The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published two reports on 19 December 2014. The first related to Case No. 11 dealing with four institutions run by the Christian Brothers Congregation in Western Australia from the 1920s until the 1980s for wards of the State, child migrants and children sent there privately. It made findings about the poor treatment and education of the boys, the many instances of sexual abuse by 16 named Christian brothers and 2 priests, the lack of supervision by the leaders of the Christian Brothers and by the State, the failure to report these crimes to the police and to dismiss these brothers.

The second report was of Case No. 14 concerning Fr John Nestor in the Diocese of Wollongong where the issue was the inadequacy of the Church’s disciplinary system and the effect of the conflicts between canon law and the local Church protocol, Towards Healing. In the result, it took 15 years to dismiss a priest against whom many complaints of abuse had been substantiated.

The Christian Brothers in Western Australia

In the Western Australia case, the Commission found that there were continuous allegations of sexual assault since the 1930s brought to the attention of the Christian Brothers, yet only one brother was ever convicted of sexual assault. The Brothers regarded these assaults as “moral lapses” or “weakness”, rather than as criminal offences. There was provision under canon law and the Congregation’s Constitution to dismiss such offenders, but they were not used. If there was a dispute over the facts, the brother’s word was usually accepted over that of the student, and if the facts were admitted, then the matter was dealt with by warnings and shifting the brother to another institution or school, despite the Congregation being aware of the likelihood of repeat offences. The Western Australian Director of Public Prosecutions refused to prosecute for a variety of reasons, and this raised the systemic issue of the capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with child abuse in that State.

Much of the report is taken up with questions of compensation for victims, redress schemes and problems with the criminal law in Western Australia. In dealing with the 96 claims for compensation, the Christian Brothers relied on the same technical legal points as the Archdiocese of Sydney in the Ellis case. There were 775 allegations made by 531 complainants against the Christian Brothers throughout Australia, including the Western Australian cases.  When the Congregation agreed to pay compensation, the average payout was a little under $50,000, and for the Western Australian institutions it was $36,700. The Report is not entirely negative, and describes the reforms instituted by the Congregation since the 1990s. No recommendations were made in terms of redress schemes or changes to the criminal law, as these are no doubt national issues which one assumes will be addressed by the Commission on a national basis after it has dealt with all of its case studies.

The Nestor Case

Fr John Nestor was a priest of the Wollongong diocese. Complaints of sexual abuse or inappropriate behaviour were first made against him as far back as 1993. He was eventually dismissed from the priesthood 15 years later by order of Pope Benedict XVI on 17 October 2008.

Nestor was convicted by a magistrate on 20 December 1996, and sentenced to 12 months jail for aggravated sexual assault. His appeal was allowed by the District Court on 27 October 1997, the judge not being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the assault, but was satisfied about Nestor’s other inappropriate behaviour. In the meantime, Bishop Wilson had received further complaints about Nestor.  To his credit, Wilson considered that Nestor should not be restored to the ministry because he continued to be a danger to children. Wilson, a canon lawyer, used the investigatory procedures laid down by Towards Healing, considering that it complied with his obligation to conduct a preliminary investigation under canon 1717 of the Code of Canon Law. Anyone interested in the labyrinthine processes of the Vatican and the confusion over which of its Congregations had jurisdiction can read the report. It is Dickens’ Bleak House played out in Rome.

The Royal Commission, in a masterful understatement, said: “This case study shows that canon law procedures for preventing priests from exercising their priestly ministry and ultimately having them dismissed from the priesthood are very complex.” The report highlights a number of problems with canon law and its relationship with local protocols such as Towards Healing. Professor Patrick Parkinson had advised the Australian bishops that a protocol that conflicts with canon law has serious problems. The Cumberlege Commission in Britain came to the same conclusion. The Nestor case is more proof of the pudding.

The Commission noted that the Nestor case was subject to the “pontifical secret”, a solemn “obligation to preserve it forever”, which even prevents a bishop from announcing whether the priest had been found guilty or innocent. However, in this case the Vatican had consented to Bishop Ingham making such an announcement. His failure to do so is the one criticism made of Australian Church personnel in the report. The big problem was canon law and the Vatican’s byzantine procedures and delays.

The conflict between Towards Healing and canon law is still a significant problem within the Church’s disciplinary system because the 2010 version of Towards Healing requires reporting of all allegations of sexual abuse to the civil authorities, but the dispensation from the pontifical secret only applies where there is a domestic law requiring reporting. Only two States have comprehensive reporting laws, NSW and Victoria. The easiest solution would be for the Holy See to comply with the request of the United Nations Committees on the Rights of the Child and on Torture to abolish the pontifical secret in matters of child sexual abuse, and to require mandatory reporting under canon law, something which it has so far declined to do.

Kieran Tapsell is the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (ATF Press, 2014)

I was on retreat recently in Hong Kong and there was a very small pool with eight turtles in it.  It took me some days to notice; you have to slow down to see them. Their water was muddy, there was certainly no vista here, just the close company they kept with each other, and the bonus of the big shell that they could pull their heads in and out of. I liked the turtles, I watched them lean on each other to get up, rest on top of each other, they had that shell, but mostly their heads were out, steady and still, looking at me, as I looked at them, curiously.  They seemed absorbed and present in their small world, except when I jumped up quickly one day, full of some internal noise, and they too fled from their rock, plopping back into the water.  I had disturbed their universe, and they disappeared for cover.  Having our known world disturbed is never easy.

A retreat is a particular time, seems simple enough, go away from the normal routines, from the usual sense of place and keep the silence to find the inner quiet.  Then let surface what will.  But the bed is too short for my frame, and I am restless, I want to roam the Island. The thought of being cooped up like the turtles is not attractive, although I admire their quality of mind.

Hong Kong is familiar, as a young woman I lived here in transit, restless and aching for another life.  Now it is many years later and the advent wreath is here with its candle lit, and I come to wait on God, to be like one of those turtles, still. Nice idea, thinking I may have some control in this relationship, thinking these pains may have gone.

This year when I read the Annunciation what I notice are Mary’s pauses, her response to the angels’ avowal that she is favoured by God. But what she utters is that she is deeply perplexed. Imagine Mary, a young woman, now, suddenly, in God’s presence told she is favoured.   She pauses, perhaps for a moment, perhaps longer, as she goes inside like these turtles, to what she knows, her own world.

Then she is told she will conceive, she will carry the Christ, the saviour. Again the pause, how can this be? There is no longer Mary and her desire for God, there is Mary and God and their relationship. She pauses, the world must feel very strange to her now, unimaginable, and then in the midst, God’s fingers reach out to her, to touch a ‘yes’ between both of them.

In these moments when we have no protection, no status or wealth, nothing except what emerges out of us in this pause, we can get a real and sharp feel of ourselves, and it is different to what comes out of us when we feel the world is our domain. Now made vulnerable, at last vulnerable to God, our pretences empty, a hand reaches out to us, unexpectedly, and it is almost too much, scoured as we are, surviving on scraps, a hand that knows us and an unbearable, but so needed warmth, envelopes us.

We are totally unprepared for this no matter how versed we are. And often in such situations and facing such challenges we can behave like the turtles, scatter and hide.

These challenges of living on the edge are not ones we usually leap toward: to be aged, disdained, ill, poor and perhaps not even Mary’s experience of being chosen.  Yet this is where we are met, our wounds bathed.  Control is a fear soaked antidote to friendship and love.

The pauses reveal us, ordinary and wounded, afraid, afraid of love, of being known, of being not much.

I fear and know that the only way home to my creator is through my story, my life of yes’s and no’s, the hurts that have left me afraid, and the no’s that have made me inflexible.  It is in relationship where the wounds lie, and it is when we wait that we come to know how we have been waited for. The pains and fears that tear me are also where the balm lies.  I am not forced only made ready. Joy is an outcome, but this indwelling love, happens by becoming all that shames and mortifies me and all that I secrete from myself is where God’s hand touches.

This is God’s time, and the most difficult thing to accept is that God is waiting on me even more than I am waiting on God.  God waits on Mary, waits on us, whatever we are up to, whatever stories and pains we carry, whatever the state of lapse, or homelessness.  That’s what I think Advent is really about.

What we receive is a pathway to those who suffer, not as benefactors but as the same.  Learning how to love ourselves, others, as we are loved by Him.

And the turtles, they only have each other in their little pond, and shells to crawl into when they need to turn their heads away, but then they will lean into each other again, help each other to climb to the rock in the sun, and sit there and look, just as they are.

Christ is born to us all, surprising us in the midst our littleness, pausing, we find the “Yes!” between us.

We have all been moved by the outpouring of grief and emotion by the deaths in Martin Place, the school children killed in Peshawar and eight children murdered in Cairns. The flood of floral tributes has been remarkable. We saw it only a few days earlier with the untimely death of Phillip Hughes. There was an even more remarkable outpouring with the death of Princess Di in 1997.

But what does our response mean? How do we interpret these events?

Let me try.

We all have brokenness, loss and grief in our lives that so often we suppress. The recent public tributes are a means to release some of this personal anxiety we all have. In a sense it is almost a public therapy for something we don’t really understand but need to express about our own lives. There is something deep within each us that breaks through,unbidden, to the surface.

We need ceremonies and rituals to help us express our grief. Sometimes those ceremonies and rituals are formal memorial services in a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple or a shrine. But for many an informal ‘memorial service’ with massed flowers shows the same purpose. It is a way of expressing both our grief and our respect. Ceremonies to mark death, like other ceremonies in our life, are very important milestones.

We particularly respond to untimely deaths, particularly of children. They are lives of great or unknown potential that are cut short. These untimely deaths remind us of the fragility of life. Though we try to manage and organise our lives to limit risk and the unknown, the fact remains that there is a fragility and mystery about human life that is beyond our understanding.

Perhaps in such public memorial services we are determined to show that evil will not triumph. We are determined to show that goodness and generosity, despite our shortcomings, is part of each of us and is essential in any decent society.

In these informal declarations of respect and support, we are also asserting that human relationships are more important than economic prosperity and success. In effect we are saying that there is a dimension to our lives that is more important than the material.

Perhaps we are also saying that the human person is precious and valuable. Some would say that it is sacred, that we all have a touch of the divine and when we plumb our humanity we will find the divine.

In our daily lives, dying has become different. In the extended family the death of grandparents and the viewing of the body were common place. Our parents wore mourning clothes. With our nuclear family, much of that has changed. Death is so often transferred to the hospital where doctors and nurses are in charge. We have removed death from the common place. Something is lost.

In the memorial of dying we want to hang on to a place, a cemetery, a war memorial or a road-side cross that can be the focus of grief. That is why we are likely to see a memorial erected in Martin Place and perhaps in Cairns. Like ceremonies, markers are needed in our lives.

The mystery of life and death will always be with us. That is what these floral tributes say to me.

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.

I was astounded when I read what Archbishop Antony Fisher told The Australian last week. The report said ‘Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric has proclaimed that families are more likely than priests to abuse children and rejected a church report that linked celibacy to sexual abuse. Archbishop of Sydney Antony Fisher said that celibacy could not be to blame for abuse, which occurred in every church, regardless of whether it was celibate. The thing about child abuse is most of it happens in families. It is an awful thing we hate to even touch on it, but it can’t be about celibacy because you look around society at the moment, it’s in every church, celibacy or not. It’s in many families and their not celibate, generally speaking.’

The Archbishop is falling into a tendency we all have to normalize crime in our own group, church or community by saying that the rate of crime in our own group is no worse than in other groups.

Cardinal Ratzinger who as Pope failed the Church so badly on sexual abuse of children used this argument at a conference in Spain in 2002 ”…the percentage of these (sexual) offences among priests is not higher than in other categories and perhaps it is even lower…less than 1%of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information or to the statistical objectivity of the facts”.

Professor Patrick Parkinson of the Faculty Law at the University of Sydney   released last year a sobering Paper “Suffer the Teenage Children. Child Sexual Abuse in Church Communities”. Twice he reviewed the Catholic Churches protocol “Towards Healing”. He was a key adviser to the Catholic Church on sexual abuse issues. He is a remarkably well informed commentator. He has seen the problems close at hand and over several years.

As he says in his Paper he terminated his work with the Catholic Church over the failure of the Salesians in Australia to address sexual abuse issues. He then called for a Royal Commission.

In his Paper he acknowledges the patchy data on sexual abuse but the information pointed in one direction. The Catholic Church has a special problem which is outside the “normal”.

He noted that at “a particular (Catholic) seminary in Melbourne 4.75 % of priests ordained between 1940 and 1966 sexually abused children”. Drawing on US data he concluded that “the rate of conviction (of these priests) is much higher than in the general population”.

In comparing the Catholic Church with other churches in Australia he concluded, “When all explanations have been offered the rate of conviction of Catholic personnel does seem to be strikingly out of proportion with the size of this faith community compared with other faith communities”. Go to ssrn.com/abstract=2216264 for the Parkinson paper

It is no help to try to distract attention from the problems that the Catholic Church faces  by saying that the Catholic Church is no different to others. As Parkinson points out ‘the conviction of Catholic personnel does seem to be strikingly out of proportion’

To say nothing about the abuse of trust.

This is not an encouraging start for the new Catholic Archbishop of Sydney

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.

In an article on December 16 in the SMH online, former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally said that the report of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council offered Catholics a wake-up call. She said that many in the Vatican are still asleep. She added ‘I can’t decide whether to scream or cry when I hear a bishop or cardinal deny that the Catholic Church has a particular and serious problem with child sexual abuse by pointing out that such abuse happens outside the church as well.’

For the text of Kristina Keneally’s article, see link below.  John Menadue

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/truth-justice-and-healing-councils-challenge-of-celibacy-falls-on-deaf-ears-20141215-1276nv.html

Our ability to hang on to sanity and some sense of equilibrium this week has been sorely tested. In the face of scarcely imaginable acts of violence – right in the city’s heart, Martin Place, the balance of our emotional lives could be endangered. The press sifts through the many and various reactions – casual bystanders, politicians, radio commentators, the police. Everyone feels impelled to respond in their own way. A young woman on a suburban train declares her solidarity with Muslims (#illridewithyou) too scared to ride on public transport. Her twitter message goes viral.

Recently when thinking about our personal responses to recent tragic events, such as the death of Philip Hughes. Martin Place, the Pakistan massacre, I came across a distinction which I found interesting and not a little helpful for a priest frequently called to face sudden tragedy. The distinction described three very different ways to sense another person’s feelings. Three kinds of empathy.  (Daniel Goleman. Dgadmin)

The first is ‘cognitive empathy’ – imagining how another person feels and what they may be feeling. Trying to conjure up what it would be like going through a 17-hour hostage situation, held captive by a deranged man with a gun. Placing yourself in their shoes, in your mind, at least.  This is a fairly intellectual exercise of fellow-feeling. Crisis professionals, when faced with day-by-day trauma, sometimes, but not always, protect their balance in this way. They form a protective shell around their emotions simply to allow them to operate effectively.

Then there is ‘emotional empathy’ – when you feel deeply along with the other person, as though such emotions were contagious. This form of empathy leaves a feeling of being drawn into another person’s inner emotional world, as a parent is in touch with their own child. One downside of such emotional empathy occurs when a person lacks the ability to manage their own emotional distress limiting the proper care that can be offered to the one suffering. It becomes a tightrope between appropriate detachment and excessively emotional involvement or, on the contrary, turning your back and searching for some form of mindless distraction.

But there is another level of empathy – ‘compassionate empathy’, when we not only understand another’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed. Simply speaking to do something. Genuine compassionate empathy occurs when one doesn’t allow emotional empathy to overwhelm and paralyse, but frees a person up to act and do something.

The most homely example is what we face when someone dies.  We recognize quiet rationally the grief experienced by the death and loss. We can be drawn into that grief in a very personal way. But we can act to support the grieving person – say by bringing a casserole. The gift of food is traditionally a powerful expression of compassionate empathy. The Eucharist reminds us food is also a powerful symbol of hope – an anchor for our spirit.

Finding the appropriate way to act in response to the Martin Place tragedy could be a vital step towards a saner and more balanced life and a more human future for us all.

Is there any wonder that the simple act of accompanying a young frightened woman on a train struck a universal nerve?

 Tony Doherty is the Parish Priest at St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Rose Bay.  

In December 2013, I wrote a piece for this blog entitled, Cracks in the Church Dyke at the Royal Commission, which posed the question: the real issue now is whether the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, (TJHC), representing the Church at the Royal Commission, will come clean over canon law, or the dyke will be opened by a thousand cuts: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=1015.  The dyke I was referring to was that erected by Pope Benedict XVI in his Pastoral Letter to the Irish people of March 2010, where he ignored the criticisms of canon law by the Murphy Commission in Ireland and its finding that “the structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated the cover up”. Instead, he blamed the bishops for failing to deal with these priests through “the long established norms of canon law.” That was an extraordinary statement because as far back as 1988, as Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had complained to the Vatican’s chief canon lawyer, Cardinal Castillo Lara about the inadequacies of canon law for dealing with child sexual abuse.  He set the strategy to be followed by the rest of the Church over the cover up: blame individual bishops, and do not mention canon law or the Vatican.

That strategy was followed by the Victorian Church in its 147 page submission, Facing the Truth, to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry in which it made no mention of the imposition of the pontifical secret over child sexual abuse allegations or the serious deficiencies in the canonical disciplinary system, and bishops in evidence blamed their predecessors for the cover up. The TJHC in its 207 page submission of September 2014 to the Royal Commission followed the same line. The TJHC CEO, Francis Sullivan, described the submission as “the most comprehensive document ever produced by the Church dealing with child sexual abuse…a warts-and-all history, going back many decades.” But the biggest warts of all, the pontifical secret and the inadequacy of the Church’s disciplinary system are never mentioned.

The TJHC has just published its December 2014 Activity Report, and there are some indications that the Church may wish to avoid the thousand cuts. The report received instant media attention for the concession that celibacy in some circumstances may have contributed to the sexual abuse of children. Much more significant are the “emerging issues” the report identifies.

The report acknowledges that the culture of clericalism explains why “historically, leaders seem to have responded virtually identically to complaints of child sexual abuse” and that they “seemed to turn a blind eye either instinctively or deliberately to the abuse…protecting the institution rather than caring for the child” and that “this was and is inexcusable”. And then we read this:

“• There needs to be greater clarity around the role of the Vatican and its involvement with the way in which Church authorities in Australia responded to abuse allegations.”

The Australian Church has finally realised that it cannot avoid the issue anymore, perhaps after watching the Commission in the Nestor case questioning the canon lawyer, Sr Moya Hanlen about the pontifical secret. The Commission’s terms of reference require it to look into “systemic issues”, and there is nothing more systemic than law. The Report further states:

“• There needs to be a proper understanding of the relationship between criminal law and canon law.”

The uniform culture of secrecy over child sex abuse was underpinned and deepened by the pontifical secret imposed on all allegations and information received by the Church about it. The situation improved a little in 2010 when the Vatican extended to the rest of the world the concession it had given to the American bishops in 2002: reporting is permitted where there is a civil law requiring it.  However, there are many jurisdictions in the world, including most Australian States that do not have comprehensive reporting laws. The pontifical secret still prevents a bishop in those places reporting many of these crimes to the police unless he walks into the priest’s bedroom and finds him in flagrante delicto with a child.

“• Child safety and protection must be embedded in the culture of the Church. Protocols and procedures must be driven and reinforced by Church leaders.”

Law and culture are intimately entwined. This applies as much to canon law as to civil law. According to one of the Church’s foremost intellectuals, Cardinal Francis George, a culture will never change unless the law that embodies it changes.  Local Church protocols that conflict with canon law are not going to change the culture, and are seriously defective, as Professor Parkinson has told the Church several times. The pontifical secret over these crimes has to be abandoned, and mandatory reporting in all cases under canon law must be imposed, something that has been demanded twice now by the United Nations Committees on the Rights of the Child and on Torture, and twice rejected by the Vatican.

Then we find this statement:

“• There is a lack of understanding about the Church’s approach to the dismissal of priests and others within the Church who have been convicted of a child sexual abuse offence. This includes concerns about people found guilty of abuse remaining in the priesthood or religious order and seemingly being supported by the Church.”

If there is a “lack of understanding” by the general public about these matters, it is not helped by claims put forward even by Pope Francis himself that the Church applies “zero tolerance” to child sexual abuse. The figures produced by the Vatican to the United Nations shows that there is a 70% tolerance.

The Activity Report at least shows some hopeful signs that the Australian Church might soon have the courage to face the truth over the role of the Vatican and canon law, and put an end to this pointless strategy of trying to hide it.

Kieran Tapsell is the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (ATF Press 2014).

Following up on the Relatio Synodi, the Vatican has now released the lineamenta (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20141209_lineamenta-xiv-assembly_en.html)

for next year’s synod on the family.  They have appended a list of 46 questions and they want the world’s Catholic bishops’ answers by April.  This will be a demanding task for the Australian bishops for three additional reasons.  First, they have not shared with the public the results of the first round of questionnaires circulated before this year’s synod.  Second, the country is about to retire for the summer recess.  Third, the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBC) is not due to reconvene for a plenary meeting until May 2015.

Before being asked to consider the 46 specific questions, the bishops are asked: “Does the description of the various familial situations in the Relatio Synodi correspond to what exists in the Church and society today? What missing aspects should be included?”

It is useful to consider some Australian statistics to set the scene.

Australians and marriage

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has a wealth of reliable statistics.  Here are some.

The crude marriage rate in Australia was 7.3/1,000 in 1901.  After reaching an all time high in 1942 (12/1,000), the rate fell until 1945, then increased sharply the following year, but generally fell again in the late 1940s and during the 1950s. The 1960s saw the rate increasing again.  It peaked again at 9.2/1,000 in 1971, and then progressively decreased in the last three decades of last century. The rate has remained fairly stable since 2001 when it was 5.3/1,000.  In 2012, it was 5.4/1,000.

16% of marriages in 1975 were preceded by cohabitation. By 2000, the proportion was 71%. The proportion was 78% in 2012.  Most young couples live together before marrying nowadays even if they are Catholic.

In 1908, 97% of marriages were performed by ministers of religion.  In 1999, there were for the first time in Australia more marriages performed by civil celebrants than by ministers of religion. In 2012, most marriages (72%) were conducted by civil celebrants.  Across the states and territories, civil marriage ceremonies are most common in the Northern Territory and least common in New South Wales.

Cohabiting couples are twice as likely to have a civil marriage ceremony than couples living separately.  When a religious celebrant is chosen to perform a marriage ceremony, the rites are most commonly Catholic (33%) or Anglican (19%).  Catholic ceremonies are the most common religious ceremonies in all states and territories except Tasmania.

The majority of Australian children live with both their parents until they leave home and begin to form their own families. In 2006, the living arrangements for children under 15 years old were:

74% with both of their biological parents;

18% in a lone-parent family (virtually all with their mother);

6% in a step- or blended family; and

2% in other living arrangements.

Australian Catholics and Church 

In February 2014, Dr Robert Dixon, Director of the Pastoral Research Office of the ACBC addressed a church conference telling us that Sunday mass attendance was now down to 12.2%, with overall mass attendance figures having declined by 23% just between the years 1996 and 2011.  In 1996, about 136,000 young Catholics (aged 15-34) attended mass on any Sunday in Australia.  By 2011, it was down to 80,000.  Attenders aged 15-19 make up 4% of the congregation, while those over 80 make up 8%.

While only 5% of young Catholics attend Sunday mass regularly, 30% of those in their 70’s do so. The attendance rate across the age spectrum for Catholics born in Australia fell from 17% to 10% in just fifteen years from 1996 to 2011.  Catholics born in non-English speaking countries have maintained a strong 24% showing.

If we listen ONLY to regular Sunday mass attenders, even less than half of them accept the Church teaching that pre-marital sex is always wrong.  40% of them do not accept that the divorced and remarried should be denied communion, with a further 16% undecided.  54% of those aged 15-34 attending Sunday mass regularly admit to using artificial means of birth control, and 48% of those aged 35-59.  So image the percentage for those between 35 and 40!

The 46 Questions 

Approaching the specific questions, the bishops have been urged to start ‘from “life’s periphery” and engage in pastoral activity that is characterized by a “culture of encounter”’.  They are invited on the path ‘of recognizing the Lord’s gratuitous work, even outside customary models, and of confidently adopting the idea of a “field hospital”, which is very beneficial in proclaiming God’s mercy.’  In their reflections they are asked ‘to avoid, in their responses, a formulation of pastoral care based simply on an application of doctrine, which would not respect the conclusions of the Extraordinary Synodal Assembly and would lead their reflection far from the path already indicated.’

While being asked what they are doing to demonstrate ‘the greatness and beauty of the gift of indissolubility of marriage’, and ‘in light the Church’s teaching in which the primary elements of marriage are unity, indissolubility and openness to life’, they are to address many complex issues including the three neuralgic ones highlighted by the more contested votes at the synod: the pastoral care of those living together without a sacramental marriage, the access to the Eucharist for the divorced and remarried, and the place of gays and lesbians in the Church community.  These issues arise particularly in questions 33, 38, 39, and 40.  Here are the questions:

33.  (In light of ‘the difficulty of young people to make lifetime commitments’), is the Christian community able to be pastorally involved in these situations? How can it assist in discerning the positive and negative elements in the life of persons united in a civil marriage so as to guide and sustain them on a path of growth and conversion towards the Sacrament of Matrimony? How can those living together be assisted to decide to marry?

38.  With regard to the divorced and remarried, pastoral practice concerning the sacraments needs to be further studied, including assessment of the Orthodox practice and taking into account the distinction between an objective sinful situation and extenuating circumstances. What are the prospects in such a case? What is possible? What suggestions can be offered to resolve forms of undue or unnecessary impediments?

39.  Does current legislation provide a valid response to the challenges resulting from mixed marriages or interreligious marriages? Should other elements be taken into account?

40.  How can the Christian community give pastoral attention to families with persons with homosexual tendencies? What are the responses that, in light of cultural sensitivities, are considered to be most appropriate? While avoiding any unjust discrimination, how can such persons receive pastoral care in these situations in light of the Gospel? How can God’s will be proposed to them in their situation?

How heartening it is to see buried in Question 43: ‘The Christian lives maternity or paternity as a response to a vocation.  What formation is offered so that it might effectively guide the consciences of married couples?  Are people aware of the grave consequences of demographic change?’  In a world of 7.2 billion people, in an Australian Church of declining mass attendance, I wouldn’t be saying too much about Humanae Vitae.  When Paul VI issued that encyclical the world’s population was less than half what it is today. Very few sexually active Catholics are now helped by this papal teaching when making conscientious family planning decisions. There comes a time for some past papal utterances to be quietly dropped even by our bishops working in the ‘field hospital’ proclaiming God’s mercy.

On returning from the synod, Archbishop Denis Hart, president of the ACBC said, ‘Pope Francis has reminded us that we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many challenges that families must confront, and to give answers to the many discouragements that surround families.’  There are only four months (including a long hot summer) to consult the faithful and send answers to Rome.  Let’s start with the facts, and if there’s time, let’s be attentive to the voice and experience of the young who are living together unmarried, the divorced and remarried, the gay and lesbian, as well as that minority of Catholics who are happily married and fronting up to mass every Sunday with the kids.

Fr Frank Brennan SJ is presently the Gasson Professor at Boston College Law School

Speaking of the financial reforms in the Vatican, Cardinal Pell says:

‘The first principle was that the Vatican should adopt contemporary international standards, much as the rest of the world does. 

The second principle meant that Vatican policies and procedures would be transparent.

The third important principle within the Vatican was that there should be something akin to a separation of powers and that there would be multiple sources of authority.’

Imagine if the same approach were taken to administrative processes in the Holy See. I daresay Bishop William Morris would have received a fair hearing and we might all have known why he was sacked and who was pulling the levers. See:http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/december-5th-2014/the-days-of-ripping-off-the-vatican-are-over/

On 26 September 2014, the Holy See rejected the demand of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child for it to impose through canon law mandatory reporting of all allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy. The Holy See said its only responsibility under the Convention was for the handful of children who reside within the 44 hectares of the Vatican City. This is despite the fact that since 2001, it supervised or conducted disciplinary hearings against 4,000 clerics accused of child sexual abuse which had no connection whatsoever with the Vatican City. The Holy See further said that to impose mandatory reporting under canon law would be to interfere in the sovereignty of other nations – a surprising objection since it does not regard canon law’s imposition of the pontifical secret on all allegations and information about child sexual abuse amongst clergy everywhere in the world as interference in national sovereignty.

Now the Holy See’s behaviour has become an issue in relation to Australia’s response to the United Nations Committee on Torture.  In May 2013, Cardinal Pell told the Victorian Parliamentary Committee that he had been assured by a “senior Vatican official” that all documents relating to clerical sexual abuse of children in Australia would be made available to Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.  When it came to the crunch, the Holy See refused to honour that assurance, despite handing over some documents. In its Concluding Observations on Australia’s Fourth and Fifth Periodic Reports on the Convention against Torture, the Committee expressed concern that the Holy See had told the Royal Commission that it was “unreasonable” for the Commission to request all documents that include “internal working documents of a sovereign State”.

Once again, the Holy See has resorted to this sophistry that disciplinary proceedings being managed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under canon law had some connection with the Vatican City as a sovereign state.

The UN Committee acknowledged that the Royal Commission was independent of the Australian Government but reminded the latter that it had obligations under the convention to make sure that “all reports of breaches of the Convention are promptly and impartially investigated and that assistance is sought from other State parties where necessary to conduct such investigations.” The Australian Government can support the request by the Royal Commission, but cannot force the Holy See to comply.

There are very sound moral reasons for the Holy See to comply. Society has as much interest in not having sex abusers amongst priests, ministers, imams and rabbis as it has in not having lawyer thieves and drug dealing doctors. Disciplinary proceedings against lawyers and doctors are open to public scrutiny. The Church’s dealings with its priests are not, because of the pontifical secret imposed by canon law.  The Royal Commission has the power to subpoena all documents held in Australia concerning such disciplinary matters, and it would reject any claim for privilege or secrecy based on canon law. But there is no guarantee that the Australian Church has copies of all relevant documents that the Holy See has in its possession.

In 2007, the Holy See engaged Archbishop Chaput to investigate complaints about Bishop William Morris of Toowoomba.  Chaput prepared a report which he sent to Rome. When Morris asked to see a copy, Chaput replied that he did not have a copy anymore because he had sent the report in electronic and hard copy form to the Vatican, and then destroyed his own, that being “what he was supposed to do”. In its Cloyne Report, the Murphy Commission in Ireland found that Bishop Magee, the former private secretary to three popes, kept two files about allegations of sexual abuse by priests. One was in case a subpoena or search warrant was issued by the State and the other was for the Vatican. One of Magee’s priests, Fr Caden admitted to sexually abusing children. Magee had the admission on the file to go to the Vatican, but not on the file to be given to the police. Bishop Magee had forgotten to destroy his “Vatican” file, and it came into the hands of the Murphy Commission.

Even assuming that every relevant document in the possession of the Holy See is also held by bishops in Australia, one would have thought that given the practice in the Morris and Magee cases, it was in the interests of the Holy See to dispel such suspicions by producing everything it had. This resort to casuistry by claiming that such documents are protected by sovereign immunity only creates more suspicion that the Holy See has things to hide, and is not serious about being frank with the Royal Commission. In his 2010 Pastoral Letter to the people of Ireland, Pope Benedict encouraged the Irish bishops to “cooperate” with civil authorities over sexual abuse, but when it came to producing relevant documents to the Murphy Commission, the Holy See refused to follow the same advice.

The Royal Commission’s terms of reference require it to investigate “systemic issues” involving institutional responses to child sexual abuse, and there is nothing more systemic than law. Canon law determines how priests are to be disciplined in Australia, and the Commission has already dealt with the Nestor case where canon law was shown to be seriously inadequate. If the Catholic Church wants to convince the world that “everything has changed” then it is indeed surprising that the Holy See is reluctant to hand over all its files in cases involving Australia and Australians to the Royal Commission. We seem to be witnessing a modern rendition of the famous line of the Sicilian aristocrat in Giuseppe de Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard: “If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

Kieran Tapsell is the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (ATF Press 2014)

Seeing Australia from outside the island continent offers some very strange views from time to time. The outpouring of grief over the tragic accident that took the talented life of cricketer Phillip Hughes went global within a very short time.

The home of cricket – England – was profuse in the time devoted to this sad event. While he was in hospital, Phillip Hughes was part of hourly bulletins on the BBC. On the day Hughes was declared dead, the BBC gave a full quarter hour of coverage from England and Australia involving players, administrators, medical doctors, sports physicians and engineers who design helmets. And all in prime time.

The tragic accident and its sorrowful unfolding has flooded the Australian media and will remain so till his funeral.

As one who has more than my fare share to do with death and grief, I know the exquisite pain and  numbing sense of loss suffered by those people pole axed by its occurring. There’s nothing to compare with the shock and dismay that comes with the unexpected death of someone full of promise.

But the intrusion into the intimacy of the experience by the world’s media and the reaction that it provokes in communities often only held together by the media they share has been on a scale not seen since the death of Princess Diana. Even Elton John got in on the act to dedicate a song to Hughes.

Meanwhile and at the same time, an Israeli umpire gets hit on the head in a freak accident while doing his job and it is barely reported. And the catalogue of the world’s atrocity stories are readily available but hardly get noticed.

What’s going on here? Yes some of it comes down to a world – Australia – where you dare not mention the “D” word – death. It’s where we are all headed but never the subject of any conversation and little thought or reflection.

Especially among young athletes, the prospect of physical failure cannot be countenanced and the sheer lack of familiarity with death in the sanitized, fitness and success focused world of professional sport means that any accommodation of its reality is something that is put in the “too hard” basket indefinitely.

But there’s something else. Recently a senior figure in the Australian Rugby Union who played for the Wallabies when it was an amateur sport gave his account of why the Wallabies are doing so badly. It’s not that they haven’t got the talent or they’re demoralized or they aren’t fit enough or have too many among them on the injury list.

My friend reckons it’s because they’re paid too much. They’re paid so much and on such long contracts that they have to look after themselves or have their working life shortened. So, says my pal, they won’t have a go.

Whether that’s the explanation or something else is at the heart of the Wallabies’ woes is not my point. What the allegation points to is the hermetically sealed world professional athletes live in and it’s all focused on what Miss Piggy once neatly summarized: “moi” (me).

So, when reality breaks and death intrudes, worlds shatter. But not just the world of those intimately involved with the deceased, as it does for all those who lose someone close and loved. A global community that is tied up with supporting that hermetically sealed world of professional sports breaks open.

People who had never met the deceased somehow feel a sense of tragic loss well beyond the sadness we should all feel at someone else’s misfortune. Prime Ministers eulogize, commentators offer opinions, individuals put out bats and flowers.

What’s it saying about us? As a regular celebrant of funerals, I never tire of saying to a grieving family that the ceremony isn’t for the deceased. Sadly, they’re gone. It’s for the living, the ones left behind. What does the outpouring over Phillip Hughes say about the culture he’s left behind?

As I said, Australia is becoming a stranger and stranger place to me.

Michael Kelly is an Australian Jesuit Priest, now based in Bangkok. 

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’.

There was an interesting exchange on CBS 60 Minutes here in the USA on Sunday night between Cardinal O’Malley and Norah O’Donnell

(See http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cardinal-sean-omalley-works-with-pope-francis-to-reform-catholic-church/).  Here is part of the interview:

Norah O’Donnell: The church says it’s not open to the discussion about ordaining women. Why not?

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Not everyone needs to be ordained to have an important role in the life of the church. Women run the Catholic charities, the Catholic schools, the development office for the archdiocese.

Norah O’Donnell: Some would say women do a lot of the work but have very little power.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well “power” is not a word that we like to use in the church. It’s more service.

Norah O’Donnell: But they can’t preach. They can’t administer the sacraments.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well…

Norah O’Donnell: I mean, some women feel like they’re second class Catholics because they can’t do those things that are very important.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well, they, but they’re, they have other very important roles that, you know, a priest cannot be a mother, either.

The Cardinal stated the official position:  “The tradition of the church is that we have always ordained men. And that the priesthood reflects the incarnation of Christ, who in his humanity is a man.”  Here Cardinal O’Malley was being quite consistent with the approach taken by Pope Francis.  Francis wrote in Evangelii Gaudium, “The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion, but it can prove especially divisive if sacramental power is too closely identified with power in general.” Surely it must be even more divisive if those who reserve to themselves sacramental power determine that they alone can determine who has access to that power and legislate that the matter is not open for discussion.  Given that the power to determine the teaching of the magisterium and the provisions of canon law is not a sacramental power, is there not a need to include women in the decision that the question is not open to discussion and in the contemporary quest for an answer to the question? Francis’s position on this may be politic for the moment within the Vatican which has had a longtime preoccupation with shutting down the discussion, but the position is incoherent, as the TV world experienced on Sunday night seeing Cardinal O’Malley trying to make the official position credible.

No one doubts the pastoral sensitivity of Pope Francis and Cardinal O’Malley.  But the Church will continue to suffer for as long as it does not engage in open, ongoing discussion and education about this issue.  The official position is no longer comprehensible to most people of good will, and as demonstrated on Sunday night, not even those at the very top of the hierarchy have a willingness or capacity to explain it.

The claim that the matter “is not a question open to discussion” can not be maintained unless sacramental power also includes the power to determine theology and the power to determine canon law.  Ultimately the Pope’s claim must be that only those possessed of sacramental power can determine the magisterium and canon law.  Conceding for the moment the historic exclusion of women from the sacramental power of presidency at Eucharist, we need to determine if “the possible role of women in decision-making in different areas of the Church’s life” could include the power to contribute to theological discussion and the shaping of the magisterium and to canonical discussion about sanctions for participating in theological discussion on set topics such as the ordination of women.  As Francis says, “Demands that the legitimate rights of women be respected, based on the firm conviction that men and women are equal in dignity, present the Church with profound and challenging questions which cannot be lightly evaded.”

Sunday night’s CBS discussion got even more difficult despite the enormous good will and rapport between O’Malley and his interviewer. This is how it unfolded:

Norah O’Donnell: But in spite of that, does the exclusion of women seem at all immoral?

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well, Christ would never ask us to do something immoral. And I know that women in...

Norah O’Donnell: The sense of equality. I mean, just the sense of sort of the fairness of it, you know. You wouldn’t exclude someone based on race. But yet you do exclude people based on gender.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley: Well, it’s a matter of vocation. And what God has given to us. And this is, you know, if I were founding a church, you know, I’d love to have women priests. But Christ founded it and what he has given us is something different.

If Cardinal O’Malley were founding a Church in the twenty first century, he would love to have women priests.  So I presume, given complete freedom before God, he would have women priests expressive of Christ’s full humanity and of Christ’s giving of self as spouse in the eucharist.  If Cardinal O’Malley had been founding a Church in the first century, I presume it would not have occurred to him to have women priests, and thus he would not have loved to have them.  His two positions are readily understandable and can be held together.  Like all of us, he is a person of his times.  When Christ founded the Church in the first century, let’s assume that he did give us a male priesthood (in that it developed not long after his death) and that he did not give us a church with women priests.  If Jesus was founding the Church in the twenty-first century would he love to have women priests?  Would he think it immoral not to have women priests?  I think you can answer “Yes” to these two questions, still be a Catholic in good standing, and still acknowledge that in the first century, Jesus, like Cardinal O’Malley would not have considered having women priests and neither would he have considered it immoral to exclude them from ordained ministry.  You can also answer “No” to these two questions, being counted a Catholic receptive to present papal teaching, but like Cardinal O’Malley being a little pressed to make sense of it all when asked why even discussion of change is inappropriate, and perhaps even forbidden.

Given that even one as senior and pastoral as Cardinal O’Malley gets tongue-tied on this issue, is it not time to invite the conversation rather than the men trying to keep it shut down?  Sunday night’s TV appearance shows that with the best will in the world, that tactic just ain’t working.  John Paul II’s enforced silence behind a tongue-tied episcopal wall is no longer an option.

The Vatican has now released the official English translation of the “relatio synodi”, the concluding document from the Synod of Bishops convened by Pope Francis to consider “pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelisation”. (http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2014/10/18/0770/03044.html)

In my last post (https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=2565), I dealt with an earlier document, the “relation post disceptationem” which was the punchy and slightly provocative discussion paper put together by Pope Francis’s small hand-picked group charged with putting the issues for discussion on the table.

(http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2014/10/06/0712/03003.html)

That document indicated a novel acceptance of some “constructive elements” of couples living together without marriage, of the need to welcome homosexuals into the life of the Church, and of the possibility of admitting divorced and remarried people to the Eucharist.  The Synod fathers agreed that they wanted to “offer a meaningful word of hope” to the Church.  I said previously that they needed to acknowledge “that the genie is out of the bottle and that there is a need for a comprehensive rethink by the Catholic Church on its teaching about marriage, sexuality, and reception of the Eucharist”.

The relatio synodi is much more than a discussion paper.  It is a lengthy committee job cobbling together the many different strands of discussion over the two weeks of the synod.  Each of the 62 paragraphs was separately voted on by the 180 bishops in attendance who voted.  It does not put the genie back in the bottle, but it does revert to much of the old style Vaticanese, trying to confine the genie to the episcopal kitchen.   What’s refreshing is that unlike synod documents published during the last two papacies, this one actually reflects the divisions and differing perspectives. We are even given the voting figures on each paragraph.

Also published today is the official translation of Pope Francis’s closing remarks at the Synod in which he speaks of “moments of desolation, of tensions and temptations”.  He lists the “temptation to hostile inflexibility” which is “the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called traditionalists and also of the intellectuals”.  Then crossing to the other side of the street, he speaks of the temptation to practise “a deceptive mercy (which) binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots.”   This is “the temptation of the ‘do-gooders’, of the fearful, and also of the so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘liberals’”.   All types were inside the Vatican tent last week and acknowledged as such.  But this is still a synod only of bishops – celibate males talking about family life.  Even though they have been attentive to some married people invited into their midst, they alone get to vote; they alone shape the final document.

This is all a work in progress.   All sides of the hierarchy have put their views, and their views are reflected or at least hinted at in this latest document.  The Synod fathers are to reconvene in Rome in a year’s time.  Their relatio synodi is “intended to raise questions and indicate points of view which will later be developed and clarified through reflection in the local Churches in the intervening year”.  Those reflections must not be restricted just to bishops or clergy.

The drafters have done a reasonable job given that all paragraphs attracted majority support, with only three paragraphs attracting less than 2/3 support.  Those three paragraphs indicate the real neuralgic points of discussion.  They were: the paragraph about the community’s care for the divorced and remarried being an expression of the community’s charity and not a weakening of its faith and testimony to the indissolubility of marriage; the paragraph requesting further theological reflection on the options of “spiritual communion” or full sacramental communion for the divorced and remarried; and a very clunky paragraph packed with old CDF terminology on “pastoral attention towards persons with homosexual tendencies”, abandoning any talk of welcome for committed gays who give mutual aid and precious support to each other.

The relatio synodi follows the basic outline of the original relatio post disceptationem with three parts on listening, looking, and facing the situation.  Listening to the context and challenges of the family in the first part, the Synod fathers (with no sense of irony or embarrassment) when reviewing the socio-cultural context, highlight the positive aspect of “a greater freedom of expression and a better recognition of the rights of women and children, at least in some part of the world”.  Dare one add: “at least in some institutions and in some churches”?  They speak also of the importance of affectivity in life and relationships.

Looking at Christ and the Gospel of the Family, they move in the second part from Jesus in the history of salvation to the family as part of God’s salvific plan.  These deft scriptural surveys are followed by a treatment of the family in Church documents including the 1968 encyclical on birth control Humanae Vitae which is unquestioningly espoused twice in the course of this document.  The bulk of this second part is devoted to the indissolubility of marriage, the truth and beauty of the family, and mercy towards broken families.

The third part is where the rubber hits the road.  The fathers set out pastoral perspectives on “facing the situation”.  They display considerable pastoral sensitivity and deep learning on caring for couples preparing for marriage, couples in the initial years of marriage, couples civilly married or living together, and broken families.  But there is no consensus on what to do about the eucharist for the divorced and remarried.  And for the moment the welcome mat for gays has been put back in the closet.  Then comes what undoubtedly some Synod fathers will think to be a prophetic, counter-cultural discussion on “the transmission of life and the challenges of a declining birthrate”. Living in a world of 7.2 billion people, and constantly meeting young couples who will try anything including IVF to have a child, I would have liked to have seen some treatment of these sorts of issues under this curious heading.  Given the soundings that the Synod fathers took with their questionnaire before the Synod, I am staggered that they have said that “we should return to the message of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae of Blessed Pope Paul VI, which highlights the need to respect the dignity of the person in morally assessing methods in regulating births”.

We never saw the results of the Australian questionnaire before the Synod.  But I have no reason to think it would be all that much different from the German response:

In most cases where the Church’s teaching is known, it is only selectively accepted. The idea of the sacramental marriage covenant, which encompasses faithfulness and exclusivity on the part of the spouses and the transmission of life, is normally accepted by people who marry in Church. Most of the baptised enter into marriage in the expectation and hope of concluding a bond for life. The Church’s statements on premarital sexual relations, on homosexuality, on those divorced and remarried, and on birth control, by contrast, are virtually never accepted, or are expressly rejected in the vast majority of cases. 

We all have our work cut out for us in the next year if this Synod is be truly reflective of the life experience and faith-filled hope of those who commit themselves to making a go of bringing Christ to the world through their work, their commitments to each other, and their children.  For the moment, I would not see much pastoral point in sharing this document with the many young people I know who are living together, or with those who are gay or lesbian seeking a homecoming in the Church, or with those who have endured the pain of divorce and the moral angst of remarriage.  I think I will be telling them to keep the door open, wait a while, and check back in a year to see how we are going.  Francis still has a lot of work ahead of him, and so does the Holy Spirit.  It would be a good start if all bishops’ conferences were to follow the lead of the Germans and publish the results of the original questionnaire.  After all if we can have the voting results on each paragraph of an interim Synod document on the family, why not some indication of what family members are saying to their lordships in good faith and with open hearts?

No Australian bishop has ever assumed such high rank in the Catholic Church as Cardinal George Pell, who eight months ago became head of the Vatican’s newly created “finance ministry” or Secretariat for the Economy.

For the 73-year-old native of Ballarat, a city about 100 kms west of Melbourne, this is but the latest rung on what has been a steady and seemingly unstoppable rise up the Church’s hierarchical ladder, a climb that began in the pontificate of John Paul II and continued under Benedict XVI. Cardinal Pell’s ascent to key positions of leadership and his attainment of real ecclesiastical power have vexed his critics, including a good number of fellow bishops, as much as they have heartened his fans and allies, many of them so-called “traditionalists” who are devotees of the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin.

But neither group could have imagined that “Big George” – as they, by turns, call him affectionately or mockingly – would continue to be a major player in the era of Francis. That’s because this Pope’s style and blueprint for reform (just read his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium) seem at times to be as distant from Pell’s view of the Church as the 16,000 km that separate Rome from Sydney. Of course, the cardinal was archbishop in that Australian city from 2001 until last February when he got his prestigious new Vatican post.

Just how prestigious? As head of the Secretariat of the Economy he has wide-sweeping authority over all the financial and administrative activities of the Holy See and Vatican City, including the monitoring of hiring and firing procedures. Yes this is big. In fact, the establishment of this new department was the most radical structural change to the Roman Curia in nearly 50 years.

And it is widely assumed that Pope Francis chose Pell to oversee this fledgling office because of his reputation as a blunt-speaking and no-nonsense administrator, one that’s not afraid to knock heads to get what he wants. While some might call this “determination”, others do not hesitate to use the word “ruthlessness”. But they all agree that the imposing cardinal, someone who’s not afraid to call a spade a shovel, remains unflinching in the face of criticism.

That will be a useful tool in his skill set for the gargantuan and thankless task that lies before him – reforming and reordering a holy mess that is likely to make him (and his team) among the most unpopular, perhaps even despised people in the Vatican. Some believe he’s been asked to do the impossible. But almost all concur that if there is any “outsider” that can pull it off (and only an outsider could) that person is George Pell. After decades of notorious papal appointments to top Vatican jobs, ranging from mediocre to disastrous, Pope Francis’ decision to bring Sydney to Rome should be seen as a masterstroke of both pragmatism and shrewdness.

Actually, the appointment was not as surprising as it might have been. It was almost underwhelming in comparison to the bigger shock that came nearly a year earlier when the Pope named Pell an original member of his council of eight (now nine) cardinal-advisors to help him govern the worldwide Church and reform the Roman Curia. The men he chose for that council immediately appeared to be people who likely voted for him in the conclave, as well as those who more or less shared his vision of Church and agenda for reform. All, it would seem, except Cardinal Pell, whose papal candidate is believed to have been Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan.

Though Pell was one of the loudest voices before the conclave to demand Roman Curia reform, his focus was more on cleaning up the financial and administrative shenanigans widely blamed on certain Italian-dominated power cliques (from which Scola was excluded). In the last several months, however, he has demonstrated that on issues of faith and morals, especially how the Church explains and applies its teaching in these areas, he is not exactly on the same page as the pope.

That became clear during the recent synod when Cardinal Pell criticized bishops and cardinals for doing exactly one of the things Francis had asked them to do – discuss and propose ways through which the Church might help reach out to alienated Catholics, including the divorced and remarried, cohabitating couples, unwed mothers, gays and others. He was also one of about a dozen cardinals who tried to stop discussion on how to possibly readmit remarried divorcees to communion, an issue the Pope had specially commissioned Cardinal Walter Kasper to help the bishops explore. He wrote the preface to a book that attempts to eviscerate Kasper’s arguments.

Two days after the conclave Cardinal Pell was asked in a video interview if he had yet had a chance to speak the newly elected Pope Francis. “I have already spoken to him and I promised him my complete loyalty,” he said. It’s not clear why he felt he had to underline this since part of the conclave ritual is that all the cardinals individually pledge their allegiance to the new pope in the Sistine Chapel shortly after his election.

It’s even less clear how he estimates Francis 19 months into the pontificate. One gets the impression that he and many other cardinals, whether they voted for him or not, see Francis today as somebody very different from the man they thought was elected in March 2013. “He is doing a marvelous job making the financial reforms,” Cardinal Pell reportedly said last week. Was it meant to be ironic? Because, evidently, it was the highest compliment he paid Francis in a homily last Saturday to a group of Tridentine Mass enthusiasts on pilgrimage to Rome. At least according to a report by Catholic News Service (CNS). A secretary actually read the cardinal’s sermon at a Mass he was supposed to celebrate. But at the last minute he did not show up because of a sudden bout of bronchitis. The full text of his homily was not immediately published, but according to CNS he also wrote, “Pope Francis is the 266th pope and history has seen 37 false or antipopes. The story of the popes is stranger than fiction. We have one of the more unusual popes in history, enjoying almost unprecedented popularity.” He then went to say: “The church is not built on the rock of Peter’s faith, but on Peter himself, despite his faults and failings.”

What is one to make of these utterances? Cardinal Pell apparently sent an accompanying note to the Old Rite group, according to CNS, ensuring them that illness was the only reason he could not attend their Mass. Yet apparently another head of a Roman Curia office, Cardinal Robert Sarah of “Cor Unum”, also cancelled an event with the same group also at the last minute. Did the Pope or his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, express displeasure with the two close papal aides for showing him less than “complete loyalty”?

Cardinal Pell’s remark about the pope’s “marvelous” work in the area of financial reform is, of course, largely self-serving. And it conveniently ignores the areas of reform that Francis, but perhaps not so much the cardinal, sees as much more essential – the development of the Synod of Bishops and the elaboration of “genuine doctrinal authority” for episcopal conferences as an integral part of Church governance; the re-examination of “certain customs”, “rules” and “precepts”; the promotion of “different currents of thought” in theology rather than a “monolithic body of doctrine guarded by all and leaving no room for nuances”; and a “conversion” of the papacy for a better exercise of the “primacy” in a way more faithful to the will of Christ. You can find it all in Evangelii Gaudium.

Pope Francis has not appointed Cardinal Pell to head any office or commission that will deal specifically with these issues. Of course, as a bishop he has a voice in the synod. At least he did in the most recent assembly and will most likely in the next one, too. But his first priority is reorganizing the Vatican’s financial disorder. It’s a challenge that should command his undivided attention.

This article is a taste of what Robert Mickens will be writing from ‘Global Pulse’. He has been a regular commentator on the Vatican. Subscriptions for ‘Global Pulse’ from November 1, will be available shortly.