Pearls and Irritations

Michael Mullins

  • Silence over St Mary’s Cathedral remembrance ribbon cutting

    Silence over St Mary’s Cathedral remembrance ribbon cutting

    Following yesterday’s funeral of Cardinal George Pell, I was disturbed to read this from a Sydney Morning Herald letter writer: ‘I went to St Mary’s Cathedral to tie a ribbon on the iron fence for a friend who was raped by a priest when he was seven years old. My ribbons were cut off by men and women who were physically and verbally intimidating.’ (more…)

  • Banks that listen to their customers will go places

    Loyalty to banks used to be a big thing in the days of yore. But the Banking Royal Commission certainly skewered any reason to remain loyal. And there are options for those looking for an ethical bank that listens to their customers. 

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  • The Sunday Obligation resumes for fewer Catholics

    During the pandemic, Catholic Church authorities were forced to endorse the state’s ban on Mass attendance. Some hoped this would be the end of the Sunday Obligation, but Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher reimposed it last week. (more…)

  • Necessary disruption for church culture change to protect children

    A ‘secret bishops report’ has called for the declericalisation of the Catholic Church in Australia. The bishops are keeping the report under wraps until the end of the year ‘to do it justice’, while critics are calling it ironic for bishops to withhold a report that urges them to be transparent and inclusive. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Blind obedience and the Pell trial jury

    While I was training to be a Jesuit in the late 70s, I learned about, and practised, ‘blind obedience’. Rightly or wrongly, what I learned about blind obedience has informed my understanding of how juries work in the court system. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Jean Vanier and the abuse of celebrity power

    Jean Vanier was the revered founder of the international network of L’Arche communities for people with intellectual disabilities. It was revealed at the weekend that he sexually abused six women in France between 1970 and 2005. Treating leaders like gods tends to have unintended consequences. In Vanier’s case, it seems to have made him a cult leader, complete with an adoring and unquestioning constituency and loyal deputies. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Leaving Google

    Last month an Amnesty International report took Google and Facebook to task for their ‘surveillance-based business model’ that is ‘predicated on human rights abuse’. Back in 2006, I recall a colleague telling me about Google’s ‘do no evil’ manifesto. I wanted to believe it and used many of its free and paid services. Until last week. I finally decided to act after Google bought Fitbit and I realised they would own my health and fitness data from the past four years and would integrate that with everything else they know about me. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. The role of ordinary Catholics in clerical sex abuse

    NZ bishop Charles Drennan was forced to resign after a young woman complained about his sexual behaviour towards her. The #MeToo movement has forced a reckoning about the imbalance of power between clerics and lay Catholics. This is a major cause of clerical sex abuse. Recently Cardinal John Dew encouraged the NZ ‘faithful’ to call him by his first name, as an antidote to clericalism. But many baulked at the idea. This suggests the actual source of clerical abuse could be ordinary Catholics playing into the clergy’s hands with a self-deprecating ‘Yes Father’ attitude. (more…)

  • George Pell’s conviction and fragmentary memory

    Many people dismiss any element of testimony that is thought to be guided by emotion. Court proceedings are based on rational argument. If holes can be picked in the verbal narrative of the witness, the allegations remain unproven. A new book explains that two people who have experienced the same phenomenon will often have completely different memories of it. The verdict of the Pell jury suggests that the form or demeanour of a testifying witness can be more telling than the verbal content of his or her testimony.

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  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Abstract thinkers living in bubbles.

    During the Christmas break I read Rick Morton’s One Hundred Years of Dirt, which is one of the more acclaimed Australian memoirs published during 2018. It details the wretched life he’s led and also challenges the culture warriors of the left and the right. Speaking about politicians as well as journalists, he says: ‘We don’t need more journalists from the right or from the left… What the media needs is more reporters with the ability to understand their subjects.’  (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. The importance of wage growth

    The blemish on this week’s ‘beautiful set of numbers’ announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was wage growth. We all need to build wealth to provide a secure future. The way to do that is to receive not only a wage, but a wage that increases exponentially. Like the wageless workers who lived through the Great Depression, many of today’s young people face financial uncertainty. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Why I avoid social media news feeds

    Facebook and the like are not interested in truth in journalism. They use their algorithms to create news that confirms their users’ pre-existing views. If they gave them content with views they didn’t like, chances are that the users would ditch the feed for a rival and revenues would drop. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. The politicisation of remembrance

    In Australia there is a highly selective regime of remembrance that chooses to exclude the Frontier Wars that killed large numbers of indigenous Australians, and also the many unsavoury aspects of war such as the mistreatment of women by our ‘heroes’. My view is that communal war remembrance should be more nuanced. It needs to include an element of contrition for the shameful actions, alongside legitimate pride for actions that went towards achieving what must be the greatest degree of global harmony in the history of humankind. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Treatment of the mentally ill as ‘the next civil rights issue’

    Humour touching on mental health is a delicate undertaking that can either enhance or destroy the dignity of those living with mental illness. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Wilson conviction exposes Australian bishops’ lack of contrition

    Recently a friend abused by a priest in Newcastle 40 years ago took his own life. Archbishop Philip Wilson was convicted this week for concealing sexual abuse in that diocese around the same time. Church leaders valued the institution ahead of its people, and unfortunately it appears little has changed in the attitude of the Australian bishops. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Joyce’s schooling is the real scandal

    It is unhelpful to judge Barnaby in the way the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull did on Thursday. It’s better to focus on a critique of the culture. His leadership of the Nationals may be no longer tenable, but the best thing our political class can do for the long term is to make laws that foster respect for women. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. The mission of a bank nerd.

    The vigilance of nerds – or mavens – enhances the wellbeing of us all. Their scrutiny keeps businesses on their toes and non-nerds are less likely to be exploited.  If everybody was a bank nerd, the banking royal commission would not be necessary.  (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. What happened to my Australian accent?

    I spent the summer of 1983-84 in the Philippines. During this time I fell in love with the Philippines and its people and felt ashamed to be Australian.

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  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Who really killed Confession?

    Most Catholics have stayed away from Confession for decades because the thought of it has made them feel small and unworthy. It’s not dissimilar to the dynamic of sexual abuse. It is part of what critics of the Church see as a power play that is designed to tighten the screws of the institution’s psychological grip on its faithful. But it needn’t be that way. Confession can offer a pathway to wholeness and growth. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. It’s likely Pope Francis would support ‘killing off confession’ to support abuse victims

    At his media conference following Friday’s release of the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Archbishop Anthony Fisher said that ‘killing off confession is not going to help anybody’. The report recommended legal strictures against the ‘seal of confession’ to allow the reporting of sex abuse. A Melbourne canon law expert is much less worried than Archbishop Fisher, and it seems that even Pope Francis would give less priority to the ‘seal’ than addressing the needs of the most vulnerable. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Mothballing the clerical collar would help prevent clergy sexual abuse

    An attitude of superiority on the part of a priest or other religious functionary carries with it the distinct possibility that they will abuse their position by taking sexual advantage of someone less powerful. On the other hand, if they genuinely think of themselves as servants, sexual abuse is most unlikely. It’s time for the Church to consider doing away with the clerical collar, which is a powerful symbol of priestly power and privilege. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Proper scrutiny will expose ‘traditional marriage’ as dangerous.

    Pope Francis has confirmed his resolve to dump Pope John Paul II’s legacy regarding marriage and the family. He will replace it with his own more inclusive vision, which he outlined in a speech in October last year. This suggestion of openness has obvious implications for Australia’s Marriage Law Postal Survey ‘no’ campaign, which presents traditional marriage as a virtuous institution that is beyond question and beyond change.  (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Civil and religious marriage are best kept separate.

    By conflating the civil law with religious ritual, we create confusion that makes it easy for the Church to claim authority that rightfully belongs to the state. In other words, the Church makes demands regarding sacramental marriage, which of course is OK. But it often weighs in on civil marriage as well, which is different. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Cardinal Pell’s preference for spin doctors over truth tellers

    Cardinal Pell’s actions and attitudes towards the media over the years have demonstrated a lack of appreciation of its role in truth telling. If, as he stated , he is innocent of the ‘false’ charges laid against him, it is in his interest not to condemn the truth telling media but to trust and embrace it. (more…)

  • Michael Mullins. Threatened Al Jazeera more trustworthy than ‘white man’s media’

    John Menadue’s blog post ‘White man’s media’ points to our media’s disproportionate coverage of terrorism in the west, where only 2.6 per cent of terrorism related deaths occur.

    Our easily accessible media outlets could be on the way to becoming even whiter, with this week’s announcement that Al Jazeera is to lay off 500 staff because falling oil prices are putting the budget of its Qatar state owners into deficit. Even though many of its staff and practices are ‘white’, Al Jazeera English was set up in 2006 as an antidote to the dominant white man’s media.

    The Guardian also attributes the cuts to ‘a waning enthusiasm by rulers in Doha for the soft power and foreign influence offered by the broadcaster, which says its mission is to “provide a voice for the voiceless in some of the most underreported places on the planet”.’

    Al Jazeera was heavily backed by the former emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. But in a generational change of attitude reminiscent of the Packers in Australia, it’s suggested his son and successor Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani is more interested in funding the 2022 FIFA World Cup than a media network ‘whose English language service has insisted on editorial independence and antagonised other states in the region with its coverage’.

    Gaining traction with viewers in western countries has also proved a challenge, with Al Jazeera America being forced to close in a few weeks time, on 30 April. Significantly it’s not just mass (as opposed to niche) audiences that prefer FoxNews, SkyNews and the BBC, but the big cable operators. They control the legacy distribution platforms that remain powerful, even as the focus shifts towards smartphone and tablet apps and universal availability online.

    In Australia, Foxtel includes more than a dozen news channels, but Al Jazeera is well down on its list of priorities, even though many of Foxtel’s other channels cater to niche audiences like Al Jazeera’s.

    In 2009, and again in 2010, I wrote to Foxtel requesting the inclusion of Al Jazeera and was told simply that there were no plans to broadcast the channel. It seemed the exclusion was about ideology more than economics.

    The 50 per cent Murdoch owned company did eventually include it in their lineup but only when it began a practice of raising revenue by charging certain state owned news organisations to carry their channels. These included China’s CCTV and Russia Today.

    It’s easy to criticise what we commonly regard as the propaganda on such channels without also questioning what we’re told by the likes of the widely trusted BBC and our own ABC (including that deaths from terror incidents are rampant in the west). But, Muslim Brotherhood sympathies notwithstanding, It’s arguable that the threatened Al Jazeera is doing a better job of presenting fair and balanced news than either the propaganda of CCTV and Russia Today or the trusted white man’s media products consumed by the masses in the west.

    Michael Mullins co-taught the course International Media Practice at Sydney University in 2008.