In our first formal commentary for 2009, editor and publisher of Catholica Brian Coyne takes up a suggestion voiced to him by Dr Patrick Collins last Sunday that we ought endeavour to take on a spirit of hope and hopefulness for the year ahead. Catholicism at the moment still seems to be "going backwards" at a great rate of knots — it seems to becoming less and less relevant in the minds of more and more. This editorial argues how and why we ought to try and turn this around even if not for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

Amanda (Milly) McKenna and Brian Coyne — publishers of Catholica. Brian is the one who takes responsibility for writing the editorials in this family but singer and composer, Milly, calls the tune!

It's good to be back. Milly and I have had a refreshing break doing not much at all except catching up with family and friends, cleaning up around the house, and I've even managed to get in a few long walks and a bit of long-overdue physical exercise. I have been having the occasional glance at the discussion forum but endeavouring to sit on my hands and not write too much myself. It's been a time for recharging the batteries. And they needed re-charging.

Fr Patrick Collins

We've even managed to catch up in real space (as opposed to cyberspace) with a few members of the Catholica community. Last Sunday, for example, we spent the day showing one of our American commentators, Dr Patrick Collins, around Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Patrick was in our city for a brief 48 hours or so prior to taking up an assignment as chaplain on a Holland-America line cruise of other Australian cities and New Zealand. Patrick, as you probably know (if you don't you might be interested in his commentaries HERE), has great enthusiasm for the spirituality of Thomas Merton.

Over lunch our discussion got onto the topic of whether we had an optimistic or pessimistic outlook concerning the future. In this context "the future" basically meaning the future of the Church or Catholicism. Patrick eschews the words optimism and pessimism and instead suggests the better word to focus on is hope, or hopefulness. I am attracted to his thinking.

Frankly I am becoming more pessimistic by the minute about the future of the institutional Church. In the wider families of myself and Milly the disenchantment with the institution today is near total. I'd say it reflects the participation rates in the broader Australian Catholic population. As in the wider population, it seems to cross all age barriers. There seems a total lack of hope that the institutional church can recover a place of relevance in the world or in the lives of most ordinary people. I find this not only enormously sad but tragic.

The bigger part of me though remains very optimistic. I am optimistic about spirituality in general. I find in my general reading, media watching and conversations in real space and cyberspace that there is an accelerating interest in the world on the importance of the spiritual dimension of life. While it might be true that in some sectors of society secularism and consumerism are paramount what is surely undeniable today is that the rise of secularism and consumerism has also helped engender a much greater focus in other sectors of society on the importance of the spiritual dimension.

Taking up the theme that Patrick Collins suggested in our conversation last Sunday, I propose that the spirit of what underlies our endeavours here at Catholica through this new year should be a spirit of hopefulness. Yes, Catholicism does seem to be dying — and those who control the institution seem to be hell-bent on appeasing the insecure sectors who place a premium on certitude over actual truth even if, like the rest of society, they proclaim their chief interest is in the pursuit of truth. Many of our children were born long after the Second Vatican Council and never experienced that great spirit of hope and excitement that filled the world in the immediate aftermath of that Council. That spirit of hope has largely been snuffed out by little men (and, unfortunately, a few women — but not many) predominantly driven by a need for certitude and some kind of weird belief that they have superior access to the mind of God to everyone else on earth.

I think one of the greatest insights of the collective leadership of the Church who assembled for the Second Vatican Council was this sense that we (Catholics) alone are not the sole discerners of the mind of God in civilisation. God speaks through all of his people — yes, even the atheists and unbelievers. The role of our religious institutions should be one of endeavouring to facilitate the discernment of what our Creator-God is collectively saying to all of humanity. It is NOT some human game of our trying to prove we are somehow better, or more knowledgeable, or wiser, than all the other religious institutions, or their followers. Catholicism is not some equivalent of a football club, or a ladies' knitting circle, trying to "win its audience" by "proving" we are tougher than anyone else — or more humble or "nicer" than everyone else. Above all it stands or falls on whether or not it is seriously interested in helping the human family discern what truth is, and where it resides, or it is little different to a football club, some debating society, some social welfare agency, a group of social justice activists — or — any of the other religious "institutions" on God's earth. The institutional Church is the servant of its people or it is nothing. It is "servant" in the sense that it is the friend, counsellor and guide who helps each of us — each individual in the world — discern what our Creator-God is saying to us. God is our ultimate guide. Conscience, as our authentic Church long ago discerned, holds the place of primacy in providing access to the Divine Guidance we all seek and yearn for in our lives.

That we have the highest ranked prelate, a Cardinal, in this country who has advocated that the primacy of conscience insight of Catholicism ought be downplayed, or expunged from the teachings of the institution, and the Vatican does not respond to the requests for clarification on this issue is ultimately what stands as symptomatic of the crisis institutional Catholicism is in. Catholicism is not some "power game" trying to "prove" we are better than everyone else in civilisation. Neither is it some "mummy's boy or girl" game trying to prove what polite and "nice" people we are as in some kindergarten-level game of social conformism. Ultimately it is NOT "a game". It is a serious endeavour about encouraging each individual to literally "be like God" (St Gregory of Nyassa). That implies that we have to acknowledge our imperfections. We are presently "not like God" — we make errors of judgment … we screw up, to use a more colloquial expression … we "sin", to use a more churchy expression — but we aspire "to be perfect as God is perfect". There are no "mummy's boy or mummy's girl" shortcuts on this "road to perfection" though. We can't go around pretending what "goody-two-shoes" we each are. That is NOT the road to salvation — or heaven — as the goody-two-shoes seem to have convinced themselves it is.

What an odd coalition the "goody two shoes" and the bully boys and girls make who presently seem to control the institutional agenda that is dragging Catholicism down into remnant status under the delusion that "we" (the goody-two-shoes and the bully boys and girls) are the only ones who have merited God's salvation? Give us a break, will ya?

It is time to recapture a sense of hope — and hopefulness. The challenge is all the more urgent given the new factors at work in society that are a cause for uncertainty — like the economic outlook and the uncertainty caused by terrorism and factors like climate change — and which might tempt some towards fundamentalism and even more simplistic certitudes.

Let each of us endeavour to be beacons of hope, and hopefulness, in our world, and in our local communities in this new year! Let us collectively work to re-capture that great spirit of hope, and hopefulness, that the collective leadership of the Catholic Church discerned, through the grace of God, as "the way forward" at the Second Vatican Council and which seems to have been largely snuffed out by this curious coalition of "power-crazed bully boys (and girls)" or the overly effeminate "mummy's boys (and girls)" who seem to have tried to reduce Catholicism down to some game of "niceness", "social conformism", and "we're the kings (and queens) of the religion castle" that is about a billion light years removed from what Jesus Christ was on about.

Let us each be honest in acknowledging that each of us are imperfect, but we aspire to be perfect as our God is perceived to be perfect. None of us "have all the answers" but, collectively and with the grace of our God, we aspire to penetrate that Mystery of the Divine, and the Mystery of the "Real Presence" of Jesus, which are the only places where, ultimately, real truth, is to be discerned. Let us each be courageous in standing up against these kindergarten-level games that have been inexorably sapping Catholicism of the true "Spirit" and reducing it to a remnant of what it once was and what it ought to be. We do not seek an institutional Church though that is powerful in terms of numbers in the sense that we all barrack for our footy teams to win. We seek an institutional Church that is powerful because it is able to acknowledge its imperfections, its leaders are able to acknowledge their imperfections, and because humanity can self-evidently see that it is "the servant of the servants of the people of God" and they flock to it not as a "beacon of truth" in its own right but because it is "the beacon" which points to where the ultimate truth is found — in our Creator-God alone!

We welcome comments in the forum from members, or as Letters to the Editor from Catholica subscribers, expressing your views on this commentary.

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