text: Re:  Coleridge and sexual relationships of priests.  
  
  What Coleridge and Australian bishops as a body need to do is a confidential survey in which priests are able to talk about sexual activity but are not individually identified.  They all know, if they can read, that other studies have shown 40%- 50% of priests at any one time are in a sexual relationship of some sort or are sexually active.  
  
  As bishops they do have a responsibility to seek to know and understand what works and what does not work within the rules, requirements the broader church says are necessary, especially as it affects priests.  This is not just up to the Vatican - it is up them to bring to the Pope as the reality.
  
  If the bishops know the truth, it means that is something they do need to address.  When they can say they don't know, when they pretend that it is rare and "too personal", they don't have to deal with it as the wide-spread lie that it is.  Cowardly - a refusal to face reality; a way to live a lie.