could take refuge inside his $190 million "Our Lady of the Angels" Cathedral. (Refer to Wikipedia web site on Los Angeles Cathedral)

    Posted By: Ken Haddock

15. Geoff Robinson is clearly suffering from Relevance Deprivation Syndrome. What a sad end for a man who at one time had made a useful contribution.
    
    If even the notoriously laissez-faire Cd Mahony finds him too heretical, maybe he'll finally realise he should stop strutting the lecture-tour circuit promoting himself as a "Catholic bishop".
    
    Some people apparently find him "courageous" for getting warmly applauded and backslapped by the hordes of anti-Catholic bigots in the USA who queue up to buy his book. I can think of many more apt descriptions.
    
    Maybe in his next "courageous" tome he'll explain what his rejection of dozens of basic Catholic doctrines,(the Eucharist, the Ascension, Scripture, etc.) has to do with supposedly "confronting power and sex". I won't hold my breath.
    
    
    

    Posted By: Ronk

16. I have just returned this past Friday evening from listening to Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's Temple University, the first stop on his United States tour.
    
    It was a distinct pleasure to meet and listen to his frank commentary on the present state of the Roman Catholic Church in the modern world vis-a-vis its continuing sex abuse problems.
    
    Even though we Americans had to wait for an Australian bishop to talk so freely and frankly as he expanded on the topics discussed in his book, "Confronting Sex and Power in the Catholic Church," his honesty on the subject was something that has rarely been found here.
    
    Arriving at about the same time as Bishop Robinson arrived in the United States were the disparaging comments made about him by the Australian Bishops' Conference in their unsigned letter followed by a letter from our own Roger Cardinal Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California denying him permission to speak in the archdiocese - permission Robinson neither asked for nor needs.
    
    Sadly, secrecy has gotten church leadership to this terrible impasse but only conversation with the laity will lead to solving the church's problems.
    
    How sad that the Australian bishops saw fit to attempt to silence discussion at this particular moment.
    
    Did not Pope Benedict recently enjoin church leadership to "do everything that is possible" to alleviate this scourge of sexual abuse?
    
    Or are the pope's words just more "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals," 1 Corinthians 13:1-2?
    
    Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
    Victims' Advocate
    
    Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
    Victims' Advocate
    25-E Highland Blvd.
    New Castle, Delaware, USA
    
    maturlishmdsnd@yahoo.com
    

    Posted By: Sister Maureen Paul Turlish

17. In understand that the statement from the Bishops' Conference is unsigned. If so, why has the "statement' been made public? Geoffrey Robinson has every right and duty to question as we all do - a love that dares to question. Why on earth do we have to ban reasoned and reasonable thinking and questioning? After all "by their fruits you will know them".

    Posted By: Patrick Kempton

18. Banned by the Master Pedophile Pimp Mahoney? Bishop Robinson must be doing something right!

    Posted By: hrh

19. While reading this article and the accompanying comments, two quotes I read recently come to mind: "Because truth is eternal, controversy will be unending," and "Say not, this is the truth, but so it seems to me to be, since now I see the things I think I see."

    Posted By: Cato

20. While I have grave concerns about the way that the sexual abuse crisis has been handled in many places, I also have grave concern about people like Bishop Robinson who draw false conclusions about the root causes of this crisis, and then use the crisis to promote theological dissent.
    
    Bishop Robinson is totally wrong if he thinks that Catholic sexual teaching has somehow caused this crisis.
    
    In fact, it is fair to say that running around promoting such ideas is just as deluded and damaging as those bishops and Church leaders who covered up abuse instead of dealing with it.
    
    Thomas

    Posted By: Thomas Aiken

21. "All in the Church must preserve unity in essentials. But let all, according to the gifts they have received enjoy a proper freedom, in their various forms of spiritual life and discipline, in their different liturgical rites, and even in their theological elaborations of revealed truth. In all things let charity prevail. If they are true to this course of action, they will be giving ever better expression to the authentic catholicity and apostolicity of the Church. –Unitatis Redintegratio, Decree on Ecumenism, Vatican II" So much for Love and Compassion that is preached by the clergy... Where is the love for a fellow brother, who obviously took the courage to speak his heart? What a complete bunch of nut cases. No wonder so many are leaving the Catholic tradition in the thousands and practise their faith only in ‘private’, Shame on all of these Old and Rigid-minded, jewelled hats/laced dress/ritual-police/Colonial-Empire-Law obsessed men, the same sort that Jesus himself criticised.

    Posted By: TJ Lawson

22. Reading the following posts leaves me with the view that those contributing simply have a political axe to grind as does Bishop Robinson unfortunately. The other clue to the Bishop's real problem is no doubt the success he would like for his book. One notes that Bishop Robinson does not deny the import of the ACBC letter.
    
    The fundamental fallacy pushed by the anti-church ideologues (and obviously the Bishop) is the desire to link the hierachy of the Church, as a group, to the evil of pederasty (sub set of homosexuality) within a small minority of individual priests.
    
    Note that the Church as an organisation is generally responding appropriately, within what is prudent but charitable, to the issues of sexual abuse. That needs to be acknowledged as credible commentators do.
    
    Even if the Bishop really believes the link above, that still is no argument for him to act divisively against the church and with such an intellectually dishonest & irresponsible excuse like 'we must be free (hint hint) to follow the argument whereever it leads.'
    
    The divisiveness is inflammed by (gleeful?) anti-Magisterial, anti Catholics who want to expand the argument to cover their bias:
    'we're treated like primary school kids'; A: rubbish.
    'the laity are to be taken as mature and learned'; A: partially true but otherwise generally demonstrably false;
    Institutional sin to be confessed; A: how often, or more to the point how often do you want it made public?

    Posted By: Chris Saidou

23. Actually, on a number of occasions, this Pope has indeed expressed deep-felt sorrow and anger, and acted against cases of abuse and the protection of abusers. Further, I am sorry to disillusion Joan Seymour, but a cursory reading of Card. Mahoney would show that Bishop Robinson remains under investigation by the Congregation for Bishops.
    
    Further, Bp. Robinson is not prophetic in the least. This is the 21st century. Sexual Abuse has been public news for the last 20 years at the very least. Robinson has simply jumped on the bandwagon, to argue conclusions of his own. Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena were both (a)deeply obedient to legitimate authority (the Pope and the Bishops), even in cases where they corrected individuals and (b) urged people to deeper obedience to God and His Church, especially as they are represented by the Pope as the successor to St. Peter. The keynote of St. Catherine's Dialogue is the necessity of obedience. Nor was either of them howled down by the establishment. Both enjoyed extremely cordial relations with the Papacy.
    
    And finally, whoever wants to associate with Bishop Robinson is welcome to do so. All I can say is that he certainly does not speak either for me, or for the Church to which I belong.

    Posted By: Kiran

24. The ACB has done to Geoffrey Robinson what they did to the late Bishop John Heaps. Discarded one of their own like a dirty dishrag after he had the courage to speak up against or about that which is morally reprehensible within the ranks of the Clergy. SANCTA SUBITO.

    Posted By: Neil

25. I cannot support Bishop Robinson regardless of how many of the opinions here do. Pope Benedict has made quite clear his sorrow at the disgraceful way many priests and religious have abused others. Cardinal Pell has already established a means to deal with this dreadful problem in Australia. The Catholic Church is not ignoring this issue, give it some credit. I have never felt like a primary school child in the Catholic Church but I will show the greatest respect and regard for its leaders even when I disagree with them. Bishop Robinson has not done this, but I will respect him regardless.

    Posted By: Mark

26. People's understanding of what motivates our Bishops - as seen in this blog - is just plain wrong. They are neither stupid,nor cowards. They are not out of touch, and they are not self serving. They made a statement about a man, who has been gifted with the office of Bishop, who is exercising that office in a way that is fundamentally driven by his own passionate agenda. He may feel entitled to use his 'Bishop-ly' identity to criticise the Church, but I believe he is out of line. Citizen Geoffrey Robinson, can say what he likes. But as a Bishop, 'he is not his own'. I am a teacher and hold a leadership role in the Church. to a similar extent, "I am not my own", and I hold carefully the responsibilty I have to people around me. Do I agree with his concerns about sexual abuse by clergy? Yes. Would I go about it, by undermining, deriding and criticising publicly our Bishops? No. I believe smashing relationships to pieces, in the hope that change will happen is foolish. This is what he has done. To bring about change in our Church - no matter how hard it may be - you must maintain lines of communication and relationship. It's a bit like a marriage. Yes, you can shout and disagree, but when you start to dismantle the fundamentals of the relationship, you can simply end up destroying what you are trying to fix!

    Posted By: Catherine R

27. Lorraine Murphy, if Bishop Geoff Robinson was a man of "integrity" he would stop promoting himself on international lecture tours as a "Catholic Bishop" when he denies many Catholic doctrines, and even denies the ability of the Church to definitively state what its doctrines are!
    He may be "passionate about church", but his only passion about THE Church seems to be his passion for attacking it.

    Posted By: Ronk

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