NZ's top Catholic says time to stop calling priests 'Father' in response to sexual abuse crisis

Saturday, 1 June 2019

Don't call me Father, call me John: New Zealand's top Catholic has declared he no longer wants to be referred to by his title and he's encouraging other priests to take the same step.

Cardinal John Dew, the Archbishop of Wellington, says dropping the traditional title 'Father' could be one way for priests to respond to the church's crisis over sexual offending by its senior officials.

Dew's counterpart, in Australia, George Pell, is serving a six year sentence for sexual offences against young boys; he's the most senior Catholic to be found guilty of such offending.

Cardinal John Dew, the Archbishop of Wellington, has a reputation as a reformer.

Dew says he's had positive and negative feedback since first raising the idea of ditching the honorifics in an internal church newsletter.

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Dew at the Catholic Centre in Hill Street Wellington, with Sacred Heart Cathedral behind him: he says dropping the honorific is one way for the church to change its attitude.

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Religious studies professor Peter Lineham says Dew is likely to face staunch opposition.

He was inspired by an article by a French priest, Jean-Pierre Roche, in Catholic newspaper Le Croix International, which said he no longer wanted to use the title, to help 'transform' a church 'shocked and appalled' by revelations of widespread sexual offending.

Dew said referring to priests by name was a way to respond to a call from the Pope Francis, that saying no to abuse was to 'say an emphatic no' to clericalism - a term which describes the misuse of power and a sense of entitlement from those in authority in the church.

Public relations specialist Deborah Pead: 'No more than a band-aid.'

'This is part of a package of changing the whole clerical attitude,' said Dew. 'All I am trying to do is get guys to look at what clericalism might look like and what attitudes might need to change. As this French priest says, it is quite a simple thing, but it might help.'

Dew said society had become more egalitarian, and most people already called him by his first name, and lots of other priests had the same experience, but he knew that some still 'had the attitude that I am the one in charge'.

But Dew could face an uphill battle. Retired Massey University religious studies professor Peter Lineham said he'd spoken to several priests about the change and they 'regarded it as the oddity of John Dew, that he would say such impossible things'. Lineham said Dew was regarded as a reformer with a habit of expressing his opinions.

It's been suggested that priests were able to conceal their offending for many years because of their high status in Catholic communities, which dissuaded victims from speaking up. 'He's on to something - the status implied by the title 'Father' gives the priest a peculiar exemption,' said Lineham. 'So often families protect people internally, and I suspect John Dew's reflecting precisely on those grounds.'

Lineham said some priests were clearly attracted to the high status of the role and seeing that diminished would bring opposition. And any major decision would need approval from Rome.

But Dew's comments were representative of a church with a Pope Francis, who wanted to modernise, but hadn't taken any practical steps towards that, leaving the church 'rudderless'.

'I think it would take an enormous amount to move that language from Catholicism, because at the heart of it is the special status of the priest, and the title is one way to preserve it. And deep down there is a deep protectiveness about the priesthood: it's the essence of the Catholic church.'

Veteran public relations executive Deborah Pead, of Pead PR, doubted that such a move could have any real impact on the church's damaged reputation.

'If that is part of a bigger plan, I would love to see the bigger plan, because fixing the reputation of the Catholic church is probably the most terrifying PR job on the planet, but also the most exciting one: what a great challenge,' Pead said.

'But they are dreaming if they think dropping the word 'Father' is going to deliver anything meaningful for them - that should be just one thing in a whole suite of activities. They need not just a re-brand but almost to rebirth the organisation.'

Herself a lapsed Catholic, Pead said she'd realised as a young woman that calling a Priest father 'implied we were their children, and almost put us in our place and in a position where we were forced to obey', and said that obedience had allowed paedophilia to flourish in the church. 'This would go some way to breaking down that fear - but on its own, it's nothing.'