Robert Delaney

Opinion | Sex abuse in US churches is a stain on America’s human rights record, and China should point that out

Robert Delaney says such a move wouldn’t excuse Beijing from its own human rights transgressions, but it might pressure the US to confront the culture of abuse and cover-up in its Catholic churches and most devout religious communities

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Parishioners pray before celebrating mass at the Cathedral Church of Saint Patrick in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on August 17. A grand jury released a report last week detailing seven decades of rampant sexual abuse affecting more than 1,000 children, by some 300 priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses. Photo: AP

Robert Delaney

Published: 3:04pm, 20 Aug 2018Updated: 8:15pm, 20 Aug 2018

The Chinese government is regularly subjected to charges of human rights abuses. The latest came earlier this month in the form of accusations by a UN human rights panel that 1 million ethnic Uygurs in China were being held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

China rejected the report’s findings last week, insisting that freedom of religion in Xinjiang is protected. The issue will not end here, though. Scrutiny of the way China treats Uygurs will continue, as it should, as will similar inquiries into the rights of Tibetans and other groups in the country that have challenged the central government.

But, last week, Beijing got a new counterargument against the US, if the foreign ministry chooses to use it against critics there, in the form of a 900-page report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania. The report unveiled the systematic abuse of more than 1,000 children by “predator priests” in the state over a period of 70 years.

At first glance, you might point out that judicial bodies in the US are publicising the abuse, and therefore conclude that America is doing the right thing.

But that conclusion would overlook several facts.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, sprinkles holy water during Easter mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, in April 2011. The grand jury report accuses Wuerl of helping to protect abusive priests when he was Pittsburgh’s bishop. Photo: AP