Pushed by a royal commission report to implement reforms, they recently reverted to standard operating procedures of delay and secrecy in suppressing a major report on governance reform.

While hoping to delay and control discussion, the bishops were outmanoeuvred by the leaking of the highly significant report. It will now be available to and discussed by all Catholics - as it should be.

Titled The Light from the Southern Cross: Promoting Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia, the report deserves serious consideration - but by refusing to release it until at least November, the bishops displayed their usual disposition to not trust their people, to keep them in the dark and assign to themselves the sole right to consider and comment on the contents.

The report is the outcome of a royal commission recommendation that called for a review of the governance, leadership and management structures of dioceses and parishes, including issues of transparency, accountability, consultation and the participation of lay men and women.

The report provides an important analysis of why current arrangements are not fit-for-purpose and outlines how the church can operate in ways that are faithful to its calling, respect the dignity of its members and are consistent with the reasonable expectations of modern society for inclusiveness, transparency and accountability.

Confronted with the overwhelming demand for reform it seems the bishops panicked and reverted to their old habits.

All Catholics and the wider Australian community have a legitimate interest here so that effective and appropriate mechanisms in which the community can have confidence can be implemented.

Culturally, the focus of the review is closely related to the issue of clericalism, which the royal commission and Pope Francis have been explicit in stating lies at the root of many of the failures of the church and the perversion of its mission.

The review panel took the initiative in having international experts review and offer perspectives on its likely findings and recommendations.

The report was keenly awaited by Catholics in Australia and globally.

It breaks new ground in articulating a way forward - an Australian model of church that has universal application.

Such issues challenge many in the church, none more so than the current crop of Australian bishops.

In many ways the report gets to the nub of the need for real reform, and addresses the cultural challenges in implementing a model church that is open, accountable, non-clerical and inclusive.

For some time now the bishops have promised it will no longer be "business as usual" in the administration of the church and their role in considering the need for change.

Catholics and others might want to believe such commitments, but unfortunately they can't.

This most recent episode simply underscores that sad fact. It is particularly perverse that on the topic of "co-responsible governance", which goes to the heart of transparency and accountability, the bishops chose to send a message that they don't much value or want the views of Australian Catholics, and sought to completely control any discussion.

On this occasion, their little scheme has been sprung, and rightly all Catholics will be able to read and comment on the report.

By defending their outdated instincts for secrecy, the bishops cling to an arrogant operating style.

If Catholics or other Australians doubt this, they only have to read Malcolm Turnbull's account in his recent memoir of how Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, shamelessly and contrary to all public commitments, conceded that the bishops do allocate Commonwealth education funds in ways that suit their own agendas.

It is a revelation breathtaking in its duplicity.

Little wonder then that Canberra's Archbishop, Christopher Prowse, wrote recently that demands for transparency and accountability are part of "society's aggressive secularism".

It seems openness and accountability are things to be feared and best avoided.

The work and report of the royal commission have been pivotal in generating internal momentum on church reform.

There is ample scope for both people and bishops to walk this journey together.

It is a case of trust-building trust.

There is little doubt that the review of church governance would not have happened were it not a key recommendation of an inquiry that shone a searching light into the fetid darkness of church hierarchy, culture and the perverted loyalties that dishonoured its mission and people.

The legitimate pressure of the Australian community and governments has been critical in this process and properly needs to continue, to ensure all Australians can be confident that necessary reforms are implemented.

The governance review is part of a broader initiative, led by Brisbane's Archbishop and president of the Australian Bishops Conference, Mark Coleridge, for a Plenary Council to consider the overall position of the church in Australia.

To his credit, Coleridge prevailed in promoting this idea against the natural instincts of a sizeable number of his colleagues.

A major consultative process, held over the past 18 months involving more than 17,000 submissions from individuals and groups, demonstrated strong buy-in from ordinary Catholics. An official summary of the inputs reached an unavoidable conclusion that most want serious and significant change and have little confidence in their bishops.

It was also clear that Australian Catholics are fed up with secrecy and a lack of accountability.

The governance report is even more powerful because there is fertile ground among ordinary Catholics for such reforms.

In the final analysis, ordinary Catholics are the church - and they are demanding shared leadership and control. But many clerics, and particularly the bishops, are of a different mind.

Confronted with the overwhelming demand for reform it seems the bishops panicked and reverted to their old habits.

This is evident not just in the suppression of the governance report but also the brutal way they stacked the composition of six discernment groups, whose task was to prepare position papers that will frame the agenda for the formal Plenary sessions.

These documents have now been released, and there is tentative evidence that, perhaps despite the efforts of some, the reform issues raised by ordinary Catholics are still in the mix.

This highlights the fact that the bishops seem to be coming slowly to accepting that major change is irresistible.

Although the message from the people to the bishops in the first stage of the Plenary Council consultations was a very emphatic "we don't trust our bishops", that lack of trust can be bridged by the bishops recognising the richness and faith in the input their people have provided.

There is ample scope for both people and bishops to walk this journey together.

It is a case of trust-building trust.

In 2018, Pope Francis wrote a "Letter to the People of God" - in other words, ordinary Catholics.

In it he called for their help in ridding the church of sexual abuse and clericalism.

Francis asked Catholics to be "active and assertive" in helping him to reform the church.

The implication, and the none-too-subtle conclusion, to draw was that Francis doubted that many of his leadership team, and local bishops, were up to the task.

So, he asked ordinary Catholics to support his push for reform from the grassroots.

It is significant that the Australian hierarchy effectively ignored the Pope's letter - a surprising and damning outcome that only confirmed the Pope's assessment.

Rather than working openly with their people as Francis encourages, the Australian bishops still resort to secrecy and control, old habits they need to leave behind.

The quality of the governance report, the product of a highly qualified but mainly non-clerical panel, should make the bishops start to trust their own people. Otherwise they may find themselves offside with the Pope and abandoned by most Australian Catholics.

• Terry Fewtrell is involved with Concerned Catholics of Canberra-Goulburn. This article first appeared on johnmenadue.com

The new laws expand the Reportable Conduct Scheme governing allegations of child abuse and misconduct to include religious organisations.

The legislation makes it illegal for priests to fail to report the confession of a child sexual abuse crime.

The confession provision will take effect from 31 March, 2019.

Religious groups and their "activities, facilities, programmes or services" will also be required to report any allegations, offences or convictions of child abuse within 30 days.

Although the legislation has been passed without amendment, the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn has nine months to negotiate with the government about how it will work before the start of reportable conduct requirements.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra and Goulburn said while he supports efforts to protect children, "breaking the sacred seal of Confession won't prevent abuse".

He says abusers would be unlikely to confess their crimes if "if they thought they would be reported".

He doesn't think the new laws will improve the safety of children in Catholic organisations either.

"The government threatens religious freedom by appointing itself an expert on religious practices and by attempting to change the sacrament of confession while delivering no improvement in the safety of children," he said.

"Priests are bound by a sacred vow to maintain the seal of confession" and "without that vow, who would be willing to unburden themselves of their sins?"

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic Herald
• Image: ABC

Chair of the group, emeritus professor John Warhurst, says Catholic leaders in Australia must begin work to give parishioners an effective role and voice in the Church's direction and provide greater accountability and inclusive decision-making.

He also says the Church in Australia should not be an inward-looking organisation dominated by older men.

The group has written a submission asking church leaders to establish pastoral councils in the Canberra archdiocese.

They say the councils will enable parishioners and lay partners to participate fully in the Church's response to next month's final report on the Royal Commission into Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The submission also calls for Canon Law to be reformed and for women's role in leadership positions to be promoted.

Another matter the submission addresses is the Church's culture for "everyday Catholics" as "prayers, payers and those subject to outdated Canon Law". This should stop, the group says.

It also asked for compulsory celibacy for priests to be addressed.

"Like in any large organisation or movement, a good number of people are going about their ordinary local business... but I think a significant minority are disillusioned and in some cases angry about what's happened," Warhurst says.

"There's a large number spread around the archdiocese who really want to be part of a group who stirs the pot.

"The issues raised during the hearings and preliminary reports of the Royal Commission make it clear there will be plenty of adverse comment about the culture and governance of the Catholic Church and many Catholics want to have their say."

At present, Warhurst says lay people are not well placed to contribute to decision-making.

"It's a tough ask to hope that these matters will be changed by people who are effectively operating in a branch office of a multinational corporation, but you have to start somewhere.

"We want to be on the front foot and influencing them at a time when they're making key decisions for [a proposed plenary council for the church in Australia in] 2020," he said.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse welcomed the submission, saying he is open to the proposal for new pastoral councils.

"From now up until 2020, we'd like to listen carefully to the different Catholic voices and beyond," he said.

Source

• The Canberra Times
• Image: Canberra Times

In an interview with the Canberra Times, Archbishop Christopher Prowse said the Church is going through an "unprecedented crisis".

"There is so much shame, there is so much humiliation with the criminal acts of some of us [that] for us to stand alongside victims, to encourage them to come forward and to listen to their story, is absolutely imperative," he said.

Appointed to lead the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn last September, Archbishop Prowse said he had been humbled and inspired by "the raw courage of so many victims of clerical sex abuse as children".

"They have been very heroic in trying to refocus on their life and to instruct us as a church [on] where we have failed and what we can do to ameliorate a very difficult stage of our history."

He said the victims "who are able to be courageous enough to share with us their stories" are "the new missionaries".

"When I sit down with victims there's tears, there is anger, there's shouting, there's lament.

"Yet, over a period of time, I've also found reservoirs of wanting to start again, a sense of forgiveness that would come after the acknowledgement of the injustice, a sense of working together to make sure these things don't happen again."

The archbishop is the first to concede the road to reconciliation is complex, delicate and challenging.

"Sex abuse is a bit like an atomic bomb on faith. It devastates faith for the people that have been affected by it directly."

Last week, Pope Francis was reported in the Italian La Repubblica newspaper that abuse of children is "leprosy" in the Church.

He pledged to "confront it with the severity it requires".

The Pope was reported as saying he had been told that two per cent of Catholic clergy are paedophiles.

The number would represent 8000 priests, based on the latest Vatican figures that count a total of 414,000 priests globally.

Sources

• Canberra Times
• Kansas City Star
• Image: Canberra Times