Special issue of The Record entitled ‘Attack on the Centre’ draws criticism and support from clergy
By Anthony Barich
PERTH priests expressed mixed reactions to the 14 April special edition of The Record reporting on the global media onslaught against Pope Benedict XVI on the issue of sex abuse.
Highgate parish priest Fr Peter Bianchini refused to distribute the edition that weekend in his parish, while others actively promoted it and expressed support for a resource to defend the Church from attacks over the sexual abuse scandal.
Fr Kazimierz Stuglik and Deacon Patrick Moore (Armadale), Fr Timothy Deeter (Mt Lawley), Fr Don Kettle (City Beach), Fr Oswald Lewis (Leederville) and Fr Joseph Rathnaraj (Kalgoorlie), among others, referred to the subject in their weekend homilies, urging congregations to take home The Record to educate themselves on the issue so they could defend the Church when asked and walk taller as Catholics.
All these parishes sold out bar Kalgoorlie, which nearly did. Yangebup, the biggest parish in Perth, also sold out that week. Fr Deeter ordered extra copies and promoted it again the following week, along with the next week’s edition. Fr Kettle also handed out prayer cards to pray for Pope Benedict XVI.
Seaton Parish in South Australia also ordered 225 copies of the edition and sold out, and several Australian Bishops contacted The Record congratulating it on its coverage
“I would’ve thought priests would be jumping up and down in joy at being given such a resource,” Fr Lewis, Leederville parish priest and chaplain of the local Burmese Catholic community, said when told that at least one parish had not distributed it.
“I told my parishioners they must buy that edition, as Catholics in the street are being accused of this as well as priests, and we must be educated so we can defend ourselves and our Church,” he said.
“I mentioned (the abuse issue) the week before on Good Friday, but I did not have the statistics available to preach on it. Now, thanks to the 14 April edition, I am well armed.”
Fr Bianchini, who is also national chair of the Australian Bishops’ Office for Clergy Life and Ministry, told The Record he took particular umbrage with the quote at the top of the front page from Pope Benedict XVI when Cardinal Josef Ratzinger during the Stations of the Cross meditations given for an ill Pope John Paul II at Rome’s Colliseum in 2005.
Then-Cardinal Ratzinger said: “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him.”
Editor Peter Rosengren said that The Record gave prominence to the quote as it evidenced the seriousness of the Holy Father’s approach, contrary to poor and seemingly vindictive secular media reporting, particularly from Germany’s Der Spiegel and the New York Times.
For Fr Bianchini, however, it was the last straw after months of barrage from the secular press on the issue of sexual abuse had taken its emotional toll on him.
“I was pretty angry … I’m just sick to death of it,” Fr Bianchini said. “I really thought it [that quote] was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. There’s been so much media focus on abuse, and now The Record is focusing on it too.
“I thought that, because of that quote (being given prominence), people would look at me and think ‘how much filth is in him?’ That floors me completely … it’s just another arrow for someone to fire at me. It affects me greatly. Every time I read about yet another priest doing something, I get despondent; I walk out the door and people look at you and say ‘you’re one of those’. When a situation comes up in Perth in the media, no one rings up a priest and says ‘this is happening, how are you feeling?’”
He said when parishioners noticed no Record in his church and asked him about it, he told them “It’s not there”, without adding any further explanation.
He said has addressed the need to assist priests with the ability to “stand tall in the midst of all this,” with Perth’s Archdiocesan Professional Standards Board.
Perth Vicar General Monsignor Brian O’Loughlin said the sins of “a miniscule number” who have failed do not necessarily reflect on others. He added that the Archdiocese holds two priest retreats a year and is holding two residential professional development week-long sessions from 16-20 May and 23-27 May – addressed by former member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission Fr Brendan Byrne SJ – where the issue can be broached.
Perth’s Archdiocesan Professional Standards Resource Group director Peter Messer said that while arming priests with the ability to be able to deal with these issues is a pastoral matter for the Bishops and Vicar for Clergy, he said The Record may not have helped by devoting almost an entire edition to the abuse issue.
“The reality is that it’s not just the priests that are getting stabbed in the back, every Catholic gets attacked when (abuse) happens and is portrayed as aggressively as it has been in the secular media; so there needs to be a balance, which The Record provides,” Mr Messer said.
“What was in the (14 April) edition was excellent material and I would not criticise it, but I’d question one edition in which almost entire focus is on it; it may be more beneficial ensuring we’re not being scaremongers or being too apologetic, and spread the coverage over a number of editions.
“Otherwise it’s almost flooding the Catholic faithful with abuse issues, and if it’s all they read it can be somewhat deflating for many people, and just create more questions and pressuring their strength of faith.
“I’m extremely pleased The Record has been addressing the issue, the Catholic press can’t be seen to be ignoring it. That said, I was a bit shocked to find 13 pages were on abuse.”
Carmelite Fr Paul Maunder, parish priest at Morley, also said the amount of text devoted to the issue on 14 April was “overwhelming”, and that the “Attack on the centre” front page headline seemed “alarmist”.
However, he did not withdraw it from the parish as “readers have a right to decide for themselves”.
Claremont parish priest Fr Charles Waddell wrote in his parish bulletin that weekend that “I am disappointed with The Record this week”, adding that “The Record seems to report that media attacks on the Church are motivated by anti-religion or anti-Catholic positions”.
“While there may be some truth to this, there are other open, humble, constructive Catholic interpretations on this continuing news which are neglected by The Record,” he said.
He also offered some of his own interpretation “to try to balance what we read here at St Thomas (Parish)” in the bulletin.
As reported in 21 April’s Record, he said that the hundreds who attended Masses during the Easter Triduum and the media expect more from the Church – that it bring Christ to the world. However, he also said that “the media, at times seemingly viciously, reported the scandals in and of the Church”.
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