You are receiving this email because Catholics for Renewal has had earlier contact with you, possibly through the Open Letter to the Pope and Australian Bishops for their ad limina visit to the Vatican in October 2011.

Catholics for Renewal will submit to the national Royal Commission on Child Abuse and has lodged a submission with the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations. We seek your support for our submission (Catholics for Renewal website). The Victorian Inquiry will have a national impact.

 (STOP PRESS: CATHOLICS FOR RENEWAL ON 'MEET THE PRESS' CHANNEL 10 THIS SUNDAY, 10.30AM, 18 NOVEMBER)

You may recall that our Open Letter to the pope and bishops mentioned the 'sexual abuse scandal where the Church's initial response was manifestly inadequate and where some authorities, in their attempts to protect the institution, exposed innocent young people to grave harm'. That letter expressing serious concerns with the Church's governance, was signed by more than 8,000 Australian Catholics; our bishops did little more than hand it over to the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Bishop Pat Power, recently retired Bishop of Canberra-Goulburn, made the following observation about the sexual abuse crisis:  'Sexual abuse perpetrated by priests is the gravest crisis faced by the Church since the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation needing not just a focus on abusers but a total systemic reform of Church structures.' (bolding added)

The highly regarded Cardinal Carlo Martini SJ, in a final interview before his death on 31 August 2012, described the Church as being '200 years out of date' and called for 'radical change, starting from the Pope and the bishops', noting that:

'our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous,' and 'thepaedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation'.

The Church's reactions to the inquiries has minimised the Church's grave failings, at times criminal, in responding to the sexual abuse of children, and ignores the need for radical reform of the Church's governance, its structures and practices. The sexual abuse scandal and the Church's responses to the scandal show the lack of accountability in the Church's decision making. As people of the church, we must all accept some responsibility for these failings.

Catholics for Renewal has outlined in its Victorian Parliamentary submission deficiencies in past and present governance of the Catholic Church, sadly shown in the Church's response to the sex abuse scandal. Some of those deficiencies may be addressed by public findings of the Committee and new State laws, even by Church processes. However, there must also be major change to the Church's governance, structures, and practices to ensure effective accountability. The sex abuse scandal has dramatically exposed the deficiencies in Church governance which we identified in the Open Letter to the Pope and Australian Bishops, especially lack of accountability and engagement with the people of the Church.