Where now for the Catholic Church? Colm Tóibín at the Melbourne Writers Festival 2013

Colm Tóibín talks to Barney Zwartz, Morag Fraser and Peter Horsfield about the Catholic Church, the new pope, and whether reform is possible following the crisis of child abuse within church ranks. www.lrb.co.uk/
In the summer of 2013, the London Review of Books was proud to host a stream of events as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival 2013. LRB editor Mary-Kay Wilmers, publisher Nicholas Spice, contributing editors and acclaimed authors Jeremy Harding, Andrew O’Hagan, Colm Tóibín, Jacqueline Rose and Marina Warner participated in 24 sessions ranging from conversations, panel discussions, master classes and the keynote Closing Night Address. On this page you will find exclusive videos, audio, photographs and podcasts from the festival.
ABOUT THE LRB
Since 1979, the London Review of Books has stood up for the tradition of the literary and intellectual essay in English. Each issue contains up to 15 long reviews and essays by academics, writers and journalists. There are also shorter art and film reviews, as well as poems and a lively letters page.
A typical issue moves through political commentary to science or ancient history by way of literary criticism and social anthropology. So, for example, an issue can open with a piece on the rhetoric of war, move on to reassessing the reputation of Pythagoras, follow that with articles on the situation in Iraq, the 19th-century super-rich, Nabokov’s unpublished novel, how saints got to be saints, the life and work of William Empson, and an assessment of the poetry of Alice Oswald.

[@dagibbons]

Platitudes by Tóibín

[@BeguiledandBothered]

To start it off Colm Toibin sounds like a shrugging lay (Catholic) preacher, with a warning to everyone lol

[@seancoleman5021]

I hit the thumbs down within seconds. Tóibín starts off with Seamus Heany, 'Famous Seamus', and goes on to talk about the need not to sacrifice your own spirituality when directing your anger at the Church. What anger? Why? The next speaker didn't improve things and the third was just as bad. Ten minutes and nobody has said anything worth listening to yet. If anyone has got to the end he might let me know what I missed. I am bailing out here at 12 minutes.

[@harryyoutt1532]

Sean Coleman yes best for all of us, most notably you that you stay away

[@donlonpat]

Maybe the abuse of children, who then become adults who have to struggle with the notion that it seems acceptable in a church with secret confession.