Dear friends,

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church — Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus has certainly generated a lot of media attention. Google News was carrying 20 separate stories this morning and the Google Blog search showed that over 30 blogs around the world were talking about it. What is going to be more interesting to watch is the response from the institutional leadership itself — and, in particular, from Pope Benedict. My own prediction for what it is worth is that they will try and ignore it. In the big picture though I doubt that they will be able to.

The conservative news services and blogs have been very predictable in their responses — particularly the ones more distant from Sydney and hence having less appreciation of the credibility that Bishop Robinson brings to his criticisms. These are not the thoughts of some fiery revolutionary but the deeper reflections of a mature man who takes his vocation seriously and who has spent many years reflecting in depth on the crisis facing institutional Catholicism.

I honestly doubt that Bishop Robinson's book is going to lead to any instant change in outlook or policy on the part of the institutional leadership. The brutal reality from the evidence available so far is that Pope Benedict does not seem to appreciate the depths of the crisis the institution he leads is in, like all elderly men he is weary and not inclined to be embarking on major shifts in direction no matter what any perceived urgency might be. Bishop Robinson's book is far more likely to have an impact in the longer term. From feedback that has reached me over the weekend I am aware that the media stories on this book have generated unprecedented interest in the leadership echelons of those sectors in the Church around the world who are seriously involved in efforts to reform the institution. The sense of both authority that the Bishop brings to his observations from the positions of responsibility he occupied before his retirement, coupled with the self-evident sincerity, personal credibility as a priest, and honest research he has applied before voicing his opinions through the pages of this book, has significantly strengthened the position of all those who have been arguing the Church is in deep crisis and that reform and a return to the true spirit of the Second Vatican Council is the only credible and moral response to that crisis.

The real heart of the crisis…

	Bishop Robinson info from ACU National website Bishop Geoffrey Robinson DD was awarded Australian Catholic University's (ACU National) highest honour, Doctor of the University (honoris causa), at the Canberra Campus (Signadou) graduation ceremony held at Parliament House on 26 March 2004. “The award recognises the work undertaken by Bishop Robinson in dealing with issues of professional standards within the Church. He has laboured with great sensitivity, honesty and compassion to assist those affected by sexual abuse within the Australian Church, said Professor Sheehan.” Bishop Robinson has been a pioneer in Australia in the development and maintenance of professional standards in ministry, together with formulation and implementation of the Towards Healing process of responding to victims of abuse. In 2003, he stepped down after nine years as Chair of the Australian Catholic Bishops Committee for Professional Standards. Bishop Robinson has also devoted his energies to other aspects of the life of the Church, including his significant contribution to dialogue and debate marking the 40th anniversary of the second Vatican Council.

Bishop Robinson has gone much further than perhaps any other senior leader in the Church has ever been prepared to go in honestly labelling important facets of the crisis. I am not sure though — based on what has been revealed so far (and I have to confess I've not yet read his book) — that it gets to the real heart as to why Catholicism and institutionalised religion is in the crisis that it is in. The subtitle of his book suggests though that his thinking is heading in the right direction even if it is politically difficult for even a retired bishop to say what is truly on his mind.

At its real heart, this present crisis the Church is facing is not some crisis to do with liturgy, with sexual abuse, with celibacy, with the lack of vocations, nor even with the exit of 85% of the baptised population out of the pews. Nor is it some crisis about attitudes to women and the feminine. It is not a crisis that is going to be solved by any "tinkering at the edges" nor even by World Youth Day extravaganzas — they've been running for a couple of decades now and there is simply no evidence that they have changed the attitudes of young people towards the institutional Church at the macro level of participation that justifies the kind of expenditure of money and energy that goes into these endeavours. Apart from the predictable responses from a small and readily identifiable psychological subset of the population, WYD is treated by most young people as "the first big excursion on the international canvas paid for by someone else (either mummy and daddy or their parishes)". It is not leading to "metanoia" at the level where it really does count in the wider population — youthful or otherwise.

The real crisis the Catholic Church faces in the Western world runs much deeper than that. The crisis, at its heart, is a crisis about who God is and what sort of relationship we (the Church community and the wider world) sense that God calls us collectively and individually into. All the other issues listed in the paragraph above are symptoms of the crisis not the heart of the crisis. The leader in the Church who eventually solves this crisis has to address that issue. I do not believe, despite his book on Jesus of Nazareth, that Pope Benedict really has a handle on the core nature of the crisis that Catholicism is facing in the educated, affluent and socially sophisticated sectors of the world. He's "away with the fairies" and just light years removed from the processes that are going on in the hearts, minds and spirits of the vast majority of people in the Western world whom he is supposed to be shepherd and servant to.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

The "crisis" I submit basically comes down to two incompatible and mutually exclusive "theologies" that the Church is perceived to be trying to present to humanity as to who this Mystery we label as "G-O-D" is and, secondly, what sort of relationship does this Creator and Animateur of Life call us into both collectively and as individual citizens and souls? The Ballarat diocesan priest, Kevin Murphy, did us all an enormous favour a few week's ago by giving each of these two theological world views a convenient lable and name: "Tridentine Spirituality (or Theology)" and "Vatican II Spirituality (or Theology)". These two spiritualities or theologies are like chalk and cheese. The chasm that separates them in how they attempt to describe the essential Mystery of this relationship of God to humankind and each individual person is as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon. There is no "common ground" for discussion once one ventures beyond the primal faith statement "I believe in God". Each Spirituality leads in polar opposite directions to entirely incompatible end destinations.

The real "crisis" in the Church is a crisis in communications, credibility and ultimately a crisis in leadership. It's a crisis in leadership to the extent that the leaders have to "lead" — to make a choice between the two incompatible theological paradigms and proclaim confidently this is the direction in which this flock is going to move in order to get to "the promised land" or "the kingdom promised by Jesus Christ". At the moment, I submit, they are not leading. They are basically "playing games with themselves" trying to convince themselves that they can act as mediators or facilitators of dialogue between two theological paradigms that essentially have no "common ground". I honestly gain a feeling that some bishops have not had a fresh thought in their entire lives since they graduated from seminary. They are men without vision and essentially "locked into" a "Tridentine Spirituality" not by active choice but simply because they have not actually stopped to think about anything since they left their seminaries and they simply "follow the pack". They "purchased" the company package (Tridentine Spirituality) when they signed up all those decades ago and, despite Vatican II, they have not seriously thought through all the issues in the decades since. They have become mouthpieces for the "head office" view which has been seriously skewed by the same sort of "mob" mentality that eventually crucified Jesus Christ and which has brought the international Church to its knees by failing to respond to the spiritual needs of 85% of its flock. They really do not understand what the essential elements are of the crisis they are trying to deal with nor do they have the foggiest notion of how they might even begin to address it. The great value in Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book — and largely because of the humility and personal credibility he brings to the exercise he has undertaken — is that I think his book will induce a lot more bishops to start finally thinking for themselves also.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book can be purchased online from the publisher, John Garrett Publishing at: www.johngarratt.com.au

Brian Coyne is the editor and publisher of Catholica Australia.

We welcome your thoughts in response to this commentary in our forum.

Brian Coyne can be contacted at: Brian Coyne <editor@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Brian Coyne

[Brian's Take Archive]