 In recent days some comments by Perth Archbishop, Barry Hickey, on the professed atheism of Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, have caused a minor storm in the media. Archbishop Hickey had objected in a story on his own archdiocesan website that his comments had been misconstrued by The West Australian newspaper. Meanwhile someone in Ms Gillard's entourage appeared to believe some rapprochement was needed and yesterday the archdiocesan website carried photos and a story of a very happy meeting between Ms Gillard and the Archbishop. Today's commentary by Professor Allan Patience, writing from Tokyo was submitted to Catholica before the latest developments on the Perth Archdiocesan website. Dr Patience has updated it in the last few hours before publication after we alerted him to the new developments. While both Archbishop Hickey and the Prime Minister's office seem to have been involved in some deft footwork in the last 48 hours to neutralise the damage caused by his remarks in The West Australian, Dr Patience's commentary raises more general issues about how the nation's spiritual leaders ought endeavour to intersect with the great moral issues of our time.
Archbishop Barry Hickey and Julia Gillard dance a pirouette or two...
A few days ago the Archbishop of Perth, Barry Hickey, was reported as doubting Prime Minister Julia Gillard's capacity to understand a Christian respect for life, the institution of marriage, and the role of the Church in education and welfare [See: "Archbishop questions impact of Gillard's atheism" The West Australian – 29 Jul 2010]. Leaving aside the cynical timing of these alleged remarks, their logic is appalling. It is perfectly reasonable for a person who professes to be an agnostic (or even an atheist), and who chooses to remain outside the institution of marriage, to have a Christ-like regard for human life, to value happily married couples, to understand the rewards and travails of family life, and to support the Church when it does good in society. A balanced assessment of Ms Gillard's political ethics should make this obvious to even the most obtuse of clerics, no matter how high their station.
Subsequently the Archbishop issued a statement claiming to have been misreported [LINK]. He insisted that he "does not seek to support one party over another". A hasty meeting [LINK] was arranged — and photographed — between Ms Gillard and Archbishop Hickey and there were smiles (some may see them as grimaces) all round and reassurances of mutual respect. Given the context, it is difficult to feel anything but skeptical about the sincerity of either party at this suspiciously facilitated get-together between the bishop and the prime minister. Whoever arranged the meeting was principally concerned with politics and keeping up appearances, not with justice or wisdom about the issues that made the need for a meeting so urgent — and, on the media evidence, so contrived.
As originally reported, Archbishop Hickey's comments nonetheless point to a reactionary moral perspective that has little connection to the lived experiences of most Australians today. Despite the Archbishop's denials, his comments will also be perceived by many people as symptomatic of a political partisanship that could be dangerous for the Church in the medium and long term. Church leaders should stand above the immediate political fray — commenting certainly on substantive moral issues but avoiding any semblance of political partisanship. It is the moral issues they need to address, not the politics. Archbishop Hickey has either blundered or deliberately entered into the politics of the current election. His subsequent backtracking has only made his position even more controversial, not less so.
The Archbishop obviously needs reminding that there are many intelligent Catholics who will vote conscientiously, not because of some infantile regard for the dictates of the Catholic hierarchy, but because they are committed Christians who can think for themselves. The kind of Catholicism that saw bishops arrogating to themselves the right to tell the faithful how they should vote has long passed in Australia. Moreover a fair proportion of voting Catholics will be as much offended by Tony Abbott's narrow Catholicism as Archbishop Hickey appears to have been by Julia Gillard's honest agnosticism.
The real moral and ethical issues of our day...
Like many of his brother bishops, Archbishop Hickey seems to be out of touch with contemporary moral issues while still dodging the sexual abuse and related scandals eating away at the heart of the Catholic Church. His weak prophecies of a bleak future if "secularism" is allowed to prosper in Australia are a poor attempt to appear au fait with contemporary moral theology. He comments suggest a very one-sided understanding of secularist thinking — one where the Church is portrayed as the innocent victim of an godless world, rather than being one of the perpetrators of the kind of "secularism" that characterizes the late capitalist world.
The Australian bishops would win much greater public trust and influence if they focused on some of the truly profound ethical issues confronting Australia today. They are all too quick to preach damnation and exclusion for those whose behaviours fall within the normal gamut of the human experience but do not conform to the bishops' out-dated natural law theology. Meanwhile there are real moral issues that require — but rarely receive — ethical interrogation based on a lively and relevant contemporary Catholic moral theology. It's time the bishops lifted their sights to higher order — real — ethical problems.
In Australia, one of the first things that we should be questioning from a Christian perspective is the yawning gap opening up between rich and poor. The result is that the poor these days can no longer expect their children to aspire to a better life. Over the past few decades Australia has steadily become a more unequal society. Consider, for example, the sky rocketing cost of housing in contemporary Australia. A bitter consequence of this is that many young adults are locked out of the housing market. The hope of owning your own home (especially in Melbourne and Sydney) has long flown out the window for too many struggling young couples — whether they are in marriages that Archbishop Hickey would recognize as legitimate, or otherwise.
In fact Australia is now locked into an economy that is generating enormous wealth for a greedy and powerful few while ignoring the plight of the many who are poor and getting poorer. At the same time the structuring of the Australian economy makes the country vulnerable to the vagaries of global resource markets, especially in China. Our current levels of relative prosperity are fragilely based on an over-reliance on mining.
It would be impressive indeed if the Australian bishops took serious issue with the intensifying socio-economic inequality within contemporary Australia. They should be criticizing the planning incompetence and blinkered visions of those politicians, business leaders and investors responsible for keeping the economy at such low and vulnerable levels of development. Despite its current prosperity the structuring of the Australian economy — centered, as it is, on resource exporting — is that of a Third World state. The bishops should be arguing strenuously for the creation of value-adding industries that would open up skilled and meaningful employment opportunities for young Australians and assist in redistributing the enormous financial rewards that proper stewardship of Australia's fabulous resource base should entail.
This would mean, for example, developing a robust Christian defence of a progressive tax on the mega-profits being made by the mining industry in Australia. It is morally obscene that large proportions of these profits are being expatriated while the rest remains mostly in the clutches of the wealthy few in the country.
As a Catholic leader in Western Australia, the prime mining state, Archbishop Hickey should be at the forefront of this vital public debate. He gives all the appearances, however, of being preferring to remain clumsily judgmental about Julia Gillard, no matter how illogical and petty this makes him appear to many of the faithful and beyond.
What we badly need are some intelligently outspoken bishops in Australia who are properly educated in the important moral issues of our times. They need to be able to speak eloquently and fearlessly about these issues. They need to carve out an inspiring leadership role for the Church. The comfortable lives and the old-fashioned and blinkered moral theology espoused by too many of the Australian bishops robs the people of an effective and intelligent Catholic voice in Australia's public policy debates.
Maybe it is time for the likes of Archbishop Hickey to hand over to someone who knows what he (or she) is talking about and who believes passionately in the profound moral efficacy of the Gospel of Christ.
Allan Patience is a Professor at Sophia University, Tokyo. He is an Australian lay Catholic.
LINKS:
"Archbishop questions impact of Gillard's atheism" The West Australian – 29 Jul 2010:
au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/7665089/archbishop-questions-impact-of-gillards-atheism
"Archbishop Responds to Misleading West Australian Article" The West Australian – 29 Jul 2010:
www.perthcatholic.org.au/news-events/view_article.cfm?loadref=10&id=72
"Archbishop Meets Prime Minister" – 31 July 2010:
www.perthcatholic.org.au/news-events/view_article.cfm?loadref=10&id=73
PHOTO CREDITS:
The photo used in the headline banner has been adapted from the one used in the body of the article. It was taken by Fr Robert Cross and has been published on the Archdiocese of Perth website.
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Dr Allan Patience was educated at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and at the London School of Economics in the University of London (UK). He is a political scientist with specialist teaching and research interests in comparative cultures in the Asia Pacific region, governance problems of smaller states in Oceania, big power influences in the Asia Pacific, and Japan-Australia relations. He has been a full professor in two Australian universities and in the University of Papua New Guinea. He has also been a visiting professor in the University of Tokyo, Keio University and Kobe Gakuin University. His current research projects include a study of the assumptions behind Australian foreign policy, the politics of secularism in late-modernity, and the challenges of globalization. This biographical information has been sourced from the Sophia University website HERE. |
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©2010Dr Allan Patience
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