The New Zealand Catholic Bishops published a Pastoral Statement, 22 May 2025, on “Fighting Hopelessness in the Jubilee Year of Hope.” Survivors of abuse respond.

For the New Zealand Catholic bishops to speak up for the cause of peace and justice while denying peace and justice to victims of abuse within the Catholic Church of New Zealand is a far cry from genuine faith, justice, compassion, and hopefulness.

Church leaders moralising on the world stage when their actions do not align with their words makes their pastoral statements hypocritical, sanctimonious, and insincere.

For the New Zealand Catholic bishops to hide their actions behind prayer and press releases while ignoring the plight of victims and survivors within their dioceses makes their pastoral statements nothing more than hollow words.

Denying a compassionate response to complainants, not treating victims with respect and fairness, blocking proper investigations into abuse complaints, setting lawyers onto victims, and name-calling survivors, negates the bishops' moral credibility for a pastoral statement on fighting hopelessness.

The time has long passed for church leaders to practice what they preach. Victims and survivors of church-based abuse deserve the “compassion, respect, and fairness” promised by the New Zealand bishops, in positive actions and not in meaningless pastoral statements.

This positive action is needed from all people of goodwill as spoken about in the bishops’ Pastoral Statement.

The social sin of Catholics themselves to not hold their church leaders to account remains a major problem.

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