Professor Parkinson from Transcript Day One CS 52. Linking Anglo-Catholicism with risk factors for abuse. Risk Factors of Clericalism.
19 PROFESSOR PARKINSON: I fear saying something
20 controversial, but it’s not the first time I have ever done
21 so. If you look at the issues in the Anglican Church,
22 there are three dioceses which stand out. They are
23 Brisbane, they are Adelaide and Newcastle. And then there
24 is the CEBS data, which is a separate set of issues,
25 I think, with particularly high figures in Tasmania and in
26 Adelaide.
27
28 Now, that is quite a clear pattern, and it raises
29 issues as to whether there are patterns in
30 Anglo-Catholicism which are in some ways similar to the
31 patterns in Catholicism.
32
33 It must be remembered that the Church of England was
34 not, in some ways, a break from the church of Rome. It was
35 in terms of governance, but the Church of England continued
36 the traditions and ways of governance of the church prior
37 to the reformation, but for some significant areas in which
38 reform theology came in. So, for example, the theology of
39 the mass or holy communion is different in the Anglican
40 Church, and there are other differences. But, essentially,
41 the Church of England was a continuation of Catholicism
42 within the boundaries of the British Isles, and the
43 Anglo-Catholic tradition in the church has continued that
44 parallelism.
45
46 So I draw attention to that because I do think that we
47 see in these figures a disparate picture of child sexual
1 abuse by clergy in the Anglican Church of Australia.
2
3 MS FURNESS: Perhaps you can make that a bit clearer for
4 us. You have referred to there being a pattern. What is
5 the “pattern” in respect of those first three dioceses?
6
7 PROFESSOR PARKINSON: Others may be better able to comment
8 but, essentially, one would think of Brisbane and Adelaide
9 as being largely Anglo-Catholic in their orientation, their
10 churchmanship, as we say; Melbourne, rather mixed; Sydney,
11 rather solidly evangelical; Newcastle, again,
12 Anglo-Catholic; Tasmania, mixed, but has had a history,
13 I think, of a strong Anglo-Catholic tradition – that’s
14 changing. The others I can’t comment.
15
16 It’s an issue. It’s an issue.
Parkinson on the Culture of Clericalism
21 PROFESSOR PARKINSON: I think that when you start drawing
22 attention to the parallels with the Catholic Church –
23 obviously, celibacy is not an issue in the Anglican Church,
24 but clericalism is, and the work I have done on this area
25 does suggest to me that certainly in Adelaide, where there
26 is a big inquiry, to some extent in Brisbane where we have
27 the benefit of an inquiry about 12 years ago, that one sees
28 similar patterns of clericalism or protection of clergy in
29 those dioceses. I’m not saying it hasn’t happened
30 elsewhere, I’m sure it has. But I see some parallels.
31
32 MS FURNESS: There has been a deal of evidence about
33 clericalism in the various Catholic hearings, but just for
34 the purpose of this hearing, can you define what you mean
35 by “clericalism”?
36
37 PROFESSOR PARKINSON: Different people give different
38 definitions, but what I’m drawing attention to is
39 a theological belief system that the clergy are different
40 from the laity; the clergy are in some sense brothers, in a
41 male sense, have responsibilities to each other, and there
42 is a distinction between the clergy and the laity.
MS FURNESS: The clericalism, as you have described it,
11 what effect or relationship did that have in respect of the
12 occurrence of abuse and the response of the Anglican Church
13 to that abuse?
14
15 PROFESSOR PARKINSON: The response in different dioceses
16 and over generations has taken many different forms. But
17 one of the observable features of the reports which have
18 been done – and I particularly focused on Adelaide and
19 Brisbane because we have reports of what had happened in
20 those dioceses going back some years – what one sees in
21 that is a very strong culture of protection of the clergy.
22 In Adelaide, those who challenged the issues, those who
23 tried to raise the issues above the parapet were attacked
24 for doing so. I think we have heard from Bishop Thompson
25 some very similar patterns in Newcastle.
26
27 That culture of protection of the clergy, that culture
28 of dealing with things internally in a way that makes
29 people discouraged from going to the police – that
30 self-facilitates abuse, because somebody who has a tendency
31 or an orientation towards the abuse of children is going to
32 make a risk calculation. What happens if it is disclosed?
33 If the risk of consequences is low, one is much more
34 encouraged to do that than if the risk of consequences is
35 high. So the culture of the church, in terms of how it
36 will deal with these issues, if it comes out, is itself
37 causative, or at least facilitative, of some sexual abuse
38 in church communities.
.17/03/2017 (260) 26651 PANEL 1.1
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