Ok. That’s it. Time to stand up. The alarm has sounded. Rub the sleep from your eyes, take off your embroidered nightshirts, do a few stretches and let’s get moving. No shilly-shallying. No dilly-dallying. Come on, just do it. Get out of bed. There’s work to be done. And the whole family’s depending on you to get going. Grace Tame is calling you out.
Each of you was called to make as much noise as possible. That’s your job. Prophesying and preaching – out loud – and from every pulpit in the land. There’s much to be done – refugees, the homeless, care of the elderly, support for the mentally ill, people living on the poverty line, family violence and single mothers in distress, the cruel, immoral power of big money, and of course, the many victims of your paedophile priests.
On Tuesday, I sat riveted to a chair in front of the ABC, entranced by a young woman addressing the Press Club in Canberra. At the age of 16, she had been groomed relentlessly and sexually abused by her maths teacher at a private school in Tasmania. She was recently been appointed Australian of the Year.
I looked carefully but I didn’t see any of you bishops in the crowd at the Press Club – not even Your Grace from Canberra, or the superabundantly qualified Archbishop of Sydney. Absent again. Absent to a man from the final session of the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse when the best of you, those with an exalted status, all you Graces, should have put in an appearance. Now you’ve all missed out on one of the principal events of the 2021 calendar.
I was listening attentively to what the young woman was saying and watching those in the audience, hardened journalists and social commentators, fighting back their tears. And not an episcopal tear to be seen. Hearing her noisy passion, I could not help but reflect on the tame response, presumably bullied by the Vatican to a man, you have all made to the crisis of paedophilia within your divinely established institution.
If you could accept a little piece of simple advice from an old friend who knows your world so well, you should put down your prayer and theology books, sit quietly and listen attentively to the blunt message shouted out of the Press Club for Australia to hear. You should get out of the bubble supported by your distorted principles of loyalty to the institution, by your cover-up culture, and start whipping the predators as Jesus did the money changes in the temple and show some concern and compassion to the weak and wounded. You should turn an episcopal ear to the survivors and their families, and absorb the sorrowful stories they have to tell.
The audience in Canberra heard a compelling message delivered by a neophyte – a message that you should have been shouting from the mountain 10, 15, 20 years ago. But after so much provocation, there has been no episcopal voice loud enough for me to hear. No noise – and noise is what Grace is demanding – and what a prophetic name her parents gave her at birth. Jumping up and down, shouting your outrage and condemnations from the pulpit and in the secular squares. Giving a name and a face to the nasty groomers and perpetrators of crimes. Listening to the voices of the survivors. She was telling you (and society) that you must confront the problem head-on. There’s no other way. She spoke of abuse of power and of a cover-up culture within the secular community. Does this ring any bells for you?
Please desist from telling your clerical workers that as priests, they are ontologically different to other mortals. It doesn’t mean anything to anyone – and it is clear that they are not. Stop dressing them up in cassocks and clericalizing them, removing them from society, and stop protecting the evil ones in their midst. Get your heads out from under your arms (or wherever you have them hidden) and stand up for the survivors for a change.
In Canberra, Grace Tame was calling out, loudly, for authentic value-driven leadership – just what you all should be doing. If any of you had been there, you would have heard her say that however difficult it might be to speak out in the open about those terrible perpetrators and their shady deeds, the lonely, humiliating trauma of sexual assault and its lifelong effects are so much more horrible. She knows because it happened to her. Lives ruined. Death by suicides. Drug addictions and alcohol-induced comas to suppress shameful memories. Feelings of unresolved anger, of guilt and shame. Mistrust of those like you and members of your team, all in positions of trust. Understandable hatred and aggression towards your church. Lifelong suspicion of men’s intentions. Mothers simply driven to distraction.
Grace Tame is young, without any special qualifications that I know of – except that she has been through hell and now has fire in her belly – and she is only a woman. As St Thomas Aquinas taught his students, women are not pre-eminent enough to be inducted into the giddy heights of the presbyterate. Each of you archbishops and bishops are lucky to have been born a male, with the paraphernalia required for ordination and which gives you a pre-eminence. Each one of you is a senior member of your wandering, wayward church, in many cases grey old men – and mysteriously (in view of what has been revealed), you all still enjoy the platform of leadership – and yet, almost to a man, you have been paralysed into silence.
Tuesday was a profound moment in Australian history, and at least some of you should have been there to hear the message, to witness the speaker’s passion and contend with the noise Grace was making. Sexual violence towards girls from flash private schools, towards women in the Canberra bubble. Sexual grooming of children. Sexual assaults. Sexual harassment – and of course clerical paedophilia as well as a misogynistic faux-theological ideology which rests at the heart of your religious institution. You all have a lot to deal with at your annual episcopal conference and at the upcoming Plenary Council.
In all humility, you should seek guidance from the Australian of the Year. Take off your pectoral crosses, throw away your episcopal rings and remove the red braid from around your cassocks (your Jesus never wore anything like that clobber) – get off your high horses, come down into the real world and request a consultation and grace-filled wisdom of a noisy survivor. Engage the services of Grace Tame as an extraordinary presenter at your meeting.
As Jesus told us, the time is now. You haven’t a moment to lose. Start making noise in Rome, in your towns, among the members of your communities, from your pulpits and in public squares. There is much to be done to rectify the devil’s work.
And my Lords and Your Graces, I don’t regret being so blunt in my message to you – I am elderly and noisy, but someone has to hit you over the head and stun you back into the real world. Just get on with it.
Dr Chris Geraghty is a former priest of the archdiocese of Sydney, a retired judge of the District Court of NSW, and the author of a recent publication, Virgins and Jezebels – the Origins of Christian Misogyny.
Comments
16 responses to “Your graces and my lord bishops of Australia: are you listening?”
Your passion rivals that of Grace – thank you, Chris!
Mate – don’t worry. You’d be aware of the contemporary fact that less than 9% of Australians physically expose themselves to the rants of bishops and priests.
Chris, your use of this blog is so much more powerful than the merest Cathedral pulpit. Were our culture to have distilled a set of agreed secular ethics, your message would become (gently) enforceable.
I invite you to consider what that set of secular ethics might comprise.
Chris, that is a good serve. An ace serve; but I reckon they’ll call for Hawkeye review, and claim it missed the spot.
I’m beyond sceptical. If the events from 1970 on, priests leaving, pedophilia, increased lay delivery of the sacraments , empty churches, incredibly shrinking vocations, and general dismissal of their marriage philosophy, along with the near disappearance of Confession has not made them wake up, reflect with some analysis and engage with their critics, nothing will. I personally think if they did a true investigation of their foundations, they would see little justification for the church as it is. Alfred Loisy wrote that the church was “quid consentaneum, improvisum sed legitimum” (an acceptable entity, unforeseen but legitimate). He said “Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, and what we got was the church”. Of course he was condemned as the father of the heresy “Modernism”.
Chris,
A very powerful essay and I totally agree with you.As an Old Joeys Boy I was horrified horrified but not at all surprised by the recent revelation from one of our Ruby greats that he was assaulted by a Brother in his first year at St.Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill . He, like many so affected, ‘went off the rails’ as a result.
Sadly I still believe the Hierarchy just dont get it! I actually feel sorry for the “laborers in the field ” they cop all the flak!
Interesting to read Mr Geraghty’s article…imagine the changes he may have made if he remained in the priesthood.
Nothing would have changed – at least he did the honourable thing and left a sick cult rather than stay and live a lie become gimp like so many others
He’s certainly curried their favour irrespective of what he writes.
Advocacy only gets you so far. And these days it isn’t very far.
Yes but behind scenes is another matter.
Spot on, Chris. But to what avail? All of your raving and my ranting, and similar words from so many other Australian Catholics over recent years, seem to have made no impression upon our bishops at all.
I have an interesting personal analogy here. I am what is collectively known as “H o H” – hard of hearing. I listen, I really do. With the help of sophisticated and expensive bi-lateral hearing aids i can usually hear. But do I understand? Too often and unfortunately, no. There are three results here. i just don’t understand. OK, I’m just regarded as dumb. Or I do understand. Great. But, and this is the real killer, what happens when I think i understand but I don’t? I’ve got it wrong. That’s when the proverbial hits the proverbial. And chaos ensues, both personal and professional.
I believe that our bishops, collectively, have the equivalent problem. They listen. Or at least I think they do. Over 220,000 people have been talking to them since the Plenary Council process began. And they seem to be hearing. They established the Plenary Council and produced six “themes” from the myriad responses they generated. They responded to the Royal Commission. They set up a governance review and responded to it. They compiled the “instrumentum laboris “, or working document, for the Council, supposedly based on what they had heard. But have they really understood what they have heard. I see no evidence of it.
Whether or not they actually believe that they have understood what we have al been saying, i have no idea. But clearly they just haven’t understood. And this is our, the laity’s, problem. How do we get them actually to understand the gravity of the situation, to get them to understand and act upon what you and I and so many others have been saying?
I don’t know. Do you, Chris?
As the parishioners, and especially the school leavers walk, does it matter any more? Will it keep mattering?
It’s past time for all Catholic leaders/bishops to listen with Christian humility to the challenge posed by Chris and others to take on the prophetic role of true Christian leadership, to break free from the constraints of their narrow formation and focus solely on the mission of the Church, the Jesus principles of love and equality. That will take a level of courage in the Church rarely seen – true leadership is difficult. Christian leadership calls for great humility and listening to (and hearing) those who speak truth to power. The upcoming Catholic Plenary Council in Australia will be a test of leadership, humility and courage for all delegates.
They will never relinquish their hold over the faithful confident they will return one day asking for forgiveness to receive the Last Rites.
Mr Geraghty has been playing the game for sometime now.
Chris there need to be more such writings and I thank you for your work. Grace Tame is an inspirational young person and I too watched and listened in awe and tears.
In an interview he once had, a couple of responses were interesting…….
What human n qualities do you most mistrust?
A. Self-proclaimed truthfulness and trustworthiest.
What similarities between the Catholic priesthood and Judiciary?.
A.Dressing up in funny gear, honorific titles and confining offender to hell.
What is your favorite song?
A. Devil Woman rendered by Mary Robbins with feeling
Who has been the most influential person in your life?
A. no mention of his mother….
I am being told by the Old Xaverians Association and Xavier College that if i calm down and stop writing inaccuracies, then we can have a discussion. The Jesuit Provincial, Fr. Quyen Vu, decided talk was over and completely “dis-engaged” me.
Because I say things publicly on a website and name names and quote what they say.
I raised my voice, Xavier called the police once, I was threatened with financial ruin by Old Xaverians, defamation threat from a QC, discredited, and accused of causing a former Jesuit to take his own life.
Now two Jesuits are facing justice in court only because survivors spoke.
But the 50 year cover up goes on as strongly as ever.
Thank you Chris, my sentiments exactly.