Yesterday I watched last week's Four Corners episode 'Broken Homes' on the child protection system for children in residential care. The moment that stayed with me, and no doubt many others, was former Victorian children's commissioner Bernie Geary talking about the case that affected him the most - 'the child who said "I'm not special in the eyes of anyone"'.
The program was about vulnerable children who need to be removed from their parental homes for their protection. But Bernie Geary's words in particular were also relevant to children from loving homes whose care is entrusted to institutions, such as Catholic and other boarding schools.
In effect it established this as a criterion for determining whether a child is or was receiving adequate care in the institution, or whether he or she the victims of abuse. I believe that abuse does not have to be active interference with a vulnerable individual. To fail to make a child feel special is neglect and abuse.
This is relevant to yesterday's announcement of the establishment of Catholic Professional Standards, an agency set up to monitor and report on child and vulnerable adult protection standards.
The media release suggests that the new body's responsibilities are broad - 'the protection of children and vulnerable adults across Church entities particularly in areas where there are no current relevant standards'.
It does not indicate that Catholic Professional Standards will have a remit for redressing past non-compliance. But it is very encouraging that it acknowledges that the body will give particular attention to areas where standards are lacking. The lack of standards is effectively lawlessness and a significant source of vulnerability and abuse for many young people in the way that civilian populations are subject to the whims of warlords in Somalia, Yemen, and other failed states.
What I like most about the announcement is that the body's attention is not confined to sexual abuse because much, or most, of the abuse in Catholic and other institutions was not specifically sexual. Last week I wrote about my own experience of what I called the 'culture of disrespect'. I think that Bernie Geary's criterion of a child being made to feel special - or not - is the obvious gold standard that should underscore everything else in the new body's standards checklist.
My fear was that Catholic Professional Standards would have a remit to focus on sexual abuse exclusively. But it's much broader. However there's not enough in the announcement to reassure me that it is interested in institutional reform rather than merely eliminating the 'bad eggs'. In other words scapegoating pedophile priests who, in many cases, are just as vulnerable as the children they abuse. I've often felt that putting them in prison is akin to jailing those suffering from mental illness. A convenient distraction from having to take responsibility for the source of the problem.
Relevant to this is a post on the Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission at John Menadue's blog. Catholics for Renewal Chair Peter Johnstone gets it right when he insists that 'the Church’s institutional leadership must publicly acknowledge that its dysfunctional governance was at the heart of its immoral response to the abuse of children in its care'. He compellingly spells out the nature of this dysfunctional governance and suggests that any attempt to address abuse in the Catholic Church will be a waste of time unless its dysfunctional governance is corrected.
The claim in the media release about the new Catholic Professional Standards body is that it is an 'independent' agency, operating at arm's length from the Catholic Church and its hierarchy. If that is really the case, we can expect that Catholic Professional Standards will comprehensively address the Church's dysfunctional governance, and do all in whatever power it has to correct this. Anything less than this and it will be plain for all to see that Catholic Professional Standards is about no more than window-dressing and the Church is not serious about ending abuse.