Some questions for Archbishop Denis Hart...

I read the (lengthy) English translation of the Spanish Bishops' statement last night. They've certainly "gone to town" on Diarmuid. I am actually surprised the Vatican has been silent for so long. In fact, even with the news today, it is quite evident they still haven't spoken officially or publicly. I suspect that Rome has learned a lesson or two as a result of all the excommunications over recent decades and has been trying a new approach to the way in which it handles these matters.

Diarmuid is certainly "pushing the boundaries" in a lot of what he writes in his most recent books (i.e. Evolutionary Faith and Catching up with Jesus – both of which I've now read). I'm not familiar with the one on religious life though and this statement from the Spanish Bishops' is exclusively concerned with his thinking concerning religious life.

What I suspect has happened down here in Australia is that one of our little "busy bodies" has gone off on a little trawl "digging for dirt" on Diarmuid O'Murchu as a result of the publicity in recent months of his impending visit to Australia. They've found this L'Osservatore Romano article and sent it off to the Arcbishop of Melbourne in the way they are always bringing these sorts of things to the attention of bishops.

What gets me is why the bishops react like frightened children when they get these letters in? The Christian Brothers took the call up to Archbishop Hart in defending the need for O'Murchu to be heard in Australia? Rome has not actually spoken publicly on this issue. So why does our bishop seem to assume they have?

Why isn't he the one, like the religious orders, providing moral leadership to his people instead of this constant, constant pandering to this tiny, tiny element of the population who are constantly trying to prove that they know all the rules and will report everyone who does not think like they do to Rome? Why? Do the bishops honestly believe that is how they are going to re-evangelise the Church? Where's any evidence from the last 40 years that that sort of behaviour works? It doesn't. It simply drives more and more people out of the pews. As I keep writing: there is going to be an accountability for all this. And they're not going to be answering to these "thought police" who are constantly firing off letters to bishops and to Rome, nor even to a Pope. They are going to be asked: "why did you allow all these people to escape from the sheepfold? What did you do to address the exodus?" Or have they actually given up believing in a final judgment?

Like Eichmann at Nuremberg, do they honestly think they are going to be able to stand there and say "but I was just following orders from Rome or the Pope! I was taught not to think for myself."

As I wrote yesterday, I don't necessarily agree with all that Diarmuid O'Murchu writes either but, if we are to engage with the world in our faith, surely what we have to be doing is confronting the sorts of issues that Diarmuid O'Murchu raises. The response from our bishops and ecclesial leaders should be to be "out there" actually engaging in the dialogue going on in society which O'Murchu is addressing. I bet most of the bishops around the world wouldn't even know who this priest is, let alone read his books, or actually sought ways to engage with the world in these big issues that O'Murchu addresses.

Denis, seriously, it is time to give up writing the sort of stuff that causes the obedient housewife-type characters to go all gooey and weak at the knees and re-post it for you on the CathNews discussion board. Nobody is denying you have a responsibility to the "obedient housewife-type characters" but you also have responsibilities to those tens of thousands (hundreds of millions internationally) who have been walking away from all of that.

It is time to start dialoguing with a world that is sick to death of being treated as little children. The world is adult enough today to make their own assessments and take on board the good stuff a person like O'Murchu writes and to appreciate those places in which he is "pushing our buttons" and trying to extend our thinking about the meaning of God in our lives.

Cheers, Tom

Tom Scott is the pen name of the editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne.

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