Category: Religion

On Copacabana beach in Rio, Pope Francis celebrated Mass with three million people, more than the Rolling Stones or Carnivale could ever attract. With his obvious modesty he showed himself a great communicator with the young and the poor. He appealed for the rich to share with the poor and solidarity between all people. He called the bishops to accountability rather than autocracy, to walk humbly with struggling people and to meet them on their journey. (John Menadue)

The following, with a minor edit is what he said to the bishops.

“Before all else, we must not yield to the fear once expressed by (Cardinal) John Henry Newman: “… the Christian world is gradually becoming barren and effete, as land which has been worked out and is become sand”. We must not yield to disillusionment, discouragement and complaint. We have laboured greatly and, at times, we see what appear to be failures. We feel like those who must tally up a losing season as we consider those who have left us or no longer consider us credible or relevant.

Let us read once again, in this light, the story of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-15). The two disciples have left Jerusalem. .. They are scandalized by the failure of the Messiah in whom they had hoped and who now appeared utterly vanquished, humiliated, even after the third day (vv. 17-21). Here we have to face the difficult mystery of those people who leave the Church, who, under the illusion of alternative ideas, now think that the Church – their Jerusalem – can no longer offer them anything meaningful and important. So they set off on the road alone, with their disappointment. Perhaps the Church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, perhaps the world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions; perhaps the Church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age. It is a fact that nowadays there are many people like the two disciples of Emmaus; not only those looking for answers in the new religious groups that are sprouting up, but also those who already seem godless, both in theory and in practice.

Faced with this situation, what are we to do?

We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning.

A relentless process of globalization, an often uncontrolled process of intense urbanization, has promised great things. Many people have been captivated by their potential, which of course contains positive elements as, for example, the shortening of distance, the drawing closer of peoples and cultures, the diffusion of information and of services. On the other hand, however, many are living the negative effects of these realities without realizing how they affect a proper vision of humanity and of the world. This generates enormous confusion and an emptiness which people are unable to explain, regarding the purpose of life, personal disintegration, the loss of the experience of belonging to a “home” and the absence of personal space and strong personal ties.

And since there is no one to accompany them or to show them with his or her own life the true way, many have sought shortcuts, because the standards set by Mother Church seem to be asking too much. There are also those who recognize the ideal of humanity and of life as proposed by the Church, but they do not have the audacity to embrace it. They think that this ideal is too lofty for them, that it is beyond their abilities, and that the goal the Church sets is unattainable. Nonetheless they cannot live without having at least something, even a poor imitation of what seems too grand and distant. With disappointed hearts, they then go off in search of something which will lead them even further astray, or which brings them to a partial belonging that, ultimately, does not fulfill their lives.

The great sense of abandonment and solitude, of not even belonging to oneself, which often results from this situation, is too painful to hide. Some kind of release is necessary. There is always the option of complaining. But even complaint acts like a boomerang; it comes back and ends up increasing one’s unhappiness. Few people are still capable of hearing the voice of pain; the best we can do is to anaesthetize it.

From this point of view, we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey; a Church able to make sense of the “night” contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem; a Church which realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return. But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture. Jesus warmed the hearts of the disciples of Emmaus.

I would like all of us to ask ourselves today: are we still a Church capable of warming hearts? A Church capable of leading people back to Jerusalem? Of bringing them home? Jerusalem is where our roots are: Scripture, catechesis, sacraments, community, friendship with the Lord, Mary and the apostles… Are we still able to speak of these roots in a way that will revive a sense of wonder at their beauty?

Many people have left because they were promised something more lofty, more powerful, and faster.

But what is more lofty than the love revealed in Jerusalem? Nothing is more lofty than the abasement of the Cross, since there we truly approach the height of love! Are we still capable of demonstrating this truth to those who think that the apex of life is to be found elsewhere?

Do we know anything more powerful than the strength hidden within the weakness of love, goodness, truth and beauty?

People today are attracted by things that are faster and faster: rapid Internet connections, speedy cars and planes, instant relationships. But at the same time we see a desperate need for calmness, I would even say slowness. Is the Church still able to move slowly: to take the time to listen, to have the patience to mend and reassemble? Or is the Church herself caught up in the frantic pursuit of efficiency? Dear brothers, let us recover the calm to be able to walk at the same pace as our pilgrims, keeping alongside them, remaining close to them, enabling them to speak of the disappointments present in their hearts and to let us address them. They want to forget Jerusalem, where they have their sources, but eventually they will experience thirst. We need a Church capable of accompanying them on the road back to Jerusalem! A Church capable of helping them to rediscover the glorious and joyful things that are spoken of Jerusalem, and to understand that she is my Mother, our Mother, and that we are not orphans! We were born in her. Where is our Jerusalem, where were we born? In Baptism, in the first encounter of love, in our calling, in vocation. We need a Church that kindles hearts and warms them.

We need a Church capable of restoring citizenship to her many children who are journeying, as it were, in an exodus”.

But what was the question? For a very long time I have puzzled over what fanatics, bigots, sundry village idiots and fundamentalists have in common.

I used to think it was fear – the fear of losing control. So, all manner of extreme positions, programs and political strategies are worked out to keep control.

It’s plainly evident in societies run by religious leaders: there’s only one way to do things and that is according to the Book, whichever Book might be invoked. It’s obvious also in the totalitarian politics that keep Communist Parties in office in several Asian countries.

Though, as is the way with hardy totalitarians, what is prescribed as the “only way” tends to change to meet the convenience of those in power who want to stay in control.

But now I’ve discovered that there is another crucial ingredient in the mix of motivations and intentions among those who adopt such positions and it is something that can be seen in everything from domestic disputes to the ruthless rule of totalitarians of all stripes.

And what’s more, this ingredient is a theory that won its inventors a Nobel Prize. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Well, it sort of won a Nobel Prize – the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in 2000.

Dunning and Kruger received their satirical “gong” in psychology for their paper entitled “Unskilled and Unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessment”.

What Dunning and Kruger proposed is that, for a given skill, incompetent people will do some or all of the following: tend to overestimate their own level of skill; fail to recognize genuine skill in others; fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy; recognize their previous lack of skill if they are exposed to training for that skill.

Simple isn’t it! So why do we do it? It happens everywhere.

It happens in tedious meetings, even around dinner tables, where self-appointed authorities lecture far better qualified people on things they know little of.

It is at the heart of the besetting crisis of the world where terrorists with simple answers to complex questions (i.e. kill those they’ve demonized).

And it becomes seriously destructive of the Church’s mission when incompetent and inexperienced clergy and Religious are given jobs which lay people are far better qualified to manage.

For light relief, it can reach comic proportions when celibate Catholic clerics tell married lay people all they need to know about sex!

But the sinister side of this phenomenon in the Church is evident in the culture it creates in which clergy and laity conspire to keep a feature of Church life alive that should be strangled.

At the heart of the Church’s authorized corruption, so lamented by the present Pope, lies something that eats away at the plausibility of Catholicism – clericalism.

This is a culture that clerics can create and share where they install themselves (and laity meekly comply with the installation) as unassailable authorities, beyond correction and in possession of whatever it takes to get their way.

And, when one is threatened, the group closes ranks to protect the vulnerable party, joins the chorus of shaming and blaming any accusers and categorizes the critics as “dissidents”.

It is under widespread assault in many parts of the Church. But, like hardy cockroaches in warm, wet climates and despite the best efforts of their assailants, they survive and even thrive.

Clericalism is under greatest threat in the West where an educated Catholic laity has called the bluff of priests, bishops and Religious to either practice what they preach or move away. And, by the way, this is a laity that is often the outcome of the Church’s best efforts to increase the knowledge and skill levels of lay people through all its schools at all levels.

But clericalism has rich soil to grow in when combined with features of the place of men and local religions and hierarchies in some Asian societies.

Where ever men are seen to be (and assume the prerogatives) of a more powerful status than women, where ever existing social hierarchies revere either or both “holy men” and “professors”, Catholic clerics can slip into a set of pre-arranged hierarchies that intensify the worst features of clericalism.

So what’s the answer to these internal forces that corrupt the Church’s ability to proclaim the message of Jesus in word and deed?

Then first thing is to recognize the wisdom of a recent remark of Pope Francis to some bishops visiting the Vatican. Their role is to lead their people, “sometimes from behind”. Why? Because, the Pope said, their first duty as pastors is to listen to their people. There’s no substitute for a humble and attentive attitude of listening.

The second thing is to follow the old maxim of the scientific method: recognize that “the facts are friendly”. That means accepting that we live in a world where all closed and presumptuous societies – large and small – are ripe targets for justified attack.

The answer to that accusation, justified in too many instances, is transparency and openness to engage and address the criticisms. Defensiveness and denial suffocate the Church and just create more trouble in the future.

A third response is to take seriously what Dunning and Kruger have to say. There is simply a dizzying amount of information on just about every subject under the sun today and to a level and degree unimaginable by our forebears.

The skill the Church at central level has learnt slowly and reluctantly is the legitimate autonomy of the many and varied departments of knowledge that no single authority can pronounce on just about everything, as Vatican authorities once believed they could.

What the Vatican learnt the hard way (remember Galileo among many others?)  is that to skill up in any area of competence opens up all the other areas  of one’s incompetence.

An approach of respectful solicitation becomes the next step.

I watched Cardinal George Pell give his evidence to the Victorian Parliamentary Committee on Monday and thought that he was fortunate to be questioned across the polished table by a team of amateur interrogators. The members of the committee were, for my taste, too respectful, and far too thankful for the inadequate information he was providing. He will not be treated so softly, so kindly by counsel assisting the Royal Commission. We should prepare ourselves for a longer and more equal contest when the trained, heavy-weight inquisitors put the Archbishop of Sydney on the rack.

I thought His Eminence’s form had improved somewhat, though admittedly he was coming off a troubling slump. He was visibly less aggressive. His trainers had persuaded him to surrender his bullying, bulldozing tactics and to eat a few crumbs of humble pie. He was more defensive in the ring, less assertive in the clinches, an old warrior who had grown weary of the fight, who was prepared to suffer a few body blows without complaint.

After watching the contest for four hours and more, I began to feel a little sorry for the main contestant. He was old and stooped. He’d been fighting in this ring for eighteen years and more, diverting blows, defending his corner, but now ready to concede, reluctantly. He had slowed down. The mind was not as sharp. The words did not flow fluently. Sad to sit and watch from the front stalls an old warrior in the ring, under lights, up against a tag-team of amateurs slowly gaining the upper-hand, as the champion gradually lost his strength and was forced to face the inevitable. A beast of the forest being eaten alive by an army of ants.

I was interested to hear the Cardinal speak of his meeting with Premier Jeff Kennett (“You clean up the mess, or I’ll do it for you.”) and I was amused when he compared his own personality to that of the Premier’s. “We’re similar in personality”. I assumed he sees himself as a can-do, barge through, take no prisoners type of guy – direct, blunt, no-holds-barred, bereft of delicatesse, hard-nosed, thick-skinned, but able to save the Church from moral bankruptcy and to produce results. Certainly that’s how he comes across in the public domain – and unable to project compassion and empathy. He said he was sorry, “absolutely sorry”, and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. Of course he’s sorry. The Church stands naked in the marketplace. The victims are suffering, and shouting their pain from the ramparts. Clergy are in prison. The faithful are scandalized. Newspapers are selling. The Vatican protective fire-wall has been breached. Money is flowing out of the coffers. The clergy are ashamed. The dead are being blamed. Jesus is crying and the powers of evil are rejoicing. Of course, he’s sorry. But the poor man was incapable of showing his sorrow, of displaying his inner feelings on his grey face, in his body-language. His words and presentation were wooden rather than warm; formal, official rather than heart-felt. George was condemned to wear the drab guise of his official office and to project the image of a distant bureaucrat. I felt the pain of a man condemned to observe that whatever about his style, compassion is best expressed by action. And I was left wondering – what action?

I was sorry the Cardinal did not accept the challenges offered to him (albeit ineptly) – to explore the reasons for the problem of pedophilia in the Church; to explain the destructive force of clericalism; to spell out the central role of the Vatican, the Pope and Canon Law in the regime of covering up pedophilia and protecting the offending priests; to admit the central role of Cardinal Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger in the process as the President of the Congregation for  the Doctrine of the Faith, and his failure to resign his post if his advice was not being heeded by his superior; to confront the fact that while the offenders were being looked after, the victims and their families were, for a long time, ignored; to report the fatal Vatican conflict between the Congregation for the Clergy headed by the Columbian, Cardinal Dario Hoyos Castrillon and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Ratzinger as they struggled in their ivory towers for control over child sex abuse among the clergy. Why does Rome take so long to do anything, and is so ham-fisted in the process?

There was much to be discussed in Melbourne last Monday. Pity the opportunity was missed. But the proceedings were only a prelude to the main event being choreographed by the Royal Commission. Fasten your seatbelts for the turbulence up ahead. For me, Cardinal Pell presented as a sad figure in Melbourne on Monday. I felt sorry for the man. But I felt far more sympathy for the Fosters and for the other, many victims of abuse.

Chris Geraghty

    A few nights ago, some fifty people went to the Veech Library, at Strathfield, to hear a retired history professor, Ed Campion, give a lecture entitled Clerical Celibacy in Context.  The next day people telephoned the library to get copies of this lecture but there was none to be had because the lecturer performed without the safety net of a text.

He started with the story of the Mass, showing how the clergy became more and more dominant in worship.  Parallel to this, their privileged civil status grew until by the time of Thomas Becket and Henry II they were a separate entity in society with their own courts, tax system and much besides.  This growth accentuated the division between clergy and laity, giving the clergy power over other Christians.  Clericalism was about privilege and power.  Prohibitions reinforced this distinction, keeping the clergy out of pubs and theatres, tonsuring their hair and dressing them in drab clothes, and barring them from trade, the money market, surgery and warfare.

Compulsory celibacy was perhaps the most significant element in the development of a separate clerical caste.  Most history, especially grassroots history, is simply lost.  It is clear, however, that in the parishes the ban on clerical marriage was widely ignored.  The Norman Conquest (1066) brought into England Norman bishops eager to further the reform agenda of the papacy, who had supported the invasion for this purpose.  It was a slow process because bishops needed the coercive power of the Crown to succeed and Kings seemed happy to let priests keep their wives on payment of a fine.  The second Lateran Council (1139) drew a line in the sand for it made clerical marriage invalid as well as illicit – after that, a girl couldn’t marry a priest any more than she could marry a tree.  Spare a thought for the clergy consorts, Ed Campion urged:  the church treated them harshly in its attempts to clean up its act.

But public opinion was against the consorts, as respect for monks and their vows grew alongside the development of education and regard for the law.  As well, there was an expansion in reverence towards the Eucharist when theologians went deeper into the mystery of Christ’s presence there.  This impacted on the lifestyle of priests:  the Body on the altar was the same as that born of Mary;  and since Mary was a virgin so the priest should be celibate.

Then the Counter-Reformation came up with the idea of seminaries, where youths would be isolated from the world and enculturated as clerics.  The dominant culture of the seminaries, clericalism, is a source of the current sex abuse tsunami – clericalism that uses its power for personal gratification whether its targets are children or adults.

If you are a pious, conservative member of the Catholic Church, stay away from any movie theatre showing the documentary Mea Maxima Culpa. You will be exposed to scenes of diabolical evil, revolting details of lives destroyed, to corruption, institutional ineptitude, chronic, sinful delay, ignorance, injustice and a disturbing misuse, no, an abuse of power – all in the name of Jesus. If you are a loyal member of the institution, a little person with a simple, delicate faith who wants to believe the best of those you call “Father”, “Your Grace”, “Your Eminence”, protect yourself from the agony of knowledge, cover your face, clench your fists and pretend that the characters of this documentary never existed.

Mea Maxima Culpa – Silence in the House of God was directed by Alex Gibney and, in this 1 hour and 46 minutes documentary, he exposes the sexual abuse of little deaf boys who could not speak, by a clerical predator in the diocese of Milwaukee, and it records the lifelong battle of four of these boys to be heard, to be dealt with compassionately and justly. It is an horrific story interlaced with vignettes involving other priests, archbishops, cardinals, popes, and serial offenders from Ireland and Italy. We learn the dirty details surrounding the life of the Vatican darling, Marcial Marciel Degollado who founded the Legionaries of Christ, a friend of Pope John Paul II, a close associate of the powerful Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a gold-carded donor to the Vatican coffers, a serial pedophile abuser of his seminarians and even of his own illegitimate children. We meet Father Tony Walsh, a singing priest in Dublin who could entertain incredulous fans with his impersonation of The King, and who, among a large field of competitors, won the reputation of being the most notorious clerical pedophile in Ireland. We watch, with mouth agog, as his bishop, the effete Archbishop Connell, tells us that he was too busy, with too much to do, to follow up complaints about Father Walsh. We witness Marcial Marciel’s friend, the silly angelic Cardinal Sodano, advise the pope in solemn ceremony, not to concern himself about “the  petty gossip “ circling the world, involving clerical pedophilia and the quality of the Vatican’s response.

But the documentary focuses its attention on Father Murphy. He was for almost twenty-five years, from 1950 to 1974, and in the face of serious complaints of criminal behaviour, in charge of a boarding school of little boys who were all profoundly deaf. He had been blessed with the special gift of communicating with his charges by sign language. Over the years, he selected his sexual victims carefully, making sure that he assaulted and raped those boys whose parents could not use sign language and therefore could not communicate effectively with their own sons. He was a monster. You will need a strong stomach and an unshakeable faith to endure this documentary to its conclusion. It is a powerful and damning indictment on the hierarchy, the clerical club and the Vatican. Watching the victims expressing their primeval, gut emotions through their eyes and hands was for me a transforming experience, beyond the world of written or spoken words. The images these men created were overwhelming.

I came away with a feeling of profound shame at the depth to which consecrated men could descend; a sense of anger at the mafia sub-culture of God’s shepherds; a sense of horror at the thought of what young, innocent, vulnerable boys had to endure, and of the raw wounds they had borne throughout their lives; and a sense of wonder and admiration at the courage and determination profoundly deaf men have brought to their fight for justice and recognition. These isolated men put us all to shame. While ever people like them are alive and demanding to be heard, the Church and her illustrious message will never die. The cardinals, the archbishops and monsignors of the Church do not give us hope for the future. They must know that they have dropped the ball. Their credibility is in ruins. But these wounded men with their thirst for justice and their amazing, powerful and explosive sign language, and the ordinary, angry, scandalized little people of the local churches are the hope of things to come.

The Australian Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse commences its hearings in Melbourne on April 3. If the experience of the four enquiries in Ireland is any guide individuals and intuitions in Australia face ordeals.

Judge Murphy headed the ‘Commission of Investigation’ into sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. Her report was released in 2009. Only a few months earlier, the Ryan Report was released which dealt with abuse in industrial schools controlled by Roman Catholic religious institutions in Ireland.

Judge Murphy was recently in Australia and spoke at the University of Sydney Law School on her experiences in Ireland. Her speech can be found at http://sydney.edu.au/law/video/ (4 March 2013). Her presentation is disturbing but it is essential reading to understand what has happened in Ireland. She outlines many disturbing features-

• The public outrage which followed her report and three others.
• There was a tsunami of abuse
• Ireland was ‘shaken to the core’.
• There has been plummeting Catholic Church attendance.
• Irish attitudes to such issues as contraception, divorce and abortion have changed beyond recognition.
• The Catholic Church was more concerned to protect its reputation and assets than concern for the victims. The attitude of many in the Catholic Church was “don’t ask, don’t tell”
• Boys were abused at a much greater rate than girls.
• The Catholic Church was not ambushed as it suggested, as the Catholic Church took out insurance many years before in anticipation of the crisis becoming public and widespread.
• The cover-ups by the Church were assisted by civil authorities.
• Rome attempted to undermine the remedial actions which were finally undertaken by the Catholic Bishops.
• The Irish enquiries went on for years.

Ronan Fanning, a history professor at University College, Dublin, wrote an op ed on 6 December 2009 titled ‘The age of our craven deference is finally over … there are still rare events that not only deserve but demand to be described as historic. The publication of the Murphy Report is one such event; a truly historic landmark in the sad and squalid story of church-state relations in independent Ireland”

All individuals and institutions need daily reform. The power brokers in the Catholic Church in Ireland badly failed the “lay faithful”

Judge Murphy’s lecture is a very sober and sobering account.

John Menadue

Announced in every news outlet, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian Jesuit who is the first in his order and the first from Latin America has been named as the bishop of Rome – Pope number 266.

In these early hours of the announcement, we are left with the crumbs of his story. Theologically conservative, we are led to believe. Socially active and human – left his Episcopal palace and lives modestly, catches public transport, a seventy-six year old who loves to walk, and interestingly cooks for himself. Never underestimate a man who cooks.

More significantly there is some evidence that he has held the socially active and more conservative sides of the church in Latin America together as a bridge builder. A striking credential in a continent which has been famous for the birth of Liberation theology, a movement which called for powerful critique of social injustice and the primacy of marginalised people.

Many in the Catholic church today ache for the personality of a John xxiii to bring some healing and future direction to a deeply wounded church.

There may not be many around who can remember the excitement, now fifty-four years ago, when Angelo Roncalli , the first day in his job as Pope John xxiii walked out of the Vatican city and on his first pastoral visit, went to the local goal.  ‘Since you couldn’t come to see me’, the pope said, ‘I’ve decided to come and see you.’

The walk was unprecedented, or at least broke the 100 year tradition of Popes not leaving the confines of Vatican City. This visit became more than an expression of human compassion, it in many ways defined the way he saw his future ministry.

Within 18 months John xxiii was asking the Church to throw open the windows and let some fresh air into this stuffy place, as he convoked a General Council of the Church. The Catholic church has never been the same since those heady days.

What has this to do with Jorge Bergoglio, the 266^th incumbent in the Papacy?

A fact that is frequently forgotten is that Angelo Roncalli was never seen as anything but theologically conservative. Indeed, one of my personal memories was that in my last years of seminary training, a dictate came from John xxiii that all major theological studies, previously studied in one’s own language, were to be studied in Latin. We had been used to Latin, but to have such subjects as Scripture and History studied exclusively in Latin seemed to seriously restrict any proper research. This was an issue of language and words.

For John xxiii actions spoke much louder than words.  To address the question of race, he simply appointed the first black Cardinal. To address the question of the Roman Curia’s hold on the Church he invited bishops from every corner of the world to Rome for a Council to reflect on the future.  To address the divide between people of different religious beliefs, he invited representatives from every faith to be present at the council. To address the issue of women in the church (one must admit in a muted fashion) he invited women to attend the council as auditors. One of the few women present at the Council was an Australian Rosemary Goldie.

There were words, of course, plenty of them. But for John xxiii it was perhaps the actions that were more significant.

Is it too much to hope that Pope Francis will be like his namesake, that breath of fresh air, that young spirit from Assisi, a person acutely aware of the power of the symbolic action?

In a gesture of turning away from his life of entitlement, a young Francis of Assisi, so the story goes, divested himself of his rich clothes and handed them to his confused father. An embarrassed bishop standing by hastily covered his naked body with a simple peasant’s frock, a replica of which members of the Franciscan order still proudly wear to this day.

It is interesting to speculate what significance our new pope places on the name Francis. Will the Pope bring the horizon of the mind and the spirituality of that free spirit of Assisi to his immense responsibilities – or will the weight of the administration be too great?

While speculating, and that is probably all we can do on this first day of a new pontificate, what symbolic action would be sufficiently strong to send a coherent message to the victims of child sexual abuse whose lives have been so deeply wounded, or to the women who feel so sorely disenfranchised in the church, or indeed to the people of this planet who live in dire poverty and hunger?

It remains to be seen if this new Pope, a smart and experienced outsider that he is, a modest man who embraces a simple life-style, is equal to the task of reforming this damaged church and employ the immense symbolic power at his disposal.

Monsignor Tony Doherty

So Pope Francis said to himself when he was elected Bishop of Rome, as he told journalists in Rome on last Saturday, what about the poor? Bishop of Rome means Pope and his question was what does it mean to take the poor seriously as Bishop of Rome?

That’s Pope Francis’s question. But it’s far from clear how Jorge Bergoglio is going to handle the practical consequences of becoming Pope Francis.

The issues are clear: reform of Church governance, root and branch; giving voice and status to local churches in the governance of the Church that has been centralized in Rome with ever increasing magnetism for the last three decades; listening to the issues and concerns of everyday Catholics.

But what might be most significant early on in his Pontificate and suggestive of directions is an answer to this question: how long can someone who walked out of the palatial residence of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires to find a home in an apartment near the poor want to live in the Borgia apartments where Popes have lived for the last 500 years.

Festooned with wall paintings by Rafael and adorned with works by Michelangelo and other Renaissance masters, how long can a man espousing a Church of the poor for the poor last in such Renaissance glory? Pope Paul VI was the first to dispense with the elevated “gestorial” chair on which Pontiffs were carried. John Paul II did away with precious stones in episcopal rings, preferring a simple cross and unadorned rings for his own right hand finger, and many bishops have followed his lead.

The next thing to go must be the titles introduced for bishops and Cardinals which are an invention of the 18^th Century for Church officials to be able to match what the Italian aristocracy claimed for themselves – Excellency, Your Grace, Your Eminence, etc.

Benedict XVI brought back the red shoes, the ermine adornment of his jacket and even the funny hat worn first by the Medici Popes. But that will be seen for the aberration it is.

Now comes the simple man from Buenos Aires, the son of the railway worker.

What does that mean?

Plainly it means he’s his own man.  And that’s not surprising. His body language screams it.

But as a Jesuit, his formative experience is the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. For good or for ill, the Exercises are a radically personal matter. They sheet home responsibility to the individual for the spiritual journey.

Many have said that he carries baggage from his time during the reign of the military dictatorship in Argentina – 1976-1983 – when “disappearances”. Torture and all manner of inhumanity prevailed.

The Jesuits have been quite open about his history then. He had nothing to do with the barbarians who abused their people but he could have done more to defend, advocate for and support the victims of that dreadful regime.

Perhaps like us all, he’s learnt from his experience. Perhaps as a good practitioner of the Spiritual Exercises, he has learnt a lot more about what a sinner he is. Perhaps like a flawed human being who has recognised his flaws, he’s become more human.

Certainly his early performance as bishop of Rome indicates that he has his theology right: he’s not the CEO of a multinational with braches around the world. He’s the pastor of a particular community – Rome – which has an added responsibility: presiding in charity with the bishops of the Church over all the Churches.

But what is he to do about his living arrangements?

The answer is simple really: stare down the security freaks concerned about him and the assassins who want to kill him, find an apartment in an appropriate area, commute to work like everyone else, even heads of State, operate out of an office like any other CEO, make the Borgia apartments into offices, appear for the two Angelus events each week from the window where he addressed the people of Rome, and get a life!

Fr. Michael Kelly SJ

While everyone agrees that the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis is unprecedented in many ways, it is not entirely a surprise. He was runner up to Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 Conclave that saw him elected as Pope Benedict XVI.

Bergoglio is the first Jesuit, first Latin American and first Pope from the South. He is of Italian migrant parents but not a “Romano” or a Curial Cardinal having had no time in his working life at the Vatican.

He is considered a theological conservative but an informed pastor and especially attentive to the needs of poor, reflecting that commitment in the simplicity of his own life style.

It is not so much his being a Jesuit that interests me. As one myself, I am certain that the stereotype of the liberal intellectual associated with membership of the Order does more to obscure than reveal the reality of its members’ views. The Society of Jesus offers a rich panorama of ideological, theological and ecclesiastical inclinations.

What I find significant about the appointment of this Jesuit are the times and forces that have shaped him, the jobs he has done and the challenges he has had to face.

Raised in the high time of socialist fascism – a political cocktail mixed uniquely for Argentina by Juan Peron – he joined the Jesuits in the 1950s. Quite unusually, he was made Provincial of the Jesuits in Argentina in his 30s – 1973 to 1979 – when the Jesuits in Argentina were in turmoil and the Jesuits internationally were reinventing themselves.

The 1970s were years when the Jesuits in Argentina were riven with factions and conflicts, with many leaving the Order, The conflicts were as much about directions for the Order and the Church as Liberation theology burst upon the scene in Latin America as they were about local politics. Decades of political conflict over Juan Peron and his legacy followed by a military dictatorship divided Argentineans and the Jesuits there too.

Holding the Jesuits together at that time in Argentina was no slight challenge but he was also fully engaged with the worldwide impulses for change in the Jesuits then. They received their decisive expression in 1975 at an extraordinary meeting of the highest level of governance in the Order – a General Congregation. Bergoglio was intimately involved in that process.

For both Argentina and the Jesuits, the 1970s were a point of highly contested decisions about direction. The direction of the Jesuits incurred the wrath of the Vatican with John Paul 2  in 1981, setting aside the General of the time, Pedro Arrupe, proroguing the Jesuit Constitutions and imposing a Visitor to investigate and if needed correct alleged excesses during his time as General.

Maggie Thatcher’s escapades in the 1980s over the Falklands began the process of removing the military dictatorship and the restoration of democracy.

Bergoglio is criticized for his apparent fence sitting during the dictatorial regime in Argentina during this period but led public calls for the repentance of the Church for its silence over the “dirty wars” and “disappearances” during the military dictatorship.

Bergoglio has been a bishop since 1992 and archbishop of Buenos Aires since 1998. While not the largest archdiocese in Latin America, that leadership experience gives Francis a solid 15 years in charge of something substantial and an experience of the political and, as an Argentinean, the economic games that are played.

His time leading that archdiocese and the Jesuits during their turmoil in the 1970s should have led him to ask the right questions, appreciate the processes required for systemic change and insight into the sort of people he needs around him to effect change.

He might also have a few others in mind – two Jesuits : the missionary Francis Xavier and the third Jesuit General, Francis Borgia, a widower, father of a large family and Duke of Gandia who joined the Jesuits in mid life and because of his administrative experience, quickly shot the top job in the Jesuits.

It only remains to be seen if a smart and experienced outsider is equal to the task of reforming the Curia and bringing wider Church processes closer to what Vatican 2 invited the Church to become. In taking the name of Francis, Bergoglio is said to invoking the memory of Francis of Assisi.

Michael Kelly SJ

The signs are hopeful, but the challenges are herculean.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a good, simple man. As Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires he used to cook his own meals and catch the bus to work with the other workers. These are good signs. His feet are on the ground, his toes in the dirt and his mind in the street. We can expect him to turn his back on Renaissance dress and Byzantine ceremonial, to take off the red shoes and cast aside the ermine and feathers, and return to the values of the Gospel – to simplicity, a marked preference for the poor and downtrodden, to justice for all, to healing and to a loving freedom from the harshness of the law. Francis I may even prove a force hostile to Wall Street, to the extravagances of greed and extreme capitalism, to corruption inside and outside the Vatican, and a champion of the fair-go for all.

But the challenges are serious and the forces lined up against him are strong and entrenched. He will need to take an axe to the Vatican bureaucracy. The Curia will dig in as they did against Pope John XXIII and against the visionary programme the bishops of the world initiated at the Second Vatican Council. He should not underestimate the power of passive resistance and of the fiefdoms in Rome hidden under the cloak of clerical service to the Church.

This new Pope will have to seek to restore the tainted credibility of a Church which has long resisted the values and processes of the modern world – accountability, openness, freedom, individual conscience, democracy and the breath-taking contribution of the sciences. This Church’s mind has been twisted out of shape over the years, particularly on issues of human sexuality, by some forms of pagan philosophy, by Gnostic teachings which have gained a foot-hold at various stages of her development, by the pessimism of Augustine as his teaching gained purchase down the centuries. The leaders of the Church have systematically railed against the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, preferring to support the ancient regimes, reactionary monarchs, dictators and repressive regimes. Once he has settled into the fisherman’s chair, Francis I will have to kick-start this huge institution. He will have to listen carefully to the world, step down into the marketplace and communicate with modern men and women in a common language.

Many consider that the pedophilia scandal among the clergy will be the principal problem facing the new Pope. It is undeniably of major and immediate concern, a leprous disease eating into the flesh of the institution. Tough decisions will have to be made, but this is only one of many critical problems Francis will have to confront.

Perhaps the most radical challenge to face the modern Church is to devise some way of involving women in its life and making them visible among the ranks of the hierarchical structure. Women have been treated disgracefully for centuries, both by the secular society and by the Church. While the world has changed and is changing, the Church has remained frozen in the past, and now this is a matter of justice. Women are not inferior to men. Their appearance on the earth was not a  tragic mistake. They are not less intelligent than men, or more prone to sin, of less worthy, or the source of evil in the world. Church leaders, men as well known as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Tertullian, John Chrysostom and some Popes have spoken ill of women over the centuries and treated them with disdain. This has to stop. For the survival of the institution and in the name of justice, women have to become visible and powerful in the Church, whatever the cost to privilege and private power structures.

While gathering the courage to involve women in the sacramental processes of forgiveness or marriage or anointing, in the full celebration of the Eucharistic mysteries, there are steps which can be taken without delay. The community and the Vatican can appoint women to positions of real authority in the Roman congregations, in diocesan, international and national bodies. There is no reason why cardinals have to be ordained as priests or consecrated as bishops. At least half the College of Cardinals should be women (and some young women), and available to advise the Pope and to elect the next one. Rome has to develop and announce as quickly as possible a radical policy of the position of women in its super-clerical and excluding masculine world.

There is much to be done. The man chosen carries a heavy burden. The result of the conclave could have been considerably worse and, given the limited field of candidates, could hardly have been better. We wish him well.

Chris Geragthy

It’s frightening, isn’t it? I saw Cardinal George Pell on television recently claiming that his election to the top job was not impossible. He explained that because he’s a Catholic, a bishop, and a member of the College of Cardinals, he was a chance. Is that all one needs to be pope?

The applicants for the biggest job on earth are gathering in the Vatican to be assessed, to go through their interviews, to do some politicking and count the numbers. The successful candidate must of course be a member of the masculine branch of the human race. Being a paid-up member of the episcopal workers’ union and therefore both ordained as a priest and consecrated as a bishop, he must not be of illegimate birth, disabled physically or intellectually, or deformed, or suffering epilepsy whether caused by some form of insanity or by possession of the devil (Canons 983-987 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law). Slaves and soldiers are also ineligible, though Julius II proved to be a fierce warrior during his reign.

The relevant cohort of papal applicants is extremely restricted and warped. It’s a very limited field. We are not engaged here on a global search for the ideal candidate. Those who are not men, not celibate, not old, not members of the most exclusive club on earth are not suitable. Of course, married fishermen need not apply.

We all have an interest in the man who would be pope. Catholics especially, even the young, even women, have a stake in the outcome and should have some say in what they want and what they don’t want. Secrecy does not guarantee that the Spirit is at work.

The next pope does not have to be a renowned theologian – probably better if he’s not. Theology has developed into a very arcane and complicated science. The Church has plenty of them, many of whom live with tunnel vision in an ivory tower. Some of them have never lived in the real world. I’d settle for a man of simple faith, one who has developed a rich interior life of prayer and reflection, one who has lived a life and who possesses a sense of fun. That’s important. Laughter, smiles, dancing and rejoicing. Senior clerics are far too serious.

I would hope that, unlike his predecessors, our new pope would take the time to answer his mail. For preference, I would like him to write short, pithy letters to us rather than the long, boring epistles or encyclicals popes have come to send out in the last few centuries.

I want a man who is not programmed to talk in Vatican papalese but who is able to listen to the world and communicate with us in a language which rings true.

I want a man of the world who can return our Church to the values and insights of the Gospel – simplicity, hope, freedom, poverty and to the message of inclusion. I certainly don’t want anyone who thinks he can order us not to discuss important topics such as the place of women in our organization. The successful candidate might ask us respectfully to do something or to refrain from doing something, but to order us about like serfs is now so uncool.

Give me a friendly, pastoral man who doesn’t take himself too seriously, humble and down to earth, able, like Jesus, to set his people free and to re-gain our respect and confidence.

Chris Geraghty

There is a tendency 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. It is a view I have heard expressed recently in the Catholic Church.

 The Catholic Church often distresses me, but I love it.

John Menadue

I have found great beauty in the Catholic Church. Inspired by the Eucharist, I joined the Catholic Church over 30 years ago. That inspiration remains. Despite its failures the Church remains for me the greatest influence for good in the world. I am grateful for its worldwide works of justice, mercy and charity. At the local parish level I have found wise and generous leadership along with a pulsing, lively and loving community of believers. I hold in highest affection the women and particularly the Sisters in the Church who day after day “keep the show on the road”. I will never leave this Church. But I am greatly disturbed by the state of affairs into which we have allowed the Church to drift.

The problem of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

This abuse is the ultimate in the violation of the human person, the human spirit and the soul. It is an appalling betrayal of trust by priests, religious and some lay people. Many parents were too ashamed to report rapists to the police.

Sexual abuse is an awful part, but it is only a part of a wider problem – the systemic abuse of clerical power.

The former president of the Australian Bishops’ Conference, Philip Wilson, said only recently that the abuse crisis is ‘the biggest crisis in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia”.

This abuse has stemmed from many factors and influences.

• We have a male Church; a very patriarchal church. Sexual abuse is largely but not entirely a male problem. Blokes get the rank and glory and make most of the mistakes
• Obligatory celibacy.
• The mystique of priesthood – ‘Yes Father, No Father’. Adult Christians should behave as adults and recognise both the strengths and weaknesses in each of us.
• The issue of abuse was made public by the secular media and not the Church. The secular media has done the Church a great service.
• Both John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger (Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later Benedict XVI) ignored the issue. They were silent or defensive. This is an unpalatable fact that we must face. The cardinals and bishops gave loyalty to silent Popes. Criminality was allowed to fester. Our leadership let us down. The Vatican lost touch with the Church of the Faithful.
• The Vatican was able to do this because it was not really accountable. The Curia lives in a remote thought bubble. It could hardly be said to comprise “servants of the servants of God”. Problems continued because power and control flowed from the top, as in all absolute monarchies.
• Many of the hopes of Vatican II have been allowed to run into the sand…. synods of dioceses, local bishops’ conferences, global collegiality and much more.
• The faithful were ignored or remained quiet. Maybe we have got the church today that we deserve. It is certainly not the church that Christ wants. We should remember that the early Catholic Church in Australia was a lay Church. Priests and the hierarchy came later.
• It would be a mistake to shrug our shoulders and say that these horrific crimes against children can be left to the new Pope. The evidence is that the silence and avoidance under John Paul II was continued under Benedict XVI.
• Too often the Church passed the problem to the police and lawyers when it was fundamentally a moral and governance issue for the Church itself.

‘The problem’ is not a passing issue. The Royal Commission will be with us for at least three years and probably more.

Expressing sorrow and contrition will be essential, but it will not be sufficient. The apology by Kevin Rudd and the Australian Government and people to the Stolen Generation and indigenous people was genuine and heartfelt. We all felt better about ourselves. But has much changed as a result? Indifference seems to have won the day! Will it win again in this crisis in the Catholic Church?

Until there is genuine reform, the church will continue in its trauma.

The whole Church, including the large majority of priests and religious, is tainted by this scandal.

Many Catholics are discouraged.

At the local level we are in a sense living in a parallel church that is out of alignment with the hierarchical church.

What could we do in the parish?

1. Continue to express sorrow for the damage the church has done to so many people. This should be expressed consistently in Prayers of the Faithful. The prayers should extend to those giving evidence to the Royal Commission that they find the courage to speak fearlessly. There should be regular reports on what the parish is doing about the issue.
2. Establish a fund to ensure that people who have been damaged are properly advised and referred to professionals in the field. Appoint a lay person – perhaps a parent – to co-ordinate this work.
3. Elect, not select, members of the parish council and the finance committee.
4. Appoint a parish group to consult with the Archdiocese on future appointments of the parish priest
5. Issue a statement by the parish on how we would like to see the church reformed. This would presumably include such matters as the selection of bishops, women in the church and obligatory celibacy. This would be forwarded to other parishes, the archdiocese and the papal nuncio.
6. Call specifically for annual archdiocesan synods which have a majority of lay people. The Anglican model could be helpful.
7. Make a submission to the Royal Commission focusing on the issue of accountability, not just within the Catholic Church, but in all organisations dealing with young and vulnerable people.
8. Cooperate as much as possible with other parishes.
9. Organise a series of parish/public meetings on abuse. Possible speakers – Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, Christine Kenneally., Danny Gilbert and Frank Sullivan.
10. Review the extent to which money raised in the parish is paid to the archdiocese. We should be very careful about paying parish money to organisations that are not accountable to us. This leverage should be exercised. Perhaps it is the only real leverage we have.

Christ will not abandon the Church, but we must be resolute and courageous in the crisis we face. This is unknown territory. There will be risks, but there will be rewards if we can build a reformed Church. It will then be a Church of greater beauty and less ugliness.

Peace be with you

John Menadue

13 February 2013, Ash Wednesday

It happens every day. People in public life try to grab hold of and change the public narrative about themselves, those they represent or lead. For most of the second half of last year, the Prime Minister had charge of the public narrative, leaving the Opposition Leader flat footed as he tried to capitalize on the Coalition’s lead in the opinion polls.

He failed. Julia Gillard made a policy announcement here, called a Royal Commission there, published a report on anything from disability insurance to the place of Australia in the Asian Century.

The PM looked in command and to be driving the agenda. Tony Abbott was playing catch-up all the time as he weathered the storm of attacks on his alleged “misogyny” and said no with ever less effect to everything.

In recent weeks I’ve been developing a media and communications strategy for the Catholic Church’s two national agencies dealing with sexual abuse – the Professional Standards Committee that engages with victims of abuse and the newly established Council set to interface on behalf of the Church with the Royal Commission on sex abuse.

A desultory task you may say. I agree. I was asked to get involved by the bishop responsible for Professional Standards and on the newly established Council. Why. Simply because these agencies, one of which has been running for 15 years, has no media and communications strategy or protocols. Little wonder that the Church has been and been seen to be like Tony Abbott vis a vis Julia Gillard.

And the Catholic Church has a special problem: the fact is the Church is a verbal metaphor with no legal or effective operational coherence. It is the antithesis of a “command and control”, centralized authority structure as it is often perceived to be. It’s in excess of 200 separately incorporated entities who choose to cooperate or don’t.

Back to the public narrative. There’s really only one way the Catholic Church is going to get beyond the mess it’s in over sexual abuse – a particularly destructive own goal that has developed through a combination of ignorance and cowardice on the part of Church leadership and mendacity and diabolical cunning on the part of a criminal element incubated in the institution.

That way is transparency, accountability and the confession of failure and the seeking of forgiveness.

But only actions will have any effect in this public narrative of ecclesiastical failure. Anything in the way of actions that vindicate suspicions of cover-up will just send the narrative into a downward spiral.

Actions like opening all records to access, welcoming an independent audit of current child protection procedures in the Church or providing visible evidence that Church institutions have amended their ways – such as offering a national 1800 number for victims to use or for the general public make complaints or offer suggestions – will not only display good faith but allow the public narrative to move beyond recriminations and mistrust.

Guest blogger: Fr Michael Kelly S.J.