Church culture contributed to abuse mishandling – theologian

Church culture contributed to abuse mishandling – theologian Fr Gerry O’Hanlon
Staff reporter

Former Jesuit provincial Fr Gerry O’Hanlon has insisted that the Church’s centralised model of governance contributed to the mishandling of sexual abuse allegations against priests.

Speaking to the royal commission on abuse in Australia via a videolink from Dublin, Fr O’Hanlon also said that the Church suffered from the same defensive attitude as other institutions.

“I think it’s a defensiveness that you will find in many other organisations.

“We are finding it, for example, in England at the moment with regard to as different a field as professional football, soccer. We find it in different organisations. But of course it was all the more egregious coming from an organisation which, if you like, in a good sense, prided itself on doing what was good and what was right and favouring the weakest.

“For an organisation like that to have been shown to be so at fault and so in error, I think the reputational damage was enormous, and that was so whether it was simply a moral issue or had also criminal ramifications, which it clearly had,” the Jesuit theologian said.

Fr O’Hanlon said that a culture of secrecy, deference to priests and, in turn, deference of the bishops to the Pope affected the institutional response of the Church to allegations.