It’s no longer newsworthy that bishops might hide uncomfortable truths

Catholic Herald, 10 July 2020

That bishops might hide things that they should share or, even worse, tell lies, is now widely accepted. The real news is that it is no longer newsworthy.

In the aftermath of the collapsed criminal case against Cardinal George Pell, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse released its redacted findings concerning the cardinal.

The findings unwittingly drew attention to a serious consequence of the sexual abuse crisis, namely the loss of credibility of bishops, even among priests. The commission rummaged around in Pell’s earlier years in his home diocese of Ballarat. Pell never served as a bishop in Ballarat, or as a senior diocesan official, such as the vicar general. But he was on the college of consultors, a group of priests that advises the bishop, in this case Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who had a long record of shifting predator priests from parish to parish.

In the case of Australia’s most notorious priest-abuser, Gerald Ridsdale, Pell gave evidence to the commission that the reasons for Ridsdale’s transfers were not revealed to the consultors. No other consultors gave evidence that Ridsdale’s record was revealed. Yet the commission concluded that Pell must have known. Why?

“We are satisfied Bishop Mulkearns gave reasons for it being necessary to move Ridsdale,” the commission’s report found. “We are satisfied that he referred to homosexuality at the meeting, in the context of giving reasons for Ridsdale’s move. However, we are not satisfied that Bishop Mulkearns left the explanation there …

“We do not accept that Bishop Mulkearns lied to his consultors,” the commission concluded. On this logic, bishops would not withhold relevant information from their consultors, and would not lie to their priests.

Yet the commission’s years of hearings established that there was plenty of withholding and lying by bishops in  such cases; Bishop Mulkearns not least of them. Indeed, the commission’s report accepted that he did lie about the Ridsdale case to another priest.

The findings made hardly a ripple in the Catholic media. That bishops might hide things that they should share or, even worse, tell lies, is now widely accepted. The real news is that it is no longer newsworthy.

The very day the commission’s findings were released, Pope Francis accepted the early resignation of Bishop Joseph R Binzer, 65, auxiliary of Cincinnati. Last summer it was revealed that he had failed to inform his own archbishop and the priest personnel board of allegations against a priest he proposed for reassignment. If Bishop Binzer could do it in 2019, why not Bishop Mulkearns 40 years before?

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