__NEWS__Australia_________________________
A New Face in Sydney
The Vatican shows its determination to persevere with reform of the Church in Australia
By Michael Gilchrist
“He brings to the task great talents, great dedication, and I am sure he will be equal to all the demands of the office of archbishop here in the Archdiocese of Sydney. I do not know what Melbourne [Catholics] think of all this: they possibly feel that they have been robbed; but Melbourne’s loss is Sydney’s gain.” These were the words of Cardinal Edward Clancy, speaking to a media conference at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on March 27.
The announcement—released at midday, Rome time, on March 26—that Archbishop George Pell of Melbourne had been chosen to succeed the 77-year-old Cardinal Clancy as Archbishop of Sydney was arguably the most momentous single news story in the entire history of the Catholic Church in Australia. It signaled in no uncertain terms the Holy See’s determination to keep a reform process, set in motion during the Synod of Oceania at the end of 1998, firmly on track.
The fact that this move comes on the heels of a recent succession of strikingly orthodox episcopal appointments in Australia suggests that a definite pattern has emerged, indicative of a greater sense of purpose on the part of Rome regarding Australia. Moreover, the fact that a relatively large number of episcopal vacancies will occur in the coming months gives added significance to the Pell appointment—which makes him Australia’s senior Catholic prelate and chairman of the Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops (ACCB). The move underlines his already considerable stature in the Church, following five years of strong and fearless leadership of the large Melbourne archdiocese.
If the new episcopal vacancies are filled according to the recent pattern, the whole character of the Church’s leadership—and particularly the ideological/ theological balance within the ACCB—could be radically altered in quite a short time. To date, liberals and their supporters have enjoyed a majority among Australia’s 43 active bishops; barely a dozen bishops could be counted as reliable Pell allies when tough reform decisions had to be reached. That is changing.
Developing Vatican interest
The Holy See’s preoccupation with the condition of Australian Catholicism became evident at the time of the Synod of Oceania in December 1998, when a meeting between heads of Vatican congregations and representatives of the Australian bishops led to an agreed documentation of urgent reforms required in key areas of the Church’s life, entitled Statement of Conclusions.
In a later interview for CWR (May 2000), Archbishop Pell commented: “I think the Statement is a fair and accurate description of what’s going on in Australia—but a bit understated.” This estimate contrasted markedly with that of Sydney’s recent incumbent, Cardinal Clancy. Despite his gracious words at the media conference mentioned above, the cardinal could only have interpreted the Pell appointment as a Vatican sign of no-confidence in his “tolerant” brand of leadership.
In fact, during an interview on ABC Local Radio a few days after the media conference, on April 1, Cardinal Clancy made his own inner feelings clear, referring to the existence of what he called a “spy network” within the Church in Australia. He suggested that the Australian bishops had been undermined at the Synod of Oceania by unofficial reports sent to Rome by people critical of the state of the Church:
I came away feeling that our brethren in Rome didn’t fully understand the situation in real life as we have it here. I would think that this group [of critics] . . . did exercise an undue influence in forming opinions and convictions over there. I think that was the big shortcoming of the meeting.
The cardinal’s sense of hurt was understandable. As Melbourne journalist Gerard McManus commented in the Herald-Sun:
Almost the only other church in recent times to receive such a public roasting was in 1980 when the bishops from the Netherlands (where the Catholic Church is considered a total basket case) were summoned to Rome to please explain. Rome’s keener interest in Australia, on the other hand, is an attempt to try to turn the Australian church around before it reaches the malaise of places such as Holland.
Alleged “spy networks” aside, the obvious question to be asked is why the Vatican should be so interested in a relatively small (just over 5 million Catholics) and very far-off section of the universal Church. After all, there are larger centers of Catholicism in a worse condition than Australia.
Admittedly, in relation to a large area of the globe loosely described as Oceania, Australia is a “big fish.” If its problems can be successfully addressed, the effects could be felt in New Zealand and in other smaller Pacific island nations. Then too, while Australia is large enough to have an impact on its immediate surroundings, it is also small enough so that Vatican decisions have better prospects for an early impact than in nations with large Catholic populations such as Brazil, Germany, France, or the US. In addition, the problems in Australia may not have quite reached the extremes that are evident in comparable countries such as Holland or Canada, and if Rome’s efforts produce positive results in Australia, it may set the stage for similar approaches elsewhere.
The “Australia desk”
One also has the impression Rome is now better briefed than in previous years regarding the real situation in Australia, with its “Australia desk” being kept well abreast of all the latest developments even down to the smallest diocese. Archbishop Pell, given his membership in Vatican congregations, has doubtless been an important factor in this process. And Rome obviously regards him as a player of pivotal importance if reforms are to take root.
A further factor adding an element of urgency has been that, despite the ACCB’s endorsement of the Statement of Conclusions in 1999, a number of liberal bishops, once they were back in their own dioceses and under the influence of their regular advisers, clearly began dragging their feet. Their tardiness in curbing the illicit use of general absolutions, despite the Statement’s clear directive on that point, prompted two firmly worded follow-up instructions in 1999 and 2000 from the Congregation for Divine Worship. Even so the illicit practice continues, with the apparent approval of a few bishops.
If such clear-cut matters as the use of the Third Rite (that is, general absolution) have defied complete remedy, what hope could there be for substantial reforms in the more complex, deep-seated problem areas noted in the Statement of Conclusions, such as seminaries, liturgy, Catholic education, religious life, and Australian Catholic University (one of only two Catholic universities in Australia, and by far the larger)?
Indeed, Australian Catholic University (ACU), a loose amalgam of campuses in four states and territories, has been almost a law unto itself theologically speaking, in clear contravention of John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae. The university trains most of the teachers in the nation’s Catholic primary and secondary schools, but a survey conducted by an ACU professor in 1999 indicated that a large majority of graduates rejected or were ignorant of Church teachings.
Tougher new bishops
If many of Australia’s bishops were unable or unwilling to address such pressing problems, the obvious solution was for the Vatican to appoint more men who could be depended upon to do the job. The recognition of that necessity was by no means premature, for even under John Paul II’s pontificate, since 1978, a large number of Australia’s episcopal appointments have been downright disastrous, serving merely to perpetuate or worsen existing problems.
In that respect, Australia has experienced patterns similar to those that have been seen in North America and Western Europe since the close of Vatican II, with a growing liberal stranglehold on the Church bureaucracies, seminaries, religious orders, and liturgical bodies, coupled with weak or unreliable episcopal leadership. Even within the past five years, there have been several extraordinarily unfortunate episcopal appointments, particularly in Queensland and Tasmania, which will leave all the dioceses in those states firmly in liberal hands for many years to come. The prospects for orthodox Catholics in Queensland’s five dioceses look particularly bleak.
However, following the release of the Statement of Conclusions the caliber of newly appointed bishops has been improving noticeably. The most obvious feature of this welcome development has been the Holy See’s apparent recognition that if a diocese’s liberal culture is to be turned around, it must be by an “outsider,” who will be uninhibited by existing associations or friendships from adopting hard and necessary policy decisions.
The appointment in 1999 of the Administrator of Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Father Luc Matthys, to the northern New South Wales Diocese of Armidale, signaled the start of the present trend toward more “outsider” bishops. Bishop Matthys, Belgian-born and brought up in South Africa, had worked as a priest in the Melbourne archdiocese since the 1970s. He was the first episcopal appointment from the ranks of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (ACCC), an association of strongly orthodox priests that was formed as a reaction against the stances of the “official” but strongly liberal National Council of Priests.
Bishop Matthys has already made his mark, initiating a stronger Catholic presence at Armidale’s University of New England, banning the teaching of the Enneagram, and planning—for a launch next July—a bold program of evangelization for the whole diocese based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Over four years, each of the four sections of the Catechism will be covered during the weeks marked by the fourteen Sundays in Ordinary Time, in all parishes and schools. Parents at Mass will encounter the same doctrinal points from the pulpit that their children are being taught at school during that week.
A similar story has occurred more recently in the neighboring New South Wales Diocese of Lismore on the border with Queensland, where a Tasmanian priest, Geoffrey Jarrett, has just been appointed. Bishop Jarrett, another active member of the ACCC, is a convert from Anglicanism and formerly worked for the BBC network. He can be expected to give strongly orthodox leadership in implementing the Statement of Conclusions, as well as working closely with Bishop Matthys.
Maltese-born Bishop Joseph Grech, a Melbourne auxiliary bishop who has worked closely with Archbishop Pell, was appointed to the vacant Victorian Diocese of Sandhurst earlier this year. Bishop Grech, who speaks fluent Italian and Maltese, has been chaplain to the Italian charismatic renewal, and had lectured at the Melbourne Thomas More Centre Summer School, where talks (and liturgical activities) are presented by orthodox scholars, priests, religious, and bishops. The annual Summer School was founded by the late B.A. Santamaria and his National Civic Council following a visit to Australia by Notre Dame’s Professor Ralph McInerny about ten years ago. Since then, the concept has spread to most large Australian population centers, helping to focus attention on the pool of orthodox academic talent. This, in turn, has aided bishops in their search for reliable experts and advisers.
A fourth recent appointment—and, prior to Archbishop Pell’s posting to Sydney, potentially the most significant —was the naming of Bishop Philip Wilson of Wollongong as the coadjutor Archbishop of Adelaide (South Australia). That appointment put Bishop Wilson in position to succeed Archbishop Leonard Faulkner, who is due to retire soon. Adelaide has been Australia’s most liberal diocese since the 1970s, with its power elite of radicals and feminists well entrenched. Archbishop Wilson, who has a deserved reputation for orthodoxy and was the first bishop in Australia to ban general absolutions, faces a major challenge if he is to make inroads there. A major priority for the new archbishop will be to reactivate the Adelaide seminary, which closed down this year, when only two seminarians remained in residence. Since Archbishop Barry Hickey of Perth (Western Australia) withdrew his students from Adelaide and revived the Perth archdiocesan seminary, there has been an encouraging upsurge in the numbers of recruits—an evident outcome of Archbishop Hickey’s strongly orthodox leadership.
The Pell appointment
The significance of Archbishop Pell’s transfer from Melbourne to Sydney can be gauged in the light of these recent appointments, as well as the unusually large number of vacancies to be filled over the coming months. Given the historical and cultural rivalry between Australia’s two largest cities—which can be seen reflected in the Church as well—the Pell move was extraordinarily bold and indicative of Rome’s seriousness of purpose. A comparable kind of US appointment, if such were imaginable, might be the placing of a West Coast archbishop in charge of New York or Washington.
At the time of the split in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) during the 1950s, sparked by differences over how to counter Communist influences in the trade unions (which were affiliated with the ALP), the Catholic Church split down the middle around either Sydney (which distanced itself from B.A. Santamaria’s anti-Communist organization) or Melbourne (which, under Archbishop Daniel Mannix, gave unswerving support to Santamaria). That Archbishop Pell, a great admirer of Archbishop Mannix and a close friend of the late Santamaria, should now take charge of the Sydney archdiocese is a development rich in historical irony—which, no doubt, Archbishop Mannix and Santamaria would appreciate.
Sydney’s Cardinal Clancy had offered his resignation two years ago, but Rome delayed in filling the vacancy. It was obvious that a good deal of thought would go into such a crucial appointment. While Melbourne is numerically the largest Australian diocese, with 1 million Catholics, Sydney (despite being smaller, since the creation of two new dioceses out of its territory a few years ago) is historically the nation’s senior see, carrying with it a cardinal’s red hat for its archbishop. Sydney was the locus of the first European settlement in Australia in 1788 and of Australia’s first Catholic bishop, the Benedictine John Bede Polding, in 1835.
Other openings
While Archbishop Pell has been easily Australia’s most impressive prelate, with the highest public profile, clearly deserving of a red hat, many Australian Catholics felt that the work he had done in Melbourne following his appointment there in 1996 needed to be further consolidated. But the Holy See no doubt felt that time was running out if a suitable man was to be found for Sydney. This need apparently took precedence over any historical or cultural considerations. Archbishop Pell may well have been approached earlier and been understandably hesitant to put his present work aside to face even greater leadership challenges in a “foreign” archdiocese.
Perhaps Archbishop Pell was given an assurance about his successor in Melbourne. Many insiders and media commentators consider the auxiliary, Bishop Denis Hart, to be the logical candidate, given his close association with Archbishop Pell since 1996 in the running of the archdiocese, his strong orthodoxy, and his impressive leadership qualities. He could certainly be expected to continue his predecessor’s work, working closely with a team of sound Pell appointees with whom he would be already well familiar.
Whether the Vatican will find that logic persuasive remains to be seen, as at the time of writing, Archbishop Pell’s successor has not been named—and likely will not be at least until around the time of Pell’s installation in Sydney in May. But it seems inconceivable, in the present climate, that Rome would not ensure a smooth succession in Melbourne after making such a bold, unprecedented move in the case of Sydney. If Sydney and Melbourne—by far Australia’s largest population centers—are led by strongly orthodox bishops, the impact on the rest of the Church will be enormous. The fact that two of the three other largest cities (with populations of over 1 million) will also be in orthodox hands strengthens this likelihood. Rome’s present challenge is therefore to maintain the momentum vis-ŕ-vis Australia by filling the coming vacancies with strong candidates.
In Western Australia, the Diocese of Bunbury, south of Perth, needs a new bishop, while Archbishop Hickey’s auxiliary bishop has retired. In Melbourne, if Bishop Hart succeeds Archbishop Pell, there will be two auxiliary positions, with the departure of Bishop Grech. In New South Wales, the Diocese of Wollongong needs a new bishop, with Bishop Wilson’s departure to Adelaide, and the sparsely populated Diocese of Wilcannia-Forbes in the far west is also vacant.
In liberal Queensland, the Brisbane archdiocese will need two auxiliary bishops with the retirement of one and the transfer of the liberal Bishop Putney to the northern Diocese of Townsville (one of Australia’s most liberal and spiritually devastated, with single digit Mass attendance, next to no vocations, and numerous parishes run by Pastoral Associates). If any inroads are to be made in Queensland, Brisbane is the logical place to begin. But, as in Adelaide, the entire power structure is in liberal hands, presenting a major challenge to even the most fearless of episcopal appointees. However, the present Archbishop is relatively young, so the prospects for early change in Queensland are not promising. A couple of strongly orthodox auxiliary bishops would be a start, if Queensland is not to be written off altogether.
Shocked reactions
Not surprisingly, the announcement of Archbishop Pell’s appointment to Sydney has sent shockwaves through the Church. Liberals, like the former priest Paul Collins [see sidebar] and Chris McGillion, the religion columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian correspondent for the London Tablet, had previously expressed dismay at the “lack of consultation” in 1996 when Pell was appointed to Melbourne following over 20 years of liberal rule there. Television reports and commentaries were predictably biased, with a couple of channels inviting a homosexual activist, an outspoken liberal opponent of the Church, and Paul Collins to react to the appointment. They duly obliged with hostile and negative comments—with one of them predicting Archbishop Pell would drag Sydney’s Catholics back to the Middle Ages!
McGillion, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, referred to Archbishop Pell as an “archconservative” who had “drawn criticism for his hard-line positions” on the Serrano art exhibition, “refusing to serve Communion to openly homosexual Catholics,” and angering feminist groups by opposing access to in vitro fertilization programs for single women. Liberals, he said, regarded Pell “as a disaster for the Church.” His style of leadership, he said, contrasted with the style of Cardinal Clancy, which had given Sydney a “relatively tolerant and pragmatic” character. “Gay and lesbian school teachers in Catholic schools,” he warned, “will want to keep their heads down, and ordinary Catholics are likely to hear much more of their old-time religion.”
The Sydney Morning Herald commented in its editorial on March 28: “The Vatican clearly believes that what Dr. Pell has wrought in Melbourne is what Sydney also requires.” The move, it said, reflected “a conservative Pope’s desire to install a strong, conservative representative of the Church in Australia.” Archbishop Pell, it continued, “fits the mold of a Church leader impatient with those who question papal authority and doctrine and unbendingly opposed to change on such issues as the place of gays in the Church, women’s ordination, the celibacy of priests, and contraception.”
Melbourne’s liberal Age newspaper headlined a long feature article by Ray Cassin and Ian Munro on March 31: “Papal Aggression: George Pell is on a new mission to enforce Rome’s authority in Sydney.” The article quoted a succession of “the usual suspects,” one of whom predicted that Melbourne’s “climate of fear” would be transferred to Sydney. Cassin and Munro commented:
Critics of Pell argue that he has an instinctive preference for a clericalized, hierarchical view of the Church, a view they say is inimical to the reforms begun four decades ago by the Second Vatican Council. And by choosing him to become the next Archbishop of Sydney, they say, the Pope has sent Australian Catholics a signal that they are to experience the enforced realignment with papal authority that has motivated episcopal appointments in Western Europe and North America for more than a decade.
Meanwhile, the new archbishop’s dexterity in handling the media was on display at the media conference on March 27 following the announcement, as he deftly handled a succession of probing and sometimes barbed questions. Not surprisingly, several questioners fastened onto the archbishop’s firm stance regarding homosexuality, and notably his refusal to give Communion to gay activists wearing sashes in Melbourne’s cathedral. Sydney, which like San Francisco has a large concentration of militant homosexuals, is known for its annual Gay Mardi Gras parade which includes floats lampooning its more outspoken opponents; Archbishop Pell remarked that he would not be sponsoring a float.
One questioner asked: “Archbishop Pell, this is the gay capital of Australia. Will there be any room in your Church for gays?” The archbishop replied:
There is room. There is a long tradition of sin in the Catholic community of every variety and there is always room for all people of faith and varying degrees of human weakness. The Church is not primarily concerned about sex. . . . Our message morally is much broader than that; but my primary concern is to defend and protect marriage and the family, and all the other teachings on sexuality come from that concern.
I bear nobody or any group ill will. For example, in Melbourne we have two hospices for HIV-infected people which are owned by the Church and I have supported those by personal visits and money. I am certainly happy to talk and happy to help as long as people realize that my moral position is that of the Christian tradition.
Pell told one interviewer:
There will be no new “Pell-ian” documents here. I will only be teaching squarely what Christ and the Catholic Church teach and I will present those consistently and with compassion. The cards will fall as they do.
The archbishop responded light-heartedly to a query as to why the Pope had appointed an “outsider” to Sydney:
We are all Australians and, as you know, modern society is very mobile. The Anglican bishop in Melbourne is from Sydney, and the police chief is from New South Wales, so modern people move around.
The same sorts of challenges that Archbishop Pell confronted in Melbourne face him again in Sydney. St. Patrick’s Seminary awaits reform, as does the Catholic school system. The new Melbourne religion texts, launched in schools this year, could be a ready-made resource, although the archbishop might consider it politic to have a separate Sydney equivalent designed. Finding a counterpart to his right-hand-man in Melbourne, Msgr. Peter Elliott, to supervise religious education, would be an important priority.
Clearly, while Sydney in 2001 is an even greater challenge for Archbishop Pell than Melbourne was in 1996, his experience of putting reforms in place over the past five years should make the task more manageable. While he may not have the same detailed, first-hand knowledge of the archdiocese that he had in Melbourne—knowledge that helped him choose able and reliable people to fill key positions there—there are many equally orthodox and qualified people in Sydney, anxious to work for him. His degree of success in this regard will determine, in large measure, the future health of Catholicism in Australia as a whole.