Desi the only difference between what is happening in Toowoomba and China is that the Chinese situation is open with obvious violence while in Toowoomba it is disguise.

In both cases the persons subject to persecution have deared to challenge the "orthodoxy" of an elite ruling class. The violence committed against the great majority of the Church members is not an obvious open act but it is violence against them - their faith and even thgeir mental health.

The Catholic Church in Australia exists in an open society. This foreign totalitarian dictatorship is attacking this open and free society

Or living under a totaltarian dictatorship.

When the Chinese government tanks rolled into the capital city of Beijing on the night of June 3, 1989 and brutally suppressed the students’ pro-democracy movement, Liao Yiwu was home in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The news shocked him to the very core. Overnight, Liao composed a long poem,” Massacre,” which portrayed, with stark imagery, the killing of innocent students and residents as vividly as Picasso depicted the Nazi massacre in the town of Guernica.

That tape of “Massacre” as well as a movie he made with friends of its sequel, “Requiem” caught the attention of the Chinese security police. In February 1990, as he was boarding a train to Beijing, police swooped down on him. Six of his poet and writer friends, as well as his pregnant wife, were also arrested simultaneously for their involvement in his movie project. As the ringleader, Liao received a four-year sentence.

http://artsfuse.org/?p=874

Brian - are you sure that the name of the agent of the Inquisition was not KAPUT rather than Caput ??????????

As for Secular Society teaching the Church about morals !

Let us examine this case very closely and have a good look at it from the view point of national sovereignty.

The agent of a foreign power, a totaltarian dictatorship, enters the country.
Makes contact with a sympathetic fifth column and on their say so collects evidence to condemn a citizen of the country in which he is undertaking espionage.
His report is seen by the selected group and is destroyed so that no one can question this report.

This totalitarian power, at the behest of the fifth column, removes the citizen of this sovereign democracy from his position of power using vague legalistic terms that are kept secret.
Yet this person's powers and status, within the legal structure of this democratic sorvereign power, is the outcome of the legal structures of this sovereign nation - be it common law or enacted statute laws. Has this person broken the laws of the democratic sovereign state that he is a citizen?

Furthermore, this action by this foreign totalitarian power under the leadership of a dictator, acts against the wishes of the majority in that democratic sovereign nation.

Even if you examine the situtaion from the view point of a commercial multinational, would the company, at the behest of a very,very small number of shareholders, remove a branch CEO from his/her position when they were running the branch very successfully and making a profit, even though the person may have made a few comments with which the chairman and a few of the directors didn't find the comments acceptable?

http://www.thechronicle.com.au/story/2011/05/02/diocese-in-shock-as/

Now I think I might just believe that it is the Chasers, what with that Mary image at 11.20 on the video looking just like Father John-Marie Thornbush Little John as a drag queen! ROFL!

(edited: better yet, a picture!)

Surely they can't be serious!!

Sandra Schneiders is another one - she came to Perth last year and spoke at Dayspring Centre which is run by the Church of Christ

Marian

Bishop Brian Heenan of Rockhampton ( a diocese adjoining Toowoomba ) was on ABC local radio news today expressing sadness about Bishop Morris's situation.

For overseas visitors to the forum Rockhampton and Toowoomba are quite large dioceses - a bit under 500,00 square kilometres each

He has posted a comment on Cathnews :

"There is a deep sadness in Queensland over the retirement of Bp Bill Morris.
Sadness for Bp Bill himself, for the priests and people of the Toowoomba diocese, and indeed for the church in Australia.
There are two reasons for this sadness: Firstly, that Bp Morris has become known as a true shepherd during the past 18 years and is therefore much admired and appreciated by the people he has served so generously.
The second reason is that the issues of disagreement could not have been resolved in a more satisfactory way.
Bp Bill Morris has not only been loved and admired in Toowoomba for his involvement in civic affairs and justice issues but also for the strong contribution he has made to the church in Queensland.
Beyond this, he has been a very valued member of the ACBC, and has played a significant role in many important committees.
He will be sadly missed by many in his flock, and many, many others further afield.
- Diocese of Rockhampton

Posted By: Bp Brian Heenan "

PaulW

Yes, he did, Paul, but I can't remember now if the meeting was held there on that occasion because George Pell had specifically issued a prohibition on him speaking on Church property. Some of the meetings held at the Salvation Army citadel have come about because George Pell issued specific instructions that the visitors were not to speak on Catholic property. I have a recollection that at one stage Bishop Geoffrey Robinson was excluded from talking on Church property about this book on power and sex in the Catholic church.

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=26105

Read the letters - only one is 'agin' him.

Helen

Brian and all, I may be a little behind the times here now but a few years ago when Liz started her course (and I was considering it) through the Broken Bay Theological Institute (or whatever it's called) we found out that a large number of students came from the Toowoomba diocese. We were somehow led to think that this was because Bishop Morris was so concerned about the future shortage of priests that he was encouraging lay people to get educated and trained to be lay leaders. Not sure if that was indeed the case but it makes sense. (Hope saying this here doesn't cause a slavering blood-lust feeding frenzy from the temple police).

So, if that's the case well, the diocese may well be quite well equipped by now with many a good lay leader and certainly many well educated Catholics. It will be very interesting indeed to follow the progress of the whole situation. Perhaps it might all end up as a Toowoomba in Exile. Honestly, who would blame them.

Ideologically I am reluctant to suggest this. While I have supported the right to strike of workers I have never encouraged it.

I would remind readers though that the great tradition of the strike began in Queensland under the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine in the neighbouring diocese to Toowomba. [See the Wikipedia page on the Tree of Knowledge and the "Tree of Knowledge" website for more information on the Tree of Knowledge festival which, coincidentally has been held over the last few days. The "Tree of Knowledge" itself is illustrated at right. Photo from the Wikipedia page.] That history, and tradition began with the great shearers strike in 1891. The people of Queensland, indeed of the whole of Australia, know how to protest when someone attempts to perpetrate an injustice. Perhaps it is time to call on that tradition?

What if all the priests resigned en-masse? I should imagine many of them are either already receiving the pension or will soon be eligible. I'm wondering though if the people at large in the Toowoomba diocese who are upset by these events would be prepared to withdraw their contributions to the institution and set up some kind of foundation to help provide for their priests in their retirement? I'm wondering if there is a lay person with the leadership skills in the Toowoomba diocese who might facilitate such an initiative? I further wonder how much one might make an appeal to the people — the 86% — who for various reasons have left the Church in recent decades if some of them might be persuaded to support such an endeavour as a way of expressing their disappointment in the institution? Perhaps the institution, in the wake of such resignations, might send George Pell to do a bit of "meditation and penance" in the confines of the Toowoomba Cathedral and ministering to the taliban elements who so distrusted Bill Morris that they wanted him gone. (No, perhaps that's not such a good idea. Doesn't Barnaby Joyce hail from up that way somewhere? He and George would make a good team to unleash not the spirit of the "Tree of Knowledge" on Australia but the very element that needs to be shown when "enough is enough"!) More seriously I throw the following thoughts into the ring as another possibility as to how a protest might be registered. Sadly I don't think it would even register in Rome if they lost an entire diocese. They didn't seem concerned when they lost an entire parish at South Brisbane. The reality is that the burden would probably fall on the Nuncio and the other bishops of Queensland rather than our resident bull ina china shop, Big George, or his side-kick Chaput, or the people in Rome responsible for this mess. It is not just a present mess but a looming mess because how this originally started was Bishop Morris' concerns for the situation another ten years down the track when most of his priests will be retired or too old to drive the long distances to celebrate Mass and preside at funerals. This is a direct manifestation of the looming "crisis" Peter Wilkinson wrote about in his recent report on the looming crisis in Parish Ministry in Australia, and particularly remote and regional dioceses. We should all keep that firmly in mind.

Must get onto the three Little....s to get them to heavy King Bene to make sure that not ordaining women becomes a dogma of absolutely infallible quality so that all the good little Catholics can finally sleep again without the fear of being invaded and emasculated by hoards of raging feminist priests.

I think you are right, Stephen. The odd times when I have gone past a Church and had a look in, the women seemed to outnumber the men two to one. The blokes are being outnumbered, that's for sure. Can't blame them for putting the covered wagons in a circle.

James, haven't you heard and seen: What is needed for some belief to become infallible is for the pope to heed the words of (was it) Little John and Little Peter and the Little Pebble who say when and what must be made a dogma. And this in turn has to have been relayed to them by a message from Jesus.

Must get onto the three Little....s to get them to heavy King Bene to make sure that not ordaining women becomes a dogma of absolutely infallible quality so that all the good little Catholics can finally sleep again without the fear of being invaded and emasculated by hoards of raging feminist priests who are just nothing like mummy or the sweet and too-humble-to-be-a-priest virgin Mary.

The church does NOT have an infallible position on the ordination of women...that's the elephant in the aisle..

Pope John Paul 11's absurd effort at even forbidding discussion of the matter is wrongly being read as infallibility.

Now this raises a very interesting logical problem, just one amongst a huge number of others that ooze out of Catholic doctrine.

How do you decide if something is infallible? Is is because the Pope says so?

If John Paul II says it is not going to be discussed any more, isn't that like saying it is infallible, ie not to be questioned?

Now what about this statement in 1995,

In a statement approved by Pope John Paul II, the Vatican announced yesterday that Roman Catholics must consider their church's doctrine that only men can be priests to be "infallibly" taught.

Invoking the word "infallible," which in Catholic theology is reserved for teaching considered irreversible, free from error and requiring full assent from the faithful, indicates the Pope's desire to rule out unequivocally the possibility of ordaining women.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/19/world/vatican-says-the-ban-on-women-as-priests-is-inf...

Or does the Pope personally have to use the abracadabra words, "This is infallible" or is his "approving" a statement from the Vatican bureacracy enough?

Assuming it is, then does the pronouncement "This is infallible" have to be declared to be infallible in itself, and so on ad infinitum like Xeno's paradox?

No wonder theology is a never ending dog chasing its tail.

Timothy Radcliffe OP (former Master of the Dominicans ) is another - I think he spoke at a Salvation Army place in Sydney

Michael Morwood who came to my town recently spoke at the Unting Church - even though I sent information about his visit to the local Catholic Church as far as I know it was never printed in the pew sheet.

Don't forget Matthew Fox . . .

...who have been prevented from speaking on Catholic Church property.

Joan Chittister and Diarmuid O'Murchu are two I'm pretty sure about. I also have a feeling the same discourtesy was extended to Richard Rohr. Perhaps if we could collectively draw up a list it would be further interesting testimony to this constant bias to want to only appease the taliban and insecure element in the Catholic population and "to Hell with everyone else".

The church does NOT have an infallible position on the ordination of women...that's the elephant in the aisle..

Pope John Paul 11's absurd effort at even forbidding discussion of the matter is wrongly being read as infallibility.

And if we really want to get down to basics, Jesus didn't ordain anyone...male or female

One of our readers sent me this link to the Wikipedia page on Archbishop Chaput which he thought might be of interest to Catholica readers. Chaput seems to be one of these bishops in the world cut from the Pell mould and I understand his visit to Australia that led to this side-visit to "investigate" Bishop Bill Morris was largely the work of George Pell. Big George has a funny habit of inviting the wierd ones to Australia as evidenced by the recent invitation to one Raymond Burke clowning around in a cappa magna for the taliban sector of Catholicism in this country.

I think the vast majority of Catholics would once have had no objections to providing a special place in our Catholic community for people fond of the Latin Mass and particular liturgies and devotions that are not of general interest to the mainstream. What I am picking up these days is that the mainstream is today beginning to get very jacked off at this constant, constant bending over backwards to appease those minority elements — and not offerong, seemingly even deliberately, any spiritual support whatsoever in encouragement to the mainstream of the baptised. This behaviour on the part of our episcopal leaders who have been encouraging of this behaviour is now deeply divisive within the whole Catholic community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Chaput

HI ALAN IT WAS POINTED OUT TO ME BY MY FRIENDS 12 YEAR OLD GRAND DAUGHTER THAT WITH THE WAY THE CATHOLIC PRIESTS TREAT THE GOD SHE IS TAUGHT ABOUT IN R.E. CLASSES AT A STATE PRIMARY SCHOOL IN N. S. W. THAT HE PROBABLY DOES NOT RESIDE IN ONE OF THE MICK CHURCHES ANY WAY. THIS IS WHERE I GOT THE LINE THAT THE MICKS TREAT GOD LIKE AN IDIOT FROM A 12 YO. A SIGN THAT THINGS ARE CHANGING. GREAT IDEA ALAN YOU CRACK ANOTHER BOTTLE I WILL GRAB A SASPIRALLA AND BE WITH YOU IN A SECOND.

CHEERS iAN LAWTHER.

It is good to hear of the planned vigil for Bishop Bill to be held in Toowoomba.

It seems to me that those people . . . usually described as Temple Police . . . have too much of an upper hand. One has to actually consider their motives . . .

I suspect that these are people acting purely out of fear. They fear that if the church does not go back and start operating as it did in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s, that their personal salvation is at stake. The thoughts of such people may be, "if I'm a good boy/girl, go to confession regularly, and attend daily mass, then I will make it to heaven. But, if the church continues to encourage people for themselves according to their conscience, and not keep the rules (like I do), then I won't be safe." As the song says, "It's all about me."

That's perhaps an oversimplification, but essentially people who become dobbers (usually despised by most Australians) are people who are acting out of fear on one hand, and on the other who wish to curry favour with people in authority. Perhaps, in their conceit, they even think that they're currying favour with God.

I'm not sure that I would want to worship that kind of God, who listens to tittle tattle, and actually rewards the people who do it. In the end they are not much more than negative gossips.

What is sad in this situation is that Bill Morris has found himself subject to malicious gossip, which those in authority have taken seriously.

And those in authority should be bigger than simply listening to tittle tattle. As I said in an earlier posting, and an American friend has described the American Archbishop, who came out here to "investigate" Bishop Morris, as a "yes-man nutcase." In other words, we suspect that the report was already in his briefcase on the way here, perhaps with a few modifications on the way back.

When these sorts of things happen, and when we find that , in this case, Bishop Morris has not been allowed due process, how can we have any confidence in the authority of the church?

If church authorities tell us and act out lies in the way people are treated (such as Bishop Morris, Peter Kennedy, and abused children), how are we supposed to believe anything else they might tell us? Under such circumstances, why should anyone treat the words of the Pope (any Pope) , or indeed the entire Magisterium, as carrying some weight . . . let alone being infallible . . . when such a person allows and encourages such injustices as the one we are now considering regarding Bishop Morris, etc etc.

Bishop Morris is simply the most recent member of a group of very decent and honest men, who spoke their mind, and who have been pitched aside purely because they were not yes-men.

And one last word, it's time that members of the Catholic Church in Australia, who take Christ's dictums about conducting equal and loving relationships, took on the temple police. When one knows one is RIGHT (as they do), and sanctimoniously so, no relationship with such a person can be equal or loving. So we do not have to pretend.

What this means in practice is that if one sees a member of the congregation overtly taking photographs of the priest, or sitting very obviously writing notes during the homily, . . . accompanied by tutting or the sucking-in-of breath, then such a person should be made unwelcome . . . by the congregation, rather than by the unfortunate clergyman who is the subject of the "investigation"/dobbing exercise.

Not to put too fine a point on it, it is time for all of us to stand up for our priests! They work hard . . . they deserve better than this!

A mutual friend from the US described Chaput as "another nut-case yes man" . . . nuff said?!!!

JeannieGuzman of Denver Posted at 8:29 AM Today

Sorry to disillusion you, but Archbishop Chaput of Denver is NOT "one of the most respected Catholic clerics in the US!" Chaput has been instrumental in ruining any and all registration which would either extend the Statute of Limitations for Child Sexual Abuse AND any legislation in Colorado, which requires the Catholic Church and ANY other church to product documents concerning past allegations of Pedophilia by members of the clergy. Take it from one, who lives in Colorado, Archbishop Chaput is held in awe by a lot of us here!

Comment 35 of 90

John M of New York Posted at 10:03 AM Today

Biased reporting from a Murdoch paper? Who would have guessed? The investigating bishop from my country Charles Chaput is a darling of the Catholic far right and an in your face conservative. Well respected? By Fox News obviously and the usual suspects like Opus Dei, EWTN, etc. Your bishop didn't have a chance of a fair hearing.

Comment 59 of 90

Thanks desi for your references in your post.Very informative.
georgeh

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, John Bathersby, says he has received no statement from Rome relating to the diocese of Toowoomba.

The Vatican is expected to release an official statement at 8pm (AEST).

A vigil mass will be held outside the Bishop Morris's house tomorrow.

The vicar-general for the diocese, Father Peter Dorfield, also said earlier today he was awaiting a formal announcement from the Vatican.

"We are advised that this announcement will express his acceptance of early retirement but we understand that because of the setting, it is much stronger than that," he said.

"It is the sort of early retirement that you cannot take so in effect it is a removal from office."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/02/3204821.htm

The response from many parishioners in the Toowoomba area has been an overwhelming need to express their support for Bishop Bill.

St Thomas More’s parish has initiated a candle lit vigil to be held on Tuesday evening (3rd of May) starting at 5.30pm outside Bishop House on the corner of Margaret and Lindsay Street and moving to St Pat’s Cathedral. St Thomas More’s Parish has been in touch with me to invite all who may be interested to join in the vigil. BYO candle.

It would be wonderful if those of you who would like to show their support for Bishop Bill at this time could be present.

No connection whatsoever, Patrick.

Brian, are you sure of that. If you look at some of the pics at the end of the video there are a few that very closely resemble our dear Aussie Little Pebble. I'm pretty sure it is the same man.

Stephen

No connection whatsoever, Patrick. I must confess though that my initial reaction was to associate it with out oan famous "little pebble" in Australia. I'm wondering know though what the buzz is with "little pebbles". Does anyone know? Does it have something to do about a comparison with Peter as "The Rock" and these nitwits somehow see themselves as "little rocks"? I'm intrigued. Does anyone know the provenance of the expression?

Stephen, I think there is a lot of deep insight in what you have written. This is something that ought be taken seriously. This phenomenon of large communities — even nations and things as large as an institutional church — being taken over by a tiny minority like around 5% of the population that makes up that community. It did happen in Germany under Hitler and there are so many other examples down through history. We have today an entire institution that has been effectively "taken over" and stolen by a 5% rump of nutters — a particular, identifiable sub-sector of a demographic who deal with their insecurities in a particular way and who, like nutters, actually believe they represent the majority opinion. i.e. they believe they are "normal" and everyone else in society are the ones who are "abnormal". The greater tragedy though is that this behaviour is encouraged by those at the very top of the institution today.

The irony is that here we have two men who, more than most others, should deeply appreciate the repugnance of totalitarian behaviours because they suffered under it, have ended up creating a form of totalitarian church — one run and controlled by a small totally unrepresentative clique. Benedict and John Paul II have much to answer for.

I've just been reading the comments in response in the Courier Mail [LINK*] and one might despair. It's like watching the "naive and gullible" yesterday lined up at around a million strong outside St Peter's Square for the beatification. It's like watching those old newsreal images of a Hitler rally. As I wrote yesterday the great majority of people, including the great majority of priests and bishops, are totally apolitical or politically naive — give them a bit of "bread and circus" and they honestly believe they have been given diamonds and substantial food to feed their souls.

*Those comments are from an updated story that has appeared in the Courier Mail where Fr Peter Kennedy, of the St Mary's In Exile community South Brisbane, has come out in support of Bishop Bill Morris and to condemn the Vatican.

Brian, Is this "little pebble" the Australian one or just another of the same kind?

PatrickW

It is a serious situation when the Catholic Church runs out of the Body and Blood of Christ!

We all should meditate on the meaning of this.

The obvious solution is to open another bottle of wine and a new box of wafers, consecrate them, and proceed. That's what we heathen Anglicans would do.

My first thought about this is that Jesus is saying he will not make himself available at Catholic churches if the foolishness that is now going on does not cease.

+ Alan

....priests have called a meeting at St Patrick's Cathedral on Thursday to consider what action can be taken, including the possibility of a mass resignation of clergy.

Good to see that the priests are showing their support for him.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/bishop-of-toowoomba-william-morris-claims-u...

Referring to the quote below, the remnant neurotic sects and the Little Pebble video (by the way and for those who are interested, the Japanese have a long tradition of 'new religions' based on and drawing from many other religions and tied up with traditional Japanese culture and which took off particularly after the national trauma of WW2 http://www.japan-101.com/culture/new_religions.htm .

*I find it fascinating that our two most recent popes were brought up under totalitarian regimes. Gary Lockwood makes the point in his article — and I know this has even been admitted by Santamaria himself and some involved at high levels in his various endeavours — that they deliberately adopted the political tactics of the communists they opposed by, for example, operating in secret "cells" and various forms of vote and branch stacking. One might draw some parallels between that and the way JPII the Great and BXVI, even though they profess to be so violently opposed to totalitarianism have, in practical effect, brought about a totalitarian church!

You've heard of Catholic Charismatic Renewal? Yes? What we are witnessing here and now is a new movement, the "Unresolved Traumatic Renewal". It is being run by unresolved traumatics and it is attracting the likewise and all are (unconsciously of course) reliving, expressing, and, promoting and mutually massaging their traumas and will do so until they resolve them properly and deeply. When will that happen? Not until like in AA they admit that they have a problem, something very difficult to do when your traumas are being mutually massaged.

Bishop Morris, I truly feel sorry for you as I do for all bishops (and Catholics now) but not necessarily in the way you might think, but because of all's unwillingness to simply say "enough is enough" and that you're not going to take it anymore and then act accordingly. How can the leaders who still have their hearts and wits let the unresolved emotionally damaged/deficient keep running the church - and believe me, that's what's happening, ask any psychiatrist, even Catholic ones? Is it because it's all happening like the proverbial frog being slowly boiled without it realising it.

There are many things that reasonable people over the centuries would regard as immoral but which do not need the intervention of the law. Equally there are many things that we see as so immoral that they require such legal intervention.

There are the obvious ones that invite the sanction of the criminal law, such as murder, stealing, assault etc.

But equally there are activities which may not require that the perpetrators be punished with penal sanctions like jail or fines, but which the law says that they should not be allowed to get away with it.

So, we have laws which will set aside contracts where shysters have got drunks or people with limited mental capacity to sign away their property or where businessmen have deceived or misled others to enter into transactions as a result of which they suffer loss. In these cases the law says that the Courts will set aside those transactions and declare them null and void or tht money compensation will be provided because these actions are profoundly immoral, and that is not the way that good people should behave.

Included in this category are things called "natural justice", which broadly means that if you are occupying a position and someone with the legal right to take it away from you wants to do so, they have to tell you why and give you the opportunity to respond. And if they fail to do that, the law will declare it null and void, ie. it is as if it never happened. It is regarded by the law, as morally in the same class as the shyster taking advantage of the drunk or mentally disadvantaged, or the businessman and his shonky deals.

This is what Frank Brennan was referring to when he wrote about Bishop Morris,

The forced resignation comes after the Vatican received the report from the Visitor Archbishop Chaput. As I understand it, Bishop Morris has never been shown that report. In civil law, this would be seen as a denial of natural justice on a grand scale.

Now, in this case, the law will not interfere because there is another principle that the law will respect: in matters of religion, people are entitled to be part of a religious organization that within certain limits has bizarre, even immoral rules. So, adult Jehovahs Witnesses can refuse blood tranfusions, but the limit is that the law will interfere if they try to prevent their own children from having them.

Likewise in the case of Bishop Morris, the law will not interfere in his forced resignation because if Catholics want to be a part of a dictatorial organization that does not respect Jesus's Golden Rule - the very moral basis behind the application of natural justice - then that is a matter for them.

However, this does not take away from the fact that the Vatican in acting the way it did, has got into the moral bed of the shysters, the shonks and the dishonest businessmen.

Of particular relevance is this part of Bishop Morris's letter

“I have never seen the Report prepared by the Apostolic Visitor, Archbishop Charles Caput, and without due process it has been impossible to resolve these matters, denying me natural justice, without any possibility of appropriate defence and advocacy on my behalf. Pope Benedict confirmed this to me by stating, ‘Canon Law does not make provision for a process regarding bishops, whom the Success of Peter nominates and may remove from Office.’ This makes my position as Bishop of Toowoomba untenable.”

In other words, Bishop Morris requested Pope Benedict that he act in a way which even the secular world regards as moral by affording him the opportunity to be heard. Josef Ratzinger then hid behind "Canon Law".

He has done this before in the case of paedophile priests who, on anyone's reckoning of morality should have been handed over to the civil authorities and jailed. Instead, he insisted on the Canon Law of "pontifical secrecy" for any information obtained by bishops about the rape of children, and forced a cover up, the effect of which is that more children were raped. In fact he did something worse than that. He advised Pope John II to continue the policy in 2001 and even personally signed the document that put that continuation into effect.

Then, when he got caught out by several Royal Commissions in Ireland, instead of accepting responsibility for what he did, he blamed the bishops who were acting under his direct orders under penalty of excommunication.

He has done something similar, but even worse, in relation to HIV/AIDs protection for innocent people, usually women, and more particularly children. He has refused to declare, even his own Catholic doctrine of the principle of double effect which would allow the use of condoms to prevent AIDS and which incidentally would have the effect of preventing the birth of HIV/AIDS children who will inevitably be orphans and suffer horrible lives.

What Josef Ratzinger has done to Bishop Morris shades into insignificance in comparison to these two things, but it just confirms that the world is looking at one of the great religions of the world being headed by a profoundly immoral and dishonest man who then has the gall to get up in all his silken and gold finery and lecture the world about morality.

Fr Frank Brennan SJ has a letter circulating in response to the events of yesterday:

Dear Brothers

On this day of the beatification of John Paul II, let's all spare a thought and a prayer for the diocese of Toowoomba. At masses this weekend, the priests are reading to the faithful the last pastoral letter of their bishop Bill Morris who has been forced by the Vatican to retire. Why? It is alleged that he has displayed flawed and defective pastoral leadership, invited discussion about the ordination of women contrary to the church's infallible teaching, and encouraged recognition of the orders of other churches.

I first knew Bill when he was secretary to Archbishop Francis Rush. He was then a very successful parish priest of the huge Gold Coast parish before being made bishop of Toowoomba in 1993. His episcopal ordination was a wonderful occasion, even though after it when I praised the liturgy, one of the visiting bishops said, "Actually I prefer the Roman rite." The lay participation in the liturgy was too much for some visiting ecclesiastics.

The forced resignation comes after the Vatican received the report from the Visitor Archbishop Chaput. As I understand it, Bishop Morris has never been shown that report. In civil law, this would be seen as a denial of natural justice on a grand scale.

Last September, I was privileged to deliver the Concannon Oration in Toowoomba and I said the following on that occasion:

"In relation to prerequisite 5 (the need for respectful and open conversation): This is the first formal address I have delivered in the Toowoomba diocese since the Vatican visitation by US Archbishop Chaput from Denver following upon Bishop Morris's courageous and very pastoral Advent letter of 2006. I salute Bishop Morris and the presbyterate and faithful of this diocese who have stood by him so resolutely in recent times.

"In that pastoral letter, your bishop pointed out that you would have just 19 active priests by 2014. Most would be old men, and they would be spending much of their time on the road. He outlined a list of pastoral responses to this decline in priests including: the third rite of reconciliation; the ordination of women and married men; welcoming former priests, married or single, back to active ministry; and recognising Anglican, Lutheran and Uniting Church orders. He indicated his willingness to pursue any option which Rome would allow.

"I was very troubled last year to read the account by Fr Jeff Scully in the Spring issue of The Swag, the national priests' newsletter, in which he noted:

"How can a respected leader of a local church be investigated without ever finding the content of the report based on these investigations? Is this not unthinkable in this age of transparency and accountability? I kid you not, Archbishop Chaput's visit did nothing to increase respect for the way Rome's officials do business. After the Chaput visit, not many Toowoomba people were expecting to find in their mailboxes a wee note from Denver, Colorado, saying how much he enjoyed his visit to our part of the world, how enriching the experience had been for him, and how much he had learnt. Learning did not seem to be part of the exercise.

"As far as we all know, the investigation is ongoing. Is it not time for the open conversation to commence? Is it not time for all of us learn new pastoral ways of being Church before new generations in country areas of Australia are completely denied access to the sacraments?"

Jeff Scully who I quote is one of the finest country parish priests you could meet. He is Roman trained, long time parish priest of Quilpie, having done a power of work for ongoing formation of diocesan clergy. As you would know the people of Toowoomba have been doing it very tough these days with the floods. The heart rending royal commission into the floods was sitting in Toowoomba all last week.

Having spent five years at school in Toowoomba and my grandfather having been the local member of parliament and my father having gone to school there too, I ask that we all give a close reading to the documentation which will come to light in the next week and offer our solidarity to the priests and parishioners who are so devastated by this heavy handed exercise of ecclesiastical authority. Bill Morris never pretended to be an academic theologian. He was and is a sensible, consider, pastoral priest and bishop of a country diocese.

God help us all as we ponder the significance of this Vatican intervention at the very time of the papal beatification.

Professor Frank Brennan SJ AO
Public Policy Institute
Australian Catholic University

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/toowoomba-bishop-william-morris-quits-rom...

One might draw some parallels between that and the way JPII the Great and BXVI, even though they profess to be so violently opposed to totalitarianism have, in practical effect, brought about a totalitarian church!

Spot on, Brian. I also suspect, that in keeping with the Church's sordid history in supporting murderous dictatorships in Spain, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile that the are not so opposed to totalitarianism. It is the totalitarianism of the Left that has them frothing at the mouth.

These right wing dictatorships often arose in response to left wing guerrilla groups and were more often than not headed by Mass going Catholics. As with Santamaria when dealing with Communists in Australia, they thought nothing of adopting the same methods as their enemies, and even outdoing them in terms of bloodthirsty terrorism. The problem was that they had the full resources of the State to torture, kill and maim and generally had the full support of the Catholic hierarchy. There were, of course, individual priests who joined the revolutionaries, but the hierarchy was generally on the other side.

There is a very interesting program on the ABC Law Report on Macarena Gelman, a Uruguayan woman who discovered that her adoptive parents were part of the Uruguayan military organization that murdered her biological parents - there are some 200 or so such people in Argentina and Uruguay where the regimes waited for their mothers, suspected of being leftists, to have their babies in prison, then threw the mothers out of helicopters over the Atlantic and gave the babies up to adoption usually amongst military families.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2011/3196800.htm

Herbie, I also highly recommend the article by Gary Lockwood published in Crikey I've just been singing the praises of in this string: www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=74020#p74020 . I honestly think that article exposes why no return to Vatican II is possible in the Church. Most Catholics are simply not political. In other language: most Catholics are not zealots and pharisees. These people who have brought down Bill Morris are. They are properly described as having a taliban mindset and nothing whatsoever will shift them. Christ went to extraordinary lengths to describe (and condemn) the behaviour but today it has infilitrated to the very highest levels of the institution. Most bishops, in my experience are not "political animals" and are played like chickens in a chicken run by those who are politcal animals through and through like Big George. These people are able to manipulate entire political parties, entire nations (as happened in the totalitarian experiments of the 20th Century*), and now even an entire institutional church as long-lived as the Catholic Church, from exceedingly small bases of numerical support. Most ordinary pewsitters — and probably most priests and bishops — are totally politically apathetic and naive.

If I was a bishop I'd feel so strongly about this latest Bill Morris development that I think I would caucus amongst my fellow bishops and call a strike amongst all the still participating faithful of attending Mass one Sunday — a little like what the NSW bishops did in the 1960s in Goulburn where they shut the Catholic schools and sent everybody down to enrol their students at the local public schools. That soon brought the governments to the table and so we ended up with generous funding of Catholic Education in this country. This issue is as equally serious as that in the way the entire Church, built by the blood, sweat and tears of basically the Catholic working classes of this country have been taken over and literally stolen by this tiny unrepresentative minority. Unfortunately the ranks of the priesthood and bishops have been decimated of men with real leadership qualities. One of our leading, retired archbishops is reputed to have said recently that "the gene pool has dried up" referring to the difficulty the Nuncio faces today in finding suitable bishops as leaders. I think he is spot on. I doubt if any of them would stand up although I have heard on the grapevine that Philip Wilson, the President of the Australian Bishops Conference, has been a staunch defender of Bishop Morris in these dealings with the Vatican. I believe this is now a serious moral issue. What we are watching is the literal stealing of an entire institution and the handing of its entire infrastructure over to a tiny minority that is no way representative of the broad "Body of Christ". These men do have to start "finding and following their consciences". If they still believe in a last judgment one day there will be an accountability for all this and they had better be pretty sure that they didn't put loyalty to temporal individuals ahead of loyalty to the moral laws in the choices they made.

*I find it fascinating that our two most recent popes were brought up under totalitarian regimes. Gary Lockwood makes the point in his article — and I know this has even been admitted by Santamaria himself and some involved at high levels in his various endeavours — that they deliberately adopted the political tactics of the communists they opposed by, for example, operating in secret "cells" and various forms of vote and branch stacking. One might draw some parallels between that and the way JPII the Great and BXVI, even though they profess to be so violently opposed to totalitarianism have, in practical effect, brought about a totalitarian church!

... for your strong letter challenging fellow bishops of Bishop William Morris to say/do something in defence of the man, not to mention of the local churches for which they hold responsibility.

Hear, hear.

Might I suggest that you copy it to all the print media, TV and Radio (especially ABC) plus any other appropriate media, even if just one published it, it might provoke some visible support for the Bishop.