Time to start blogging again! The latest issue of The Priest has gone to press, we’ve closed registrations to the international clergy conference I’m helping to organise, and I’ve finally struck a routine in my new parish. Time to blog!

Unfortunately, my first post in a long time is a critical one. I’m loathe to criticise, when there’s such a need to edify. But sometimes criticism is necessary, in defence of the truth.

Today’s Australian quotes the Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council‘s Activity Report from December. I’m a great advocate of the TJH Council, and in particular its CEO, Francis Sullivan. I have heard him speak on several occasions, and each time he has spoken uncomfortable truths about the Church with prophetic courage.

But this time, the TJH Council has got it wrong. Its December report claims that “obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse in some circumstances.” In a way this isn’t exactly new. At the Victorian State Parliamentary Enquiry into institutional child abuse, Cardinal Pell acknowledged that celibacy could be a cause for sexual abuse.

But this claim flies in the face of qualifiable psychological research that finds no link between professed and self-adhered celibacy and sexual abuse. I’ll try and find some links … tomorrow. Not today.

The TJH Council goes onto to say that “you can’t have an honest and open discussion about the future without having an honest and open discussion about celibacy. We are placing celibacy on the table.”

I wish they’d take it off again. Celibacy is a distraction. The two major issues, I think, are much broader, and demand focused attention. One is an unhealthy closed-shop clericalism which afflicts the Church. The other is the depraved sexual license which afflicts our society.

In other words, the real problems are cultural and highly complex. It’s tempting to raise an easy-fix issue like priestly celibacy, but it isn’t very helpful.