Clerical privilege took a heavy blow when Catholic bishops were summoned to appear at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to child sexual abuse (RC).  The             church answering to the state.   (more…)

While the Catholic population is increasing, active participation in parish life is steadily decreasing. This means that the pool of future lay leaders is steadily getting shallower. If this decline is to be reversed, now is the time to select lay leaders, train them to lead parishes and then formally appoint them as Parish Leaders.   (more…)

Love is a many splendored thing. So, too is a diamond. The more skilled the diamond cutter, the more brilliant the diamond’s sparkle. Love and diamonds pair perfectly.  (more…)

What he stands for is the real object of our celebration – love of family and friends; love of enemies, too. He stands for peace, for fair consideration of everyone we deal with, for a world in which we work not only for our own good but for the good of others too.  
(more…)

Easter brings Easter eggs and hot cross buns. You see the egg and dart pattern on the frieze of some Victorian-period buildings. But it goes way back to classical times. The eternal question – life or death.

Two men looked out through the prison bars. One saw mud, the other saw stars.

Malcolm Turnbull assures us “It’s never been a better time to be an Australian”. But Tony Abbott effectively tells us to be alert AND alarmed. George Pell’s motto is “Don’t Be Afraid” making you wonder what is he afraid of? In our darker moments we fear he may be right. They’re out to get us.

It is not the best time to be a Syrian even though history tells us that Aleppo has seen golden days. Tamils in Sri Lanka and Rohingyas in Burma see mud rather than stars. But don’t come uninvited to Australia because you will end up in Nauru. The scene is hopeless.

The Middle East is a cauldron of aggression, hate and revenge. Israel is fear-driven despite being miles ahead of its hostile neighbours in the arms race. Solution: build even more settlements on Palestinian land. Compound past mistakes. Yemen has been ripped apart for years by a proxy war. Egypt’s dictators radicalised the Muslim Brotherhood. Remember the Iranian martyrs blessed by the ayatollah. Then came Hezbollah in Lebanon. Then Hamas in Palestine. Hostility notching ever higher. Offense breeds reprisal and the cauldron heats up a bit more. The scene is hopeless.

Second generation North African migrants in France and Belgium, boiling with fear and anger, bring death to European cities. Deep, burning resentment for past wrongs – felt now. There’s always a deep reason when lives are put on the line. The scene seems hopeless.

Australia has its own disaffected youth. Apex gangs run riot in Melbourne and grim faced civic leaders talk of the “full force of the law”. What next? “Three strikes and you’re out”? No problem falling back on a discredited tactic as long as it slakes a thirst for revenge and drums up a few votes from a confused crowd. Like France, we have welcomed these youngsters in, but have not been diligent enough educating them and getting them jobs. We seem to be institutionalising disadvantage.

The USA’s poor are destitute – and are not happy. Those on middle incomes have had stagnant wages for decades. They are not happy, blame Washington and take it out on them by voting for the Tea Party. Wealthy Republicans are the only ones getting richer. But they want more – and are not happy. America’s military is the greatest in the world, but not very good at winning wars. It’s a bit tired of fighting now. But Mike Moore still asks “Where to invade next?” Fear you can’t do anything about it breeds hopelessness.

Donald Trump wants to make America great again. A big man with a big stick and a big voice. We’ll use the stick and we will do what it takes. Bring back the water board. What next? Crank up the Enola Gay? Don’t laugh. That’s the direction that rhetoric takes you.

Hope seems lost. Read the Brussels bomber’s despairing “will”. You want to hit back at unfair manipulators. But, if you do, you make it worse.

Nelson Mandela seemed to have an answer. Let’s talk. Let truth and justice set the record straight rather than getting even. Burma’s National League for Democracy has old campaigners back in the ranks after years of unjust imprisonment. True Buddhists, they believe that anger makes you suffer more than the oppressor. We live to fight another day. That’s another answer.

Easter brings us Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns. The cross is always there – sometimes worse than others. When will it ever end? But when the egg hatches we have life anew. Some believe it. Some can’t.

Easter is a vote for hope.

When Cardinal George Pell enters the witness box at the Royal Commission we see a legal counsel interviewing him to find to what extent he is to blame for a failure in his church’s duty of care. The adversarial setup puts him on the defensive. He admits past reticence to intervene, but says others are mainly to blame. But as he defends himself he is also displaying himself. He is, on his own admission wooden –emotionally distant. He is sure of himself but unconvincing to others. What we see is an ideologue in action. How did he get to here?

During the 1960s a liberal movement swept the Catholic Church. Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council. It opened the gates of a fortress church to new ideas, new liturgy, new rules. It was a pastoral council, It reversed the tight church control that had become entrenched over the years following the 16^th century Council of Trent.

In true Hegelian style, an opposing movement developed, working hard to retain the pre-council policies and rules. So, the progressive/conservative culture wars began in the late 1960s. During the 70s this liberal movement grew strong. But during the 80s the conservatives regained lost ground. Karol Wojtyla, who was elected pope in 1978, was focussed on dismantling the liberal changes. He wanted a disciplined church with crystal clear policies in creed and action like the one that sustained him in the dark days of communist Poland.

George Pell was ordained for the diocese of Ballarat in 1966. His bishop, Jim O’Collins, was a committed conservative and strongly aligned with Bob Santamaria, the leading lay conservative voice. He recruited George to his team. He sent him off to Oxford to get a doctorate in order to be able to joust with the progressives on his return. Jim wanted someone who could take on the likes of Max Charlesworth – a leading academic progressive voice. George returned from Oxford as a Conservative Warrior and a protégée of Bob Santamaria.

George has remained true to that vocation ever since. He has always been a politician – an ecclesiastical politician. His career path took off when he was appointed principal of Aquinas Teachers College, Ballarat in 1974. This appointment introduced him to wheeling and dealing with governments and unions. Ballarat’s Aquinas College became a campus of the newly created Australian Catholic University with George as a key participant in the negotiations between church and government. From 1978 to 1986 the papal nuncio was Luigi Brambilla. He was close to Bob Santamaria and would have noticed this rising star so politically in tune with the new pope. By 1985 it was Ballarat’s turn to provide a rector for the seminary. George got the job – another good career step.

In 1987 Archbishop Frank Little asked Rome for two auxiliary bishops. He got Peter Connors and George. George was Rome’s choice. Rome now had its man in the Melbourne curia. In 1990 George was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) – the Church’s policy watchdog headed by Josef Ratzinger. His conservative ideology and warrior style had gained approval on high. This job involved regular participation in Roman meetings and wheeling and dealing in Vatican politics. Over the 10 years that he held that job George became a recognised figure in Vatican corridors.

In January 1996 Frank Little went to Rome to negotiate a congenial coadjutor with right of succession. He came home empty handed. Then, the following July he took early retirement and who was appointed to replace him but George.What had happened? Well, George told the Royal Commission that Frank had been asked to put in his retirement early. That response shone the spotlight on George’s political connections in Rome. George denied that Frank’s retirement had been negotiated with him. But whichever way it went, Rome now had their man in Australia’s biggest diocese – and George knew about the intrigue. Wandering the Vatican halls of power at regular intervals pays off. In 2001 George was appointed archbishop of Sydney. He became a cardinal in 2003 and got his job as Secretary of the Economy in Rome in 2014.

George’s conservative ideology was highlighted by another sequence in the Royal Commission. He claimed that he had been kept in the dark by Frank Little and the Catholic Education Office (CEO) about the background to the Fr. Peter Searson case. He and Frank had “quite different approaches to theology”. The CEO knew he was not “cut from the same cloth” as the archbishop. They knew he did not approve of their approach to religious education. He claimed to have cleaned the show up when he became archbishop. This claim is spelt out in an address he gave in Cork in 2011. It is worth looking up at: (http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2011/oct2011p3_3622.html).

Andrew Bolt interviewed George shortly after his Royal Commission appearance (http://www.skynews.com.au/video/news/top_stories/2016/03/05/the-cardinal-pell-interview.html). “I was a supporter of Bob Santamaria” he said as a reason for the wariness of bishops and priests in trusting him. What a story that claim entailed! Back in the 50s and 60s a large portion of Melbourne priests would also have supported Bob Santamaria. But after the Labour split in 1953 and the divisiveness of the DLP, most changed their mind and saw Bob’s National Civic Council (NCC) as damaging to the Church as well as the ALP.

“Radical liberalism in faith and morals around the world is destroying the Church” he told Andrew Bolt. He remains the proud, ideological warrior in the style of Santamaria, Wojtyła and Ratzinger. His realization that this set him apart from most priests shows he is aware of the larger liberal wing in the Australian Catholic Church. Conservatives like George still make a lot of noise in the Church. But the opposing wing is larger and more pastoral. They believe that ideology is the antithesis of genuine faith. If you are interested I have written on this topic elsewhere. It is on my blog at:

• http://catholicview.typepad.com/catholic_view/2015/09/ideology-is-not-faith.html and
• http://catholicview.typepad.com/catholic_view/2012/08/the-millennial-jubilee-from-ideology-to-faith-from-fear-to-freedom-1.html

The present pope abhors ideology – of right or of left. His model of priesthood is Shepherd-Pastor rather than Defender-Warrior. But George is unfazed as his Royal Commission testimony shows. And the culture wars are still alive – especially in the Vatican.

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic priest who ‘writes a bit’.

The sexual abuse of children creates many victims – and many levels of victimhood.

Cultures, including ours, have rules about sexual activity. Cultural deviations from what is considered normal meet a range of cultural responses from approval to acceptance, to disapproval, to condemnation as immoral or, finally, criminalisation. Our culture has a minimum age of consent for sexual activity. It criminalises sexual activity with children. Many states have laws of mandatory reporting.

The western world learned an extraordinary amount about paedophilia during the last quarter of the 20^th century. At the start of that quarter most knew that it happened – but little else. It was an area of bewildered gossip. The grapevine of certain professional groups such as school officials, scout leaders, caring professionals, including priests, carried distasteful stories of confreres but with little hard evidence and detail. There was very little professional psychology research on the subject

By 1985 the penny was dropping for those professionally involved. By the turn of the century the professional research was vast and the man in the street was both aware of paedophilia and shocked at its extent.

The psychology profession distinguishes between paedophilia (the attraction to pre-pubescent children) and ephebophilia (the attraction to young adolescents).

Paedophilia:

• is a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children;
• is widespread;
• is a psychological disorder;
• is irreversible – resembling an addiction;
• has a devastating, life-long effect on its victims often including depression, chemical dependency, inability to trust and difficulty in forming adult relationships, suicide;
• is not merely a moral offence but a crime.

The allied offence of sexual abuse of adolescents, though distinct from paedophilia, is abuse if the subject has not consented or is under legal age or is overwhelmed by the status rank of the abuser. This, too, occurs; often in a social context which has a duty of care such as a school, youth organization or church.

Molested children are the primary victims often carrying the scars for the rest of their lives. That victimhood is compounded when they are not believed or, worse, are accused of lying. The image of a little kid being accused – even beaten – for reporting abuse is horrifying.

Those responsible for the child become secondary victims when they keep the matter quiet out of a sense of shame or because the perpetrator has community status or for fear of community backlash.

As community awareness of the extent of the offense became clearer, social anger against the perpetrators grew. This was compounded when offenders gained access to children because they were officials of institutions with a duty of care for children entrusted to them – churches, schools, youth organizations. But, in a sense even the perpetrators are victims – victims of the compulsiveness of their desires compounded by institutional circumstances which will be outlined later.

Officials of institutions where abuse happened often covered up the offences in order to protect the institution’s reputation and assets. They pleaded “not guilty”, putting the onus of proof on the victims.

Caring institutions thus played false to their primary purpose – the care for the child. As awareness of the extent of institutional offending and the extreme nature of the devastation caused to the victims grew, so did public anger. The Churches came off worst in this. Of all institutions they were committed to the care and protection of the weak and here they were inflicting a second trauma on their victims by mounting a legal defence. This legal approach brought even more opprobrium on the Churches.

In the face of a corporate scandal today’s accepted wisdom is to admit the fault, open the whole matter to public view, apologise sincerely, take effective steps to remedy the causes and offer some form of compensation. The alternative of secrecy in the hope that it will go away fails in today’s open society.

The Church still carries the baggage of a time when, as the established Church, it could enforce secrecy and control the means of communication. The transparency and accountability expected of contemporary government, businesses and NGOs is not the policy of the Catholic Church. Its system of governance is still monarchical and its processes mostly officially secret. Internal Church scandals, especially sexual ones, are to be processed secretly. This was reinforced by a specific papal decree in 1922. Bishops dealing with delinquent clergy were over a barrel when faced with state laws of misprision or mandatory reporting. And, as with most institutions, old habits die hard.

Cardinal Law’s “We have our own way of dealing with these things” led to disaster in Boston. The European Church and its Latin derivatives such as South America still have not learned that lesson. See how Pope John Paul II lionised Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, fundraiser extraordinaire, but a notorious sexual abuser. Look at the Karadima case in Chile. Look at the Vatican’s most recent school for new bishops where Mgr. Tony Anatrella, an expert in psychology, told them that they need not necessarily report priests who offend. Look at the many bishops who project the image of a hard-nosed company man rather than that of a caring pastor – God’s disciplinarian rather than Jesus’s disciple.

Clerical privilege is another hangover from the days of the established Church. The revolutions of the 17^th and 18^th century limited the power of king and church. Clerical privilege, by which clergy could be prosecuted only in Church courts, not secular ones, has gone. But a mentality of clerical exceptionalism still remains, particularly in Europe and Latin America. Seminaries still institutionalise clerical exceptionalism with their segregated and live-in training.

Mandatory celibacy of the priesthood is another example of clerical exceptionalism. It underscores the otherness of the priest. But the price is endemic hypocrisy. It is very difficult for any person to spend a whole lifetime without some sexual activity. Richard Sipe estimates that about 50% of celibate clergy go through some period of forbidden sexual activity. If and when such action happens, guilt is compounded by the need to live a lie.

Celibacy is not so strong a deterrant for those with sexual attractions which are socially not acceptable. Their desires are socially unacceptable in any case. This skews the population of applicants for priesthood but sets up an even more disastrous scenario if there is later failure.

The mid 80s were a watershed in our general understanding of the abuse of minors – both the phenomenon and its extent. Then, as the 21^st century dawned public awareness and anger at official, systemic cover-up came to boiling point. The film “Spotlight” has documented the watershed moment when the Boston Globe exposed systemic Church cover up. Now we had another type of victim – the officials seen as embodying this corporate failure. They were victims of the hubris of themselves or their institution. Cardinal Law was run out of Boston in the wake of the Spotlight expose. The hubris of Pope John Paul II in rewarding Law with a plum appointment in Rome threw petrol on the flames of public anger. Now Cardinal Pell is experiencing the same with Australia’s Royal Commission.

So many victims. Lives ruined. Institutions fractured. Hope shattered. Faith lost. And real closure a distant dream.

Eric Hodgens is a Catholic Priest who writes a bit.

Christmas is a Christian afterthought. The earliest Christian writings (Paul’s epistles and Mark’s Gospel) don’t mention Jesus’ birth. The first to do so is Matthew’s gospel where the author posits the birth simply as another event in the fuller story of God’s salvation of His people. Luke’s gospel has the more discursive story containing Mary and Joseph’s journey to Jerusalem, the stable and the shepherds recognising the newly born “saviour who is Christ, the Lord.” The main story is Jesus’s life, death and resurrection to a new form of life.

A Tony Abbott recent speech claims that Islam’s problem is that, unlike us, it has not had the benefit of a reformation or enlightenment. The oversimplified argument runs: Europe has experienced the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment. Out of this experience has come the modern, secular state with its commitment to human rights. Christianity, being the dominant religion of Europe, has equally benefited from this experience. On the other hand Islam is of Middle Eastern origin and its history did not include these experiences. Hence Abbott’s advice to Islam.

The advice is not well thought through. Islam has had its own watershed experiences. The Sunnis came out on top of the Shia in the 7^th century. In the 10^th century argument between the Mu’tazilites and the Asherites, Revelation in the Quran won out against reason as the source of truth thus reinforcing the power of the Ulema (scholars of Muslim religious law) over the philosophers. Sufism was a new development of the 13^th century. The Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia is the result of an 18^th century puritanical reform movement.

However, Europe, after the Reformation and Enlightenment, is no poster boy for harmony. The Reformation and the Enlightenment promoted rather than protected Europe from conflict. The reformation spawned Europe’s horrific Thirty years War. The Enlightenment led to France’s Reign of Terror. Since then we have had two world wars originating in Europe and plenty of new guerrilla movements like the IRA, Baader-Meinhof and the Red Brigades. We have simply re-defined terror from state-sponsored to group-sponsored.

Further, the history of the Muslim South looks very like Europe’s when you recall the counter insurgency struggle in post-war Malaya, the Sukarno military terror and the Kopassus efforts in East Timor and West Papua. One senses that it is more to do with the haves and the have nots than with belief.

Now it’s the Middle East’s turn. The West, provoked by Islamist guerrilla attacks, has sewn the wind by invasion and reaped the whirlwind. The Islamists are just a new grouping of guerrillas who wave an Islam flag rather than a communist, Christian or nationalist one. How do we sort this mess out?

The common denominator seems to be the closed mind of fundamentalist ideology. We see it in ISIS and Al Qaeda. But we also see it in Donald Trump, the USA Tea Party, the Bolt Report, the black armband historians, the Pell faction in the Vatican and the hard right of the Australian Liberal party instanced by Tony Abbott. Peace entails give and take. If you close your mind you can’t negotiate. It’s all or nothing.

One positive result of the Enlightenment is the development of historical and literary criticism. The historico-critical method can analyse and explain institutions and their literature. It is the opposite of fundamentalism which interprets texts literally and laws as eternal.

The opening assertion of this article – that Christmas is a Christian afterthought – is an application of the historico critical approach.

Fundamentalist Christians read their texts literally. God sent Jesus from heaven with a ready-made plan to set up the Church with all its beliefs, structures, laws and practices. The plan begins with the coming of Jesus. He grows up, preaches his message, picks his followers and gives them the blueprint for the future. The result is the Christianity of today.

But an historico-critical examination of the Christian beginnings and scripture shows that there was a staged evolution of the way Jesus’s followers came into being, organised themselves and developed their belief system. The more you get to know the context and the power play of what went on, the more insight you get into the reasons why it developed the way it did.

The leadership of Protestant and Catholic Christianity opposed enlightenment ideas in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Look at Pope Pius IX’s infamous Syllabus of Errors of 1864. The start of the 20^th century was marked by Pope Pius X’s witch-hunt against “Modernism” and the USA’s Protestant Fundamentalist movement. New thought tends to undermine the power of the ruling group. So, religious hierarchies tend to oppose new thought – whether Christian Islamic or other.

Today’s Christianity is a product of history. So, too, is today’s Islam. Islam would benefit from an historico-critical analysis of its scriptures, traditions, history and institutions. If this could happen, overcoming clerical opposition, it would be liberating for Islam.

Meanwhile, Christmas is a feast of peace. Or is it? The inquisitions, the crusades, the religious wars, slavery, colonial conquest, witch hunts, apartheid, racist pogroms have been dark periods for church as well as the state.

Luke is our most Christmassy gospel writer. His angels greet the new-born saviour with the song: Glory to God in the highest; and, on earth, peace to men of good will. Good will is the key to peace. If Christmas can promote more good will it can then be a feast of peace.

Eric Hodgens is a Catholic Priest who writes a bit.

In Greek synod means on the way together – (odos means a way; syn means together). The model is peripatetic– walking around. Aristotle used to walk round with his disciples discussing issues and his school got called the Peripatetic School.

The Synod of Bishops was set up after Vatican II and met in 1967, 1971 , 1974 and 1977 under Paul VI. These were meetings of a representative group of the world’s bishops looking at significant issues selected by the pope. There was genuine consultation but the pope alone wrote the final document. By the time the fifth meeting was held in 1980 John Paul II was pope. He changed the whole nature of the synod and used it as a vehicle to impose his own views. Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Eric Perkins was shocked on arriving in Rome for the 1980 Synod on the Family only to find that there was no room for considering the findings he had collected from nation-wide discussion groups. In fact the projected conclusions had already been written

Pope Francis called an extraordinary synod last year to prepare for this year’s ordinary synod – so-called because it comes on the normal three yearly schedule. The topic was The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary World.

One of Francis’s objectives has been to restore genuine consultation to the synod. He has achieved this. They did talk together. Their consolidated opinions achieved a two thirds majority on every paragraph of the final document.

A contentious issue was admitting divorced and remarried to the sacraments. Could this be softened?

In Greek epeikeia means gentleness or leniency. In church canon law it means a modified interpretation of the law when the law does not fit the circumstances of a case.

The “internal forum” stands in contrast to the external forum of a court where evidence can be proved. When this is not possible a conscientious judgement can be made in the internal forum. This has been a long held procedure in moral theology, but making use of it was authoritatively discouraged and policed under Wojtyla and Ratzinger.

Between epeikeia and internal forum people can work out a solution in their own case. This opens a way to approval of Communion for divorcees. By taking this path the synod bishops saw themselves as opening a door. The trouble is that the horse had bolted long ago. Most remarried divorcees who really want to go to Communion do so – and with their pastor’s encouragement. But restatement of the embargo has been so alienating that many no longer even want to receive. And any decent pastor knows that once they go, they go forever.

Another of Francis’s objectives was to replace the doctrinal watchdog focus with that of pastoral care. The voting shows that a third are hesitant. Still, this is not bad when most of the bishops have been appointed by JP II or Benedict XVI who made ideological support for their narrow view of orthodoxy and orthopraxis a pre-requisite for selection as a bishop.

The pope’s final address commented that the synod had “laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families” He also referred to conspiracy theories that hindered passing on the Church’s message. This was taken as possibly referring to a letter to the pope from 13 cardinals, led by George Pell, complaining that the synod processes were rigged to favour a liberal outcome.[1] The complaint was a bit rich since all the synods since 1977 were just rubber stamps for the pope.

The pope certainly has an opposition and George has established himself as a leading member.

Conformists do not make good leaders as the current episcopacy shows. The pope is slowly reshaping the episcopacy by trying to select pastoral bishops. Cupich to Chicago and more recently Zuppi to Bologna and Lorefice to Palermo are examples. There is an inbuilt problem here. The pope alone makes these appointments without any real consultation of the local churches. Mind you he is not making a welter of it as is shown by his promotion of Gerhardt Muller in CDF and Robert Sarah to head the Congregation for Worship.

His future appointments will be watched with interest. In a still clerical Church the talent pool is getting very shallow. Will he bring more consultation to the appointment of bishops?

Meanwhile, back at the local franchise the Parish Priest is still king – but not for much longer. The clergy is dying out. PPs need to divest more decision making to laity. Most parishes still have enough willing and interested members. Select a good principal for the school – and one who sees the school as a work of the parish. Appoint good people to be in charge of liturgy, pastoral care, sacramental life and parish finances. Get a good secretary/manager to give them professional support and to run routine parish business. Then pick someone to be the coordinator of it all so that, when Father is gone, the show can still go on.

Finally it is Spring Carnival time. Some tips for the big race. Bergoglio is a long-distance stayer with the rail advantage. Pell has won at some country meetings but is looking tired and may have broken down (https://goo.gl/7AvunR) and Coleridge has found an opening in the pack and is heading strongly to the finishing line. Place your bets. Cross your fingers. Here’s hoping.

[1] The signatories include:

– Carlo Caffarra, now retired archbishop of Bologna, theologian, formerly the first president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family;
– Thomas C. Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada;
– Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, United States;
– Willem J. Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Holland;
– Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest
– Gerhard L. Müller, former bishop of Regensburg, Germany, since 2012 prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith;
– Wilfrid Fox Napier, archbishop of Durban, South Africa, president delegate of the synod underway as also at the previous session of the synod of October 2014;
– George Pell, archbishop emeritus of Sydney, Australia, since 2014 prefect in the Vatican of the secretariat for the economy;
– Mauro Piacenza, head of Apostolic Penitentiary;
– Robert Sarah, former archbishop of Conakry, Guinea, since 2014 prefect of the congregation for divine worship and the discipline

– Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, Italy;
– Jorge L. Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela.
– Armond Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris.

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic Priest in Melbourne who ‘writes a bit’.

The Catholic Church is really two churches these days. The first is the hierarchy. The second is rank and file active Catholics together with their priests. This second group is the real church. Over the last 35 years, now, they have heard what the hierarchy was saying and simply have not agreed.

They thought that communal penance services worked and confession didn’t. They continued to use communal services despite John Paul II’s forbidding of them. They knew that the time had come to contemplate ordaining married men – and women too. Many knew that re-married divorcees were going to Holy Communion and even encouraged them if formally asked. Many were pleased when parishioners they knew to be gay were ready to take an active part in parish life. They were embarrassed by Cardinal Pell’s public refusal of Communion to gay Catholics. Many knew priests who were celebrating the marriages of divorcees.

Many rolled their eyes when they read rules for receiving Communion in parish newssheets. Most accepted contraception as normal and respected the consciences of those who used it.

Many thought that knee-jerk reaction to new ethical situations was bad policy. IVF resulted from new research and so called for new ethics.

Many priests were disappointed with action in the Church abroad. They agreed with theologians who had been censured or sidelined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the former inquisition. All these theologians were streets ahead of their long faced inquisitors. Roman power play at its worst.

They thought that Liberation Theology looked right in South America, and that Basic Christian Communities may well be the answer in a clergy-deprived world. They thought that you found better leadership in USA from the women religious than from the bishops pursuing them.

Something was wrong. All these people were facing a Church which was in decline precisely because it would not seek new answers to new questions. Our world out there was changing. It was secular and pluralistic. The Church was just one institution among many. Its old privilege was gone. In this new climate it had to make its mark on society from a standing start. It needed leadership which could see this challenge and recontextualize its message. All this defensiveness, all this pre-occupation with sexual rules, was creating a community which was exclusive rather than inclusive.

Many open-eyed pastors believed that simply thinking like Jesus and believing in Jesus – basic Christianity – had something to say to this pluralistic world. But a Church preoccupied with its old formulas, its rules forged in a past cultural context, its institutional structure and total clerical control looked insular and passé.

Then along came Pope Francis. Clericalism is a cancer, he said. Reality is more important than the idea, he said. Get real! Adapt! The Church has a message to proclaim; a way of love, mercy and forgiveness to live. Embrace the world. Try to understand it; heal its wounds, give comfort in its sorrows. Don’t go lecturing it while nobody is listening. You have lost the high moral ground. Clerical privilege is over. The Christian confessional state is finished. Tribal Catholic affiliation is waning. Any new evangelization must start from scratch. Pope Francis is right. An inward looking Church will fail in its mission. How can we look outward again?

First step is to think over Pope Francis’ dictum that the reality is more important than the idea. For too long we have been forced to take the roadblocks listed above seriously – even when we knew they were obstructing the gospel. Talk about inward looking! Doctrinal arguments mean nothing to your average Catholic. They see the selectivity of moral outrage as part of the culture wars. They believe that personal sexual morality is better adjudicated by a sincere conscience in touch with contemporary cultural values. If the bishops are meant to be a moral beacon they have lost their mojo. It is time for us to get back to the reality.

Secondly, most of us believe that the core message of Jesus is very relevant to today’s Western World. So, alert to our world today, let us re-evaluate the priorities of our own belief. Odds are that you will think we have been wasting psychological energy on the wrong issues.

Thirdly let’s get rid of clericalism in our seminaries as Pope Francis wishes. Clericalism is more alienating today than ever. Spending years in the clerical hothouse of the seminary is not a good preparation for a hands-on pastor today. A seminary producing clerical graduates is on the wrong track.

Fourthly, we need to give real authority to those lay leaders we spot in our parishes. Devolve real power so that it is more and more in lay hands. This need is heightened due to the short sighted policy of importing priests of an alien culture. Authorising the laity to lead, preach, teach and celebrate is the only answer. It will happen eventually– so better to be prepared.

 

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic priest from Melbourne, who ‘writes a bit’.

The Melbourne Age said on Sunday 3 May that the Catholic Church was attracting more trainee priests.

SBS had a similar article.

Both are factually wrong. The last big year of seminary entries was 1968. Recruitment dropped steadily for 20 years and has been steady for the last 35 years.

Corpus Christi College is Victoria and Tasmania’s Catholic Seminary. It is typical of all Australia’s seminaries. Have a look at its entry numbers.

For 35 years Corpus Christi has averaged 9 entries a year. Only a third of them stay till they get ordained. That results in 3 or 4 ordinations a year.

Corpus Christi College should be ordaining at least 12 a year if it wants to have a ratio of one priest for each 5000 Catholics.

Because numbers have been so steady for the last 35 years you are entitled to predict it’s not going to change. Change the way the Church is run – or die out.

The question needs to be asked because the Catholic Church is in trouble. Firstly, it has a . credibility problem. Affiliation has been dropping since the 60s. Sunday Mass attendance, the first indicator of affiliation, backs this up. The Church’s compelling message of Jesus as the icon of life defeating death is not getting through. Relentlessly, Catholics are feeling more and more marginalised or leaving the Church altogether. Bishops are not leading. Sexual and financial scandals have blackened the Church’s image. The administration is too centralised and preoccupied with issues which are irrelevant to the lives of people whether Catholic and not.

Secondly, the Church has a ministry problem. Canon Law demands that an ordained priest be the sole leader of every parish. But it is forty five years since enough have come forward to fill the basic demand for Parish Priests. It is a seller’s market for ordained priests whether suitable for the task or not. Parishes with good priestly leadership are doing well – but they are getting fewer.

Pope Francis has already brought a big improvement to the credibility problem. The whole world seems to be listening to him. His message is positive, encouraging and patently sincere. He mediates a God of love and mercy. He understands life’s complexities and tries for practical answers.

To understand the Francis Effect it helps to get inside his mind.

For years he has held a “Theology of the People”.  God’s holy, faithful people get things right.

For years he has worked by four principles:

• Unity is more important than conflict.
• The whole is more important than the part;
• Time is more important than space.
• Reality is more important than the idea.

This last principle means that meeting real pastoral problems takes precedence over ideology.

Rome has changed already. He has sidelined doctrinaire moralising, insisting on God’s love and mercy. He has brought genuine, open discussion to Episcopal Synods.

His response to the financial scandal is a Secretariat for the Economy.

His response to priestly paedophilia is a Commission on the Sexual Abuse of Children.

And all of this is being done consultatively with his C9 committee of cardinals.

In two consistories he has created cardinals from diverse places with diverse importance. No dioceses can any longer presume its bishop will be a cardinal. The voting college has changed and, presumably, will be even more diverse if he has consistories each year. He knows what he is doing, and is doing it fast. His leadership in Rome is obvious.

At diocesan level his main influence is in the appointment of bishops. He has moderated the balance of the Congregation for Bishops which processes the appointments. The present generation of bishops has been chosen for their ideology rather than pastoral leadership. He has instructed the Congregation that bishops must be, above all, pastoral. The end result remains to be seen. Politics are hyperactive in this area. It takes a long time to replace a generation of bishops. Further, low recruitment of priests for forty years now means that the pool of episcopal candidates is very shallow.

The main problem is at parish level. The law insists that there be a Parish Priest. The shortage of priests is a world-wide problem. With local recruitment at near zero, bishops have scrounged priests from afar – often from places more needy than ours. Most are foreign – nationally, culturally and linguistically – creating other problems. Increasingly parishes are under de facto lay leadership with an absentee Parish Priest maintaining nominal supervision. The result is a need for a structural change to ministry.

If we open the leadership catchment to lay Catholics we have a wider choice. Remember St Paul’s model at Corinth which drew on the charisms of the whole community.

Forget the seminary system. Above all it has been a school for clericalism. Rather, select candidates on their ability, initiate them into the mystery then train speakers to proclaim, carers to care, organizers to administer, teachers to teach, liturgists to preside. Finally, give leadership to those whose leadership skills show up in their other work. Commission them all. Ordain the liturgists.

This would entail ending the clerical class. Still, it has to go if parishes and dioceses are going to work. Pope Francis speaks out against clericalism – but is he willing and able to change this entrenched structure?

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic priest. This article first appeared in The Swag, a magazine published by Catholic priests in Australia.

The Phillip Hughes story gripped a nation. So much potential felled in an instant. Grief amplified by promise and love lost. Phillip was a Little Aussie Battler like us. But what promise! Looming all the larger because it is gone.

Pup becomes a tower of strength. We see him in a new light. Rival teams are at one. The game is bigger than the individual. The next test is both contest and tribute. An injured but newly-inspired captain makes the right calls, hits another century and wins; all the more meaningful because of a valiant, striving opponent. David Warner salutes heaven for his century. We intuitively know what he means. A great story.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast. You can put up with grief if there is hope that things will be better. Only when all hope is gone do we get the apocalypse.

El Greco’s painting of The Adoration of the Magi tells a like story.

 

 

The adorable baby is all light. Then an amazed onlooker raises his arms – and we see a cross. The scene is both hopeful and ominous. We can never completely avoid jeopardy. The dispossessed shepherds find hope in this child. The angels’ joyful banner reads “we praise you, we bless you, we glorify you” Yet the cross looms over all. Christmas is Act I.

Act II – Easter – completes the story. The loss is devastating. The death is cruel, unjust. But life conquers death. “Death and Life fight a duel. Life’s hero endures death – then reigns alive”. That’s the founding myth that drives Christianity.

Sitting under the banyan tree telling stories doesn’t put bread on the table. Cold, hard logic is what gets things organized. We need law and order, rights and duties and a fair society. Not much time for stories when balancing the budget, increasing productivity or maintaining law and order. It’s hard heads that make society work.

But Christmas keeps both storytellers and hard heads happy. We buy up to give our gifts to those who share our story. Andrew Greeley once said that Christians stick to their faith because they like the stories. We are a motley mob who makes sense of life by recounting our myths.

Like Albert Facey we live a fortunate life. Losing Phillip reminds us of our wins as well as our losses. No wonder we love Christmas.

The Catholic Church October synod was surprisingly successful. Unlike previous synods the discussion was open. The focus was pastoral rather than legal. Questions like Communion for divorcees, living together without being married, homosexual relationships, contraception are now on the table. The objective is to seek solutions to complications rather than repeat the rules that most Catholics do not accept.  Common sense won over ideology.

For the first time in thirty five years the hierarchy are catching up on the rank and file who have been solving these dilemmas in practical terms for decades.  The laity solved the contraception issue in the 70s. They decided that Paul VI was wrong about contraception and changed their behaviour accordingly. Papal authority was undermined, Mass attendance became more casual and confession became a thing of the past. Over recent years many ordinary Church members have become open to unmarried couples living together and see divorce and homosexuality as normal. Communion in these conditions is not an issue.

A negative attitude to sex underlies all the synod questions. This has been significant in the Church since its beginnings. In “The Body and Society” Peter Brown shows that extolling virginity emerged early in Christianity even though it was counter-cultural. St. Augustine linked sexuality with sin and that bias has lasted ever since. A Western guilt culture emerged after the Black Death as Jean Delumeau shows in “Sin and Fear”. This, in turn, was a major factor in the Reformation due to Martin Luther’s sexual scruples. Enthroned over all this was clerical celibacy. Clergy are even more arcane because they have renounced sex.

Most cultures have sexual rules. This gives power to any group that articulates these rules and enforces them. In Catholicism the clergy claims this right. This gives them enormous power. And power is the great motivator of clergy.

The argument is that these rules accord with Natural Law.

The theory of Natural Law is that every being has its own nature. If you use right reason to reflect on the nature of any being you can work out the rules that govern its purpose. Right reason reflecting on the nature of the human being leads to discerning behavioural rules that a human person must follow. Since God is the author of human nature this Natural Law is a facet of Divine Law. The result is that where there is lack of clarity about any natural law precept the Church can intervene and make it clear.

The problem is that the natural law argument is defective, not well understood and often badly interpreted – as in Humanae Vitae. In any case the rank and file do not accept it. This means it is not received – an essential component for authentic Catholic teaching.

Like it or not the bishops are in the box seat for setting the rules. They are one group that even a pope has got to get on side if his stance is to prevail. That is why this Synod was so important. But therein lies a problem. The bishops have a vested interest in the outcome.

For the last thirty five years a key part of the search for any bishop has been his acceptance of the official Vatican line on contraception and homosexuality. This was a high priority under John Paul II and Benedict. So, if they are even going to discuss these issues let alone change their mind they have to abandon positions they have previously publicly embraced.

But above all they are officially celibate. They have renounced sex. Furthermore their celibacy is the icon of their clerical state. With these vested interests is this the best group in the Church to be deciding on these issues?

The Synodal process opens the door to two other issues – clericalism and mandatory celibacy. Pope Francis has already referred to clericalism as a cancer. How, then, do we eliminate it from the Church’s leadership? Abolishing clerical celibacy would be a first step.

But there are other reasons for revisiting mandatory celibacy.  Paul VI called it a “brilliant jewel” in his 1967 encyclical on Priestly Celibacy”. But it has a darker side. It occasions an abnormally high proportion of homosexuals in clerical ranks. It aggravates the seriousness of inappropriate sexual behaviour by clergy. It makes a negative statement about sex which is culturally normal for everyone else. It creates an isolated environment for clergy which more easily leads to narcissism, loneliness, depression and alcoholism. It skews the profile of candidates for the priesthood. Finally, it is the most obvious badge of identity of the clerical class. If clericalism is the cancer that Pope Francis thinks it is the abolition of mandatory celibacy must come up for consideration.

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic priest who lives in Melbourne. This article has also been published in ‘The Swag’ the journal of Australian Catholic priests.

Archbishop Fisher introduced himself to his Sydney flock at his installation on 12^th November 2014. He knows the Sydney Church and its history from personal experience. He is, after all, a born Sydney native whose early years inculturated him into that city and church.

He was always a leading student at Catholic primary and secondary schools. He gained a First Class honour law degree at Sydney University and practised as a lawyer till entering the Dominicans. After ordination his life was academic – first as a post-graduate student and then as a lecturer. He was the founding director of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family before appointment as Auxiliary Bishop to Cardinal Pell in Sydney. He has been a bishop for eleven years – seven as auxiliary in Sydney and four as Bishop of Parramatta.

Cardinal Pell has pushed Archbishop Fisher’s career as a churchman.  Fisher’s qualifications and ideology made him an ideal academic to steer the establishment of the John Paul II Institute for the Marriage and the Family which Pell established when archbishop of Melbourne. This institute is an apologist for John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which rationalises the conservative view of sexual ethics. It was strongly pushed by the John Paul bloc in the culture wars in John Paul’s reign. It has always struggled for numbers but now appears to be in decline. Cardinal Pell’s patronage is key to Archbishop Fisher’s promotion to be his auxiliary in Sydney and then bishop of Parramatta and now Sydney.

Archbishop Fisher’s four immediate predecessors were cardinals. Will he get a red hat? Well, not soon. Cardinal Pell, (73) is an Australian and still eligible to vote at papal elections for the next seven years. Archbishop Fisher (54) has plenty of time. If there is another Australian cardinal in the next list it could well be Archbishop Hart (73) of Melbourne. Another possibility is Archbishop Coleridge (66) of Brisbane. He has enjoyed Roman favour in the past. It could happen again either via an appointment to the Roman Bureaucracy or even a move to Melbourne when Archbishop Hart retires in a couple of years.

Archbishop Fisher’s self-presentation at his installation was personable, unpretentious and light-hearted. He sees himself primarily as pastor of the Sydney Church and pledged himself to that task. The church he envisages over the next twenty years is clerical – with seminaries, convents and youth groups teeming with new life as a result of the New Evangelization carried out by parishes, chaplaincies and educational institutions. He sees the three key factors in achieving this are the clergy and religious, families and young people. These views are typical of the symbolic utterances of the conservative power bloc under the previous two popes. Episcopal utterances are changing under the reality check of the Pope Francis regime.

In fact the clerical model of the Church has failed. Religious life is now marginal instead of mainstream. The seminaries have been virtually empty for forty years. Only a small out-group is interested in the clerical profession. Once strong social pressures to belong to the Church have vanished. Younger generations for the last fifty years have not needed the Catholic vision of life. The “New Evangelization” is simply a repetition of the old, rejected ideology. Jesus’s central message of life overcoming death and of love, mercy, justice and mutual support is still compelling. But it is obscured by an accretion of beliefs and rules irrelevant to life today – but held as sacred by the clerical power bloc.

Archbishop Fisher foresees a laity that is theologically literate and spiritually well-formed. Such is already there in significant numbers. This small but switched-on group is the real hope for the future, as is the lay leadership they embody. Is the archbishop able to embrace this new, non-clerical model?

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic Priest who lives in Melbourne. He ‘also writes a bit’.

Pope Francis has changed the focus of the Catholic Church from doctrine and rules to care and compassion. If people are at odds with the rules they should be supported and encouraged rather than condemned.

Since many of the rules causing complications in today’s society are associated with marriage he has called a special Synod of Bishops to address “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization”. This meeting will take place in October 2014. The associated problems are many:

• Prohibition of remarriage after divorce;
• Prohibition of masturbation;
• Prohibition of contraception;
• Prohibition of sexual activity outside marriage;
• Prohibition of marriage outside the Church;
• Prohibition of IVF;
• Condemnation of homosexuality as intrinsically disordered (a Ratzinger phrase);
• Condemnation of de facto marriage;
• Veneration of virginity;
• Veneration of celibacy.

All of these entail a negative view of sexuality. Today’s western society – including many Catholics – rejects them all.

During the 20^th century all of these have been presented by popes and bishops as the Church’s teachings. The bases of the argument are:

• they are contrary to the Natural Law;
• they are contrary to papal teaching and, therefore, contrary to the Church’s magisterium.

This is problematical because long tradition of the Church has been that the Church can define doctrine but not moral rules – precisely because they are inextricably intertwined with prevailing cultural values and, so, are constantly changing. Furthermore, while the Natural Law argument may hold in a world of unchangeable ideas it does not work in a world presumed to be evolving. Finally, the concept of “magisterium” – the accepted teaching of the Masters of Theology (magistri) – has shifted under recent popes from the Masters to the opinion of the pope. Historically this is a bridge too far.

The rejection of these opinions by so many Catholics means they are not “received” – a necessary component of true Catholic teaching. The rules need to be re-visited or forgotten.

Some of the above irregularities are of the Church’s own making.

• In 1907 Pius X decreed that all Catholics had to marry in the presence of an authorised priest and two witnesses. Otherwise the marriage was invalid.
• In 1930 Pius XI declared contraception to be mortally sinful.
• In 1968 Paul VI rejected the advice of his own commission and reiterated Pius XI’s prohibition of contraception. This was immediately rejected by a large number of Catholics and has never been universally accepted since.

Western culture largely came to terms with the fact of divorce and re-marriage during the 20^th century. So did Western Catholics. This led to heartburn in the Catholic Church because according to Church law re-married divorcees were living in sin. This meant they could not receive Holy Communion at Mass and, so, were effectively excommunicated. Those wanting a second marriage to be celebrated in the Church were rejected.

Some fell back on the Church’s claim to be able to annul marriages, but this was a messy, lengthy and painful process with doubtful outcomes. Some priests advised parishioners to get married civilly and come to Communion anyway. Other priests ignored the rules and married the couple in the Church.

Pope Francis has stressed the need for understanding pastoral care in these cases. This has led to a revival of the debate about the possibility of accepting second marriages. He has brought Cardinal Kasper in to foster the debate. This is one point worth watching during the coming Synod.

Pope Francis’s “who am I to judge” comment on homosexuals has firstly questioned how “disordered” homosexual orientation is. This in turn raises the issues of homosexual sexual activity and marriage. The debate goes on with new initiatives being raised – and with a vocal, hard-core opposition.

The pope knows he has raised all these issues. He continues to say he does not intend to change the Church’s teaching. What he means by that is unknown. Perhaps he expects that if you change the practice the teachings or formulation will follow.

When John XXIII opened the Vatican Council a strong, intelligent and historically aware group of bishops moved in at the start and stole the initiative from the Roman Curia who had biased the rules and documentary preparations for the council in favour of the status quo. It is hard to see that happening with this synod. The preparatory documents do not make for fully open discussion. Even more importantly Bishops who freely speak their mind are hard to find. For thirty five years John-Paul II and Benedict XVI have deliberately appointed Rome-compliant bishops. In any case none of the synod participants have had any personal experience of marriage or family.

Keep an eye on proceedings – but do not expect too much.

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic Priest in Melbourne who ‘writes a bit’.

As priests we were sent out on a mission to spread the Gospel and be pastors of the flock. But it was the secular world that formulated mission statements and pastoral care policies. We had the vocation, but it was the secular world that developed vocational training. We were good at the concepts – but slow at the application. The nuances of Scholastic theology weren’t much help once we got out. The seminary had initiated us into the clerical class but we had to learn our task on the fast track of self-help – launched on a wing and a prayer.

Charlie Mayne, our seminary rector, had convinced us that the lay apostolate was central to the future of the Church. Thanks to Gerry Dowling, my predecessor, the lay apostolate was thriving in the parish. This was an early step towards lay leadership in the Church.

Fast track learning involves reflection on the realities of life. I soon learned that this reflection was effective prayer. It produced change and growth. The seminary spiritual practices were habitual routines. Those who stuck to them religiously showed little growth.

The 60s brought the baby boom – and expanding schools. New schools needed new teachers. Enterprising priests like Fr. John F. Kelly led the move to Catholic Teachers Colleges. The laity responded, first assisting, then replacing, the nuns and brothers.

In 1968 three of us were appointed to study at Melbourne University and to be a “priestly presence” there. Fast track learning took another direction. For the first time I really studied scripture. The Word of God had very human origins. Myth was as powerful as Logos. Sociology, including demographics, taught me that you can predict outcomes which otherwise would be mystery or guesswork. Early into the 70s demographic statistics showed me the looming collapse of the priesthood.

Humanae Vitae, in 1969, became a watershed moment. Its impact on the priesthood was both immediate and slow burning. The wounding of papal authority also undermined clericalism. Laity left the Church. Priests left the priesthood. Seminary enrolment virtually stopped – not to recover. Nearly everyone recalibrated their views, firstly on sexual morality, then on the whole gamut of personal morality and Mass attendance.  Confession went into terminal decline. And the laity did this themselves, sidestepping appeals from clergy.

Taking charge of a parish in the early 70s brought new learning. Parishes must be led and managed. My generation had no business, accounting or management training. Back onto the fast track.

The response of parishioners was exhilarating. Post-Vatican II enthusiasm was at its peak. A new generation of more highly educated parishioners moved into pastoral action, and parish administration. Some studied theology and scripture; others became experts at liturgy and music. I learned that my job was to articulate the vision and enable the ministries of others, not to do it all myself. It was like St Paul’s little group in his epistle 1 Corinthians 12. Theirs were genuine ministries despite some clerical objection to the term. Clericalism continued to wane.

The 90s brought a new scenario. The routine pastoral work of the Church was in demand and appreciated by those who looked for it. But affiliation was relentlessly dropping. Gen X and Gen Y largely opted out. Meanwhile paedophilia by clergy was eroding clergy confidence. This became a bigger issue as episcopal cover-up also came into focus. Bigger names became commonplace in the narrative – e.g. Cardinal Law in the USA. Rome first suggested this was a USA problem. More cases came to light. Perhaps it was an English speaking problem. Then Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ and renowned money raiser was finally proved to be a drug user, abuser of his students and even his own illegitimate children. John Paul II accepted his gifts, made a public show of favouring him and protected him when the allegations were indisputable. This highlighted a world-wide pattern of crime and criminal cover-up going right to the top. Look at the Karadima case in Chile embroiling Cardinals Errazuriz, one of the pope’s Committee of Eight, and Ezzarti, his successor in Santiago. (See: tinyurl.com/n2m7p4f). Clerical pretentions started to look ridiculous as bishops lost their moral leadership.

As priests were dying out so was clericalism. The seminary exemplifies the polarisation. The clerical profession holds no attraction for the coming generation. Don’t blame celibacy; it is the clerical profession that is being rejected. It is 45 years since we had enrolment levels that could sustain the old clerical model. The clerical ethos and quaint devotion of the seminary appeal only to an odd minority. In practice church leadership is increasingly lay.

Clericalism is legally institutionalised by insisting that the pastoral, managerial and sacramental leadership must be in the hands of ordained priests. Already many parishes have non-ordained leaders who call on ordained people for Eucharistic and sacramental ministry. It is time to let the best leaders in their fields lead. Eucharistic and sacramental ministry – important as it is – then becomes one ministry amongst the others. This ministry could then be filled by men of good repute without clericalising them.

A new pope re-articulates the pastoral style of Vatican II. He wants to eliminate clericalism. Meanwhile a thoroughly clerical bureaucracy still jealously guards its privilege. The pope, too, is on a fast learning curve. We end as we began – still flying – but on a wing and a prayer.

The Church is not the best guide to moral values. That is the response of some Catholics to the questionnaire which the Vatican sent out in preparation for the October Synod of Bishops. Many practising Catholics do not agree with the official opinions of the Pope on moral rules associated with marriage and sexuality.

The disagreement list is long:

• No living together before marriage;
• No sexual activity except between a man and a woman officially married in the Church;
• No contraception;
• No masturbation;
• No civil marriages or partnerships;
• No re-marriage after divorce;
• No sexual activity by homosexuals;
• No homosexual partnerships, let alone marriage;
• No IVF;
• No refusal of sex to a reasonable request from a marriage partner;

Many Catholics would say that they used to believe everything on the list was wrong; but not now. The times have changed. Implicit in this is the judgement that what is right and wrong is determined not by the Church but by the surrounding culture. That’s why it changes.

On reflection we were effectively taught that in the seminary. Doctrinal statements could be infallible; but moral rules (laws) could not. They were too dependent on outside circumstances. Yet Catholic leaders like John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Cardinal Pell insisted that these were God’s law, and not open to question. They even tried to have Humanae Vitae accepted as infallible. They would say that the Church teaches these rules. But all the while the real Church – that is rank and file Mass-going Catholics – did not believe them. Reception by serious believers is necessary for doctrine or rules to be binding – the sensus fidelium.

Meanwhile the immorality of bishops and popes has been embarrassingly displayed by their cover up of paedophilia by some of their priests. They knew it was happening and made it worse by moving offenders to other posts – thus spreading the offence. They were trying to protect the good name of the institution. In so doing they were harming the people entrusted to them. Basic human rights took second place to the institution’s appearance. Their moral compass was badly wrong. Many of them still do not get it. Nor do their superiors who refuse to sack them. The superior officials’ moral compasses are wrong too.

Looking at it from a distance the preoccupation with personal, sexual morality as sinful is doing a disservice to sin. Real sin is a big thing. Exploitation, sectarianism, warfare, greed-induced poverty, manipulation of power, domination of the powerless by the powerful are the real sins of today. Sex can be an area of sin, too – but when and because it is exploitative, whether systemic, as in white slavery, or individual. Margaret Farley gets this one right in “Just Love – A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.” But personal consensual sexual activity cannot be in the Big Sin category despite papal obsession with it.

On the other hand Pontifical Secrecy is central to all Vatican official business. Diocesan curias also work in secrecy. What happened to transparency and accountability? Some secrecy is necessary, but it is more nuanced than that. Too much is accepted as secret when it should not be. What do you know about diocesan finances? Dare you ask? Yet diocesan spending should be transparent if its authorities are to be accountable. At some levels church secrecy is thwarting transparency and accountability. The moral presumptions are back to front. The secular world is moral and the Church is immoral.

Some big sins of the past – so often sexual – are not really sinful. Some things which were OK in the past are really seriously wrong. Changing cultural values can be confusing but they are part of living in a changing world. Our challenge is to be part of the debate and to admit when we are wrong. This can be hard when we are emerging from an authoritarian, monist culture to a pluralist one. Meanwhile we cannot claim moral superiority unless we observe the ethics of the society in which we live.

F. X. Harriott – The Tablet’s renowned voice of common sense – suggested in one of his last articles that the Vatican should take a decision to say nothing about sex for the next 50 years. Since its voice as a guide to personal morality is so thin, maybe it is time to extend that to all personal moral issues. The Ethics Committees advising governments and research institutions seem more aware of basic human rights and are in touch with the prevailing values of society. Should we take note of them, use our own common sense and make this our new moral compass?

Eric Hodgens is a retired priest who ‘writes a bit’.

What should we look for in a bishop for Sydney in these changing times?

A Christian.

One committed to Jesus’ message of love, forgiveness and compassion. One who holds that the Church is not just the hierarchy, but the People of God on a journey.

A citizen of the world.

One who, while suspicious of all “isms” including secularism and pluralism, loves the world’s secularity and plurality. One who sees this non-confessional culture as an ideal setting for proclaiming a message of hope and salvation amid the reality of sadness, loss, sickness, poverty and death. One who wants the believer’s response to be free, not enforced by state or tribe.

A believer.

Ideologues subscribe to platforms. Believers commit themselves to movements. Sydney needs a believer, not an ideologue. Ideologues have closed minds. Believers are self-critical and open to discussion – even change of mind. Ideologues like things to remain the same. Believers stay in contact with contemporary culture and know that all things are changing. As the cultural context changes they must recontextualize or die. They change their habits to maximise values.

Ideology has shouldered out faith over the last 35 years. Personal morality, especially sexual, has eclipsed the central Christian message. The John Paul II Institute for Marriage and The Family is an offspring of this trend. Its objective is to push the recent Vatican line on sexual morality, especially the lost cause of contraception. It is in this institute that Anthony Fisher, now Bishop of Parramatta, raised his profile to the delight of Cardinal Pell.

A Leader.

Leaders are able to formulate a practical vision of how best to implement a group’s goals in the setting of contemporary reality. They can persuasively communicate that vision to their followers. They can organise and make the right choices to staff that organization and implement the vision. Leaders identify and prioritise the issues they pursue in the public forum. They argue big issues effectively so that they appear as men of principle and strength.

An educator.

An educator is able to use his own rhetoric to educate his hearers.

He also supports the Catholic Education system and can choose the right persons to lead it. He supports education in faith within that system. He ensures that the belief exemplified by Vatican II imbues that education. He ensures that publications used in that education are similarly imbued.

He ensures that faith education specialists in Catholic schools get good formation and are given Positions of Responsibility within the system.

Brains and an awareness of history.

There is no substitute for brains. Add historical awareness and you have covered a key pre-requisite for leadership.

Anti-clerical-ism.

Clericalism is Christianity’s curse. All who belong to the Church are equally baptised; all are entitled to be a drawn on for the Church’s mission, organization and leadership. A good bishop realises that both lay and ordained leadership is necessary and organizes formation and appointments accordingly.

Clericalism is the cornerstone of the paedophilia crisis. Clerical power aided the offenders. Clericalism prompted the cover up by the bishops. Clericalism leads to corruption. It is endemic to the organizational structure of the Church.

Any priest or bishop involved in this cover up should be excluded from consideration.

An administrator.

The candidate must be a good administrator if he is to be effective.

Application.

Vatican II in the 1960s started a renewal. It embraced the modern world. Against a policy of centuries it turned its back on the confessional state and backed freedom of religion. It exchanged the imposition of imposed doctrine for freer enquiry.

The 80s, 90s and 00s opted for reverse under the leadership of John Paul and Benedict. This reverse was institutionally implemented by the appointment of conformist bishops.

Now Pope Francis’s fresh breeze is encouraging a resumption of renewal. Ideology is to give way to true belief. It is time to move out, not turn in. This questions the practice of promoting existing bishops. Some are changing their spots in the new policy climate – making one suspicious.

Pope Francis spoke to the members of the Congregation for Bishops at the end of February. He gave them the criteria he wanted them to use as they went about the selection of bishops.  This is his wish list:

• People with God’s breadth of heart (Yes, that is the term he used);
• who can speak clearly asserting the human rights of the powerless and abandoned without fear or favour;
• who are witnesses to the Risen Christ in the modern world;
  • Ready for renunciation and sacrifice;
  • Capable of healthy relationships with both men and women;
  • Culturally at home in today’s world;
• who can effectively proclaim the message of Jesus;
• Good pastors:
  • Not princes;
  • Not ambitious careerists (a mentality he likened to adultery).

The last two popes had different priorities. Bill Morris is a good example of a bishop who fits Francis’ criteria, but in 2011 he was removed from Toowoomba by Benedict.

The pope knows good bishops are hard to find. The pool of priests is very shallow. Recruitment dropped to an unsustainable level 45 years ago – a long lead time. Maybe it’s time for a lateral move. Pick a suitable layman and ordain him immediately. They did that with Ambrose in Milan in 374 A.D. That hurdle jumped, we may be ready for the next hurdle – suitable women.

Citing Samuel in the quest for a king for Israel he told the Congregation for Bishops to seek the ideal candidate out, as Samuel did David; send for him if he is hidden away. Samuel said “we will not sit down till he arrives”. Let’s hope we are not left standing for too long.

Eric Hodgens is a retired Catholic priest who ‘writes a bit’.

Sydney needs a new archbishop who has every chance of becoming a cardinal once Cardinal Pell turns 80. How do we get a new bishop?

The pope will appoint one. Since 1917 he has claimed the right to do so. History is not on the side of that claim – but that is another story.

Today’s official method is for bishops to send recommendations to the Papal Nuncio. When a diocese becomes open the nuncio does a search, checks these recommendations, and makes a list of three suggestions. This is called a “terna”. He sends it to the Congregation of Bishops in Rome – the papal personnel department. The bureaucrats of that department do their own checking and prepare the agenda for the Congregation. There are about 30 cardinals who are members of the Congregation – some live in Rome and would regularly attend; others are spread round the world and attend when they choose. The Congregation meets fortnightly, discusses the matter and sends a list of three to the pope for his approval and appointment. The pope normally takes the first name on the list.

It seems a clear process. Not so. Patronage plays a part at every level. The bishops sometimes consult before sending their list to the nuncio but ultimately they suggest their favourites. The nuncio can take notice of those lists or not. The nunciature’s staff can have their input. The final terna that goes to Rome is his selection. The desk men in the Congregation’s bureaucracy can also influence the outcome.

The cardinals who are members of the Congregation for Bishops have more or less influence on the recommendation depending on their degree of influence in the discussion room. They could make their own suggestions or bad mouth someone they do not like. So if you want promotion get into the good books of your bishop – or the nuncio’s . Even better if you have influence with members of the Congregation. In this process it is who you know, not what you know, that makes all the difference. So, bishops are usually the most ambitious priests rather than the most appropriate priests for the job.

Since the pope makes the final choice he can influence the process by his policies. During the 34 years of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, nuncios were instructed to sift out anyone who did not positively support papal policies on contraception, divorce, homosexuality, feminism, liberation theology and clerical dress. The result was a worldwide episcopate of ideological or conformist bishops. In order to maintain ideological purity the process included an ever increasing number of priests from religious orders with no experience in leading dioceses.

Appointments have been getting very slow. The Roman bureaucracy does not work at a frenetic pace. Still, their job is getting harder because of the growing shortage of priests of any kind, let alone potential bishops. The days of big numbers of high quality priests are long past. The heyday of seminary recruitment was 1950 to 1990. The youngest of this group is now in his 50s Furthermore, many priests see appointment as a bishop to be a poisoned chalice and knock back an offer.

Pope Francis is setting new criteria for bishops. Pastoral priests, not apparatchiks; broad minded priests, not ideologues. Anyone who is ambitious for episcopate or episcopal promotion should not get it. But will these criteria be followed?

Sydney’s appointment is important by anyone’s standards. If you want to back a winner find out who the kingmakers are, who they know and who they like. Here are a few facts to help you work it out. The outgoing archbishop, Cardinal Pell, will be consulted both formally and informally. Furthermore he is a member of the Congregation for Bishops and presumably will attend regularly when resident in Rome. He has always been a regular visitor to Rome and more so in the last year since he is on the Pope’s advisory Group of 8 cardinals. He has a permanent apartment at Domus Australia in Rome. He will be influential in his replacement.

He has been the promoter of Anthony Fisher, Bishop of Parramatta.

He indirectly advanced Mark Coleridge’s career by offering him for work in the Secretariat of State. He may have had mixed reasons for this. The cardinal prefects of the Roman Congregations find it hard to get good men. They tend to rely of personal contacts. So Cardinal Pell would have got brownie points by offering Mark Coleridge to the Cardinal Secretary of State. While Mark was working in Rome Archbishop Re was a deputy of the department and in 2000 became prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. Mgr. Parolin was an important specialist in the Congregation at that time. In 2009 he went to Venezuela as Nuncio and was called from there to be Secretary of State by Pope Francis. Contacts everywhere. What part these contacts will play remain to be seen.

Archbishop Wilson of Adelaide is 63 – old by secular, corporate standards, but a suitable age in a gerontocracy. He has been elected Chairman of the Australian Bishops Conference twice. Then there is always the possibility of a wild card introduced by someone somewhere in the system. Maybe Frank Brennan S.J. born exactly 60 years ago will get the nod.

Eric Hodgens is a retired Melbourne Catholic priest who ‘writes a bit’.