Key Challenges Facing the Catholic Church in Australia

Challenges facing the world are the challenges facing the Church

Do you feel the change in our national mood, perhaps psyche with the Matilda’s success? Haven’t we all enjoyed and been refreshed by the Matildas’ skills, their grace and composure? 

Imagine a Church where women were able to fully contribute and display their skills and expertise and graciously interact with Christ’s faithful? Imagine a Church where women weren’t invisible in language, liturgy and law, a Church where women’s experience and priorities got a look in? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a Matilda moment, even a Barbie moment, in our Australian Church? 

Many of you would expect me to say that the role of women is an ongoing challenge within the Church in Australia, and it is. But the role and dignity of women is a world-wide challenge. A key challenge for us in the Church is to take seriously the most memorable line from the Second Vatican Council, “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the women and men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” The challenges facing our world and our country, are the challenges facing our Church. Are they? When did you last hear a homily on domestic violence, climate change, reconciliation, or artificial intelligence? I haven’t, which might explain why the Church has a relevancy problem. What is our own commitment to climate change?

Towards an Adult Church

The next point I make begins with a story from 1990. At the time, I was a Religious Education Consultant in the Ballarat Diocese. I recall having to go to my office on a very cold Sunday. Ballarat does cold exceedingly well. There was a fax on my desk with a job advertisement from the Catholic Weekly, with a comment in the very recognisable handwriting of my congregational leader. “Are you interested?” I recall very distinctly saying out loud in that cold empty office, “No, I’m not!”

The ad was for a consultant in the Sydney Archdiocesan Adult Education Centre. I was urged to explore the role, so reluctantly flew to Sydney for an interview. I knew the Director of the Adult Education Centre, Father Tony Doherty, and was determined not to be charmed by this charming man.

Something stirred within me during that interview. Tony was developing a parish renewal program and the vision for it was “Towards an Adult Church”. I’d never thought of the concept of an “adult” church. The subtext was that there was something childish about our Church. I was inspired and wanted to be part of that kind of Church. I took the job.

I think we’re still a long way from an adult church where relationships are mutual, where clericalism, paternalism and misogyny are things of the past, where diversity is celebrated, where contributions of all the faithful are actively sought, where people aren’t excluded because of their marital status or sexual orientation, where everyone feels as though they have some level of agency. Sounds a lot like Pope Francis’ vision of a synodal church.

All of us are called to be adult in our relationships, to build those relationships with all members of the Church, not to kowtow to the Bishops, but also not to engage in that favourite childish past-time of bishop-bashing.

The Church is in desperate need of an adult theology of sexuality. For too long the church has been influenced by platonic dualistic thought which is reluctant to take seriously the Incarnation where God takes on real flesh. God praises flesh and skin in a way the Church has failed to do. Pope Francis has said that many Catholics, both cleric and lay, can be obsessed with homosexuality, abortion, divorce and contraception. Sexual activity is placed at the pinnacle of reasons for exclusion from the Eucharist. As adults, I believe we have to critically evaluate any Church stance or teaching, which doesn’t reflect our adult autonomy, nor acknowledge the complexity and beauty of our human sexual experience. The members of AMPJP are overwhelmingly lay. I encourage you to use your growing influence to confidently find your voice and to share your perspectives on your human experience. In doing so, you will help the Church grow up. 

To be faithful to the Gospel

I think that the key challenge facing the Church is the same key challenge which has never changed over two millennia, that is to be faithful to the gospel, to take the gospel seriously in our priorities, how we interact, who we are concerned for, and where we put our energies.

A few months ago a principal from a secondary college within a PJP told me that she would need to increase fees which she knew would preclude the enrolment of some in her usual cohort of students from lower income families. If PJPs only cater to the rich, if PJPs become ecclesial communities for the elite, is that being faithful to the Gospel? Of course, it is easy for me to ask that question when I don’t need to balance the books for a particular ministry. But it is still a question which must be at the forefront of our consideration in all our decision-making. Does this course of action pass the Gospel test and not only the pub test?

The sexual abuse crisis in the catholic church was the most monumental failure in being faithful to the gospel. The most vulnerable were exploited, abused, damaged. And then reputation was put first. Ironically the reputational damage to the church is monumental and will only be restored if all of us are faithful to the gospel. 

To be faithful to the Gospel, we must be formed by the gospel. Priests get formed, religious get formed. What about the lay members of our PJP’s? I worked in the heyday of adult education in the Catholic Church in the 1990’s, but I have witnessed in the Australian Church a movement away from the emphasis on adult education and lay formation to a more devotional Church. I am not decrying devotion, but I call on all PJPs to seriously invest in good contemporary theological, ethical, scriptural formation of its members as well as formation in your founding story. That’s a key challenge.

Charism 

The final point I’d make relates to charism, of which you are the stewards. We mine the wisdom of our charism for new circumstances. 

At our recent Chapter we were reminded of the stance of our founder, Archbishop John Bede Polding in relation to Australia’s indigenous people. In 1845 Polding was called to give evidence to a Parliamentary Committee on the condition of the Aborigines. He was asked incredibly racist questions revealing some of the root causes of the parlous condition of indigenous people since colonisation.

“What does your Lordship consider the Aborigines’ position to be in the scale of humanity?  Do you consider them the lowest in the scale or exceedingly low?”

Polding curtly responds:

“I do not understand the phrase ‘scale of humanity’.”

He spoke of his experience with indigenous people in the most poignant words: “I am making myself a black, putting myself in that position, and taking away all that I know except that this is my country, that my father lived by pursuing the emu, and the kangaroo, that I am driven away from my hunting grounds, that my children and tribe are subjected to the grossest barbarities.”

Polding engaged in truth telling at its best, words that have influenced our Good Samaritan charism, potent words that will influence us in the face of an impending referendum.

A word of caution in relation to charism. At times in our attempt to be faithful to tradition and charism we can ossify them and set them in aspic, rather than let them evolve, develop and flourish. Our creator God continues to create and charism always, always seeks new pathways. An example for we Good Sams is we have always been committed to our neighbour in need. For a number of years we have recognised our common home which is a gracious, generous neighbour to us, is our desperate needy neighbour which is calling us to ecological conversion. I encourage you to be bold and creative in regard to your charism. If you allow it to evolve along new pathways, you will let it flourish.

To conclude, I invite you to be challenged by the needs of our world, to be faithful to the Gospel, to be adult, and to allow your charism to evolve. Enough challenges for any PJP. 

Thank you.