Flashes of Insight: An interview with Father Hans Zollner

With much of the world in lockdown because of COVID 19, we are familiar with the phenomenon of pandemics and the effects they have on our lives.

For many years, the Catholic Church has been enduring the effects of a pandemic – sexual abuse by Catholic officials – and this viral pandemic has only intensified the risk elements in the Church’s sexual pandemic as Father Hans Zollner considers in this interview.

Shame and humiliation among Catholics around the world at the sexual misbehavior and abuse of minors has been a common experience for several decades.

The discovery of widespread abuse, deception and concealment has been a scandalizing experience for any Catholic who is exposed to daily media in most parts of the world.

And the scandalous behavior has fed the often not very well hidden prejudice against Catholics with cynics able to say, “See, I told you what a pack of self-righteous hypocrites those Catholics are!”

It has often taken media exposure of the abuse or legal intervention by civil (not Church) authorities for Catholics and their leaders to acknowledge how serious the situation has become.

In many countries from the USA to Australia, from Latin America to Europe, the intervention of State authorities has become necessary because it is clear in country after country that the Church has been unable to manage its own affairs.

For much more than the last decade but very visibly in the last decade, Father Hans Zollner SJ has been the leading Rome based specialist in addressing the scourge of sex abuse in Catholic institutions.

From his base at the Jesuits’ Roman university, the Gregoriana, to his membership of key Vatican committees and the consultancy he has provided to national churches on every continent where Catholics are present, Father Zollner has an unmatched body of experience and competence to say how the Church is handling the whole catastrophe of sexual abuse.

He spoke to Father Michael Kelly: