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TOM'S
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Public communications...  I came across a fascinating interview last night that the well-known journalist and commentator, Phillip Adams gave to the Edmund Rice Business Ethics Initiative newsletter back in February of this year. The headline for the interview was It is getting harder to get the truth: many of us have given up trying... One particular question and answer grabbed my attention: Good Business: One
the effects of what you are saying is that Australian democracy is really
at risk because of this lack of freedom to say what we really think. The entire interview is worth reading and you'll find a link to that at the bottom of this page. My own particular interest in citing Phillip Adams' argument above is to bring the discussion back to a focus on what is happening within the Church. Broadly I agree with the particular argument Adams advances in his broader comments on what is happening in our nation. The recent developments in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are cause for concern as are the Federal Governments recent changes to the media ownership rules in this country. Adams though is drawing attention in what he says there though to the indifference of the general population. It's as though the people love to wallow about in their ignorance just so long as the government and business keep the circus going to entertain us. As long as they keep the economy bubbling along to enable us to buy the tickets to the circus. I think we have a similar, perhaps even bigger problem within the Church. As we have seen in that slow evolution of forces that led to the eventual establishment of new endeavours like OnLine Catholics in this country, and Catholica Australia, there are many who want to wallow in their ignorance. They do prefer a sense of emotional security to actual truth.
In the end though truth does win out and we are seeing that played out on two fairly large canvases at the moment with the turn that is occurring in foreign policy in the United States as a result of the failures of the policies pursued in Iraq. Perhaps even more fascinating is the about turn that is occurring internationally in attitudes to global warming and climate change. Big Business seems to be well ahead of government and the Australian government is finding itself in serious catch-up mode on a range of major issues which even a few weeks ago it was arguing were not issues on its radar. The release last night of the UK Government Report on climate change prepared by the former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, was described by one commentator on Lateline last night as potentially one of the most important studies that has been released by any government anywhere in the course of our entire lifetimes. Our Church has a little problem. The vast majority of the most intelligent sectors of its constituency in the Western world have simply disappeared out the door. And even for those still in, many of them have given up listening to the institution itself and are increasingly developing their own pathways to Jesus, to God and to salvation. The term "cafeteria Catholics", although developed by the insecure and conservative sectors as a term of derision, is in fact a good descriptor of what is going on. The intelligent sectors of the Catholic population, to put it bluntly, are "sick of the bullshit". They are sick of the word and mind games that endeavour to avoid "truth" in the interests of appeasing those sectors of the population who place a premium on certitude and emotional security over truth. They are sick of the mind games that are played at the highest levels in the Church trying to pretend the Church never makes mistakes, never reverses its teachings, and that the words of former Popes, particularly recent ones, are beyond criticism or revision. One can visit many so-called "Catholic" discussion boards and blogs around the world to watch that game being played out in exceedingly stark relief 24 hours a day. Unlike political parties though, our Church is not an institution that is primarily interested in winning some forthcoming election. It's charter is not the winning of the three- or four-yearly popularity contests that drive politics. The charter of the Church is to be both the discerner of ultimate truth and the repository of where our accumulated wisdom and truth is stored. Sadly today the hierarchical nature of our institution has made it a slave not to truth and wisdom but to everyone within positions of influence on the hierarchical ladder looking over their shoulders making sure they do not offend the next higher chain of command. The Church has lost its long term vision and everyone is looking over their shoulder protecting their own backsides. There is very little effective communication downwards and outwards and, I submit, that is why the vast majority in the educated sectors of the Western world have given up and gone searching elsewhere. No-one in the leadership of the Church is really interested in talking to them any longer. Nobody in the institutional structure is really interested any longer in really trying to even hear, let alone answer, the challenges that the vast masses of the baptised are facing in their lives. When we have the major "new media" initiative of the Catholic Church in Australia deliberately setting itself up as a "non-publisher" (i.e. not having any opinions of its own) for fear that it would not be able to operate in the present ecclesial political climate our institution is in serious crisis. Cardinal Pell gets plenty of airtime but with one or two exceptions all the other bishops across this continent are largely silent as public communicators and are not encouraged to speak their minds by the culture of silence that has descended on our institution. Blind Freddy can see which sector of the population the Cardinal appeals to and the Church is simply not going to be re-evangelised by constantly assuaging the insecurities of that sector of the population. To follow that agenda is like trying to place one's faith in the political agendas of the Howard or Bush administrations which seek to manipulate the "evangelical vote". The Liberal and Republican administrations in Australia and the United States are not going to be in power for perpetuity. Those political parties only serve, at best, 50% of their electorates. The agenda of the Church is to serve the whole population not some particular political subsectors of its. The Church is not meant to be some institution that mimics political parties in their quest for acceptance and power. The Church is meant to be the servant to ultimate truth. And that truth is not something which is in the exclusive province of conservative political thinkers and the emotionally insecure sectors of her population. The only real public communication from the institutional Church in this whole nation today comes in the form of motherhood statements basically designed to make it appear as though some work is being done in the vineyard, or they are statements that originate from the sources who sincerely, and I suggest, naively, do believe that they can re-evangelise the Church by using the communication agenda that appeals to only 5% of the population and which has been an abject and total failure for the last century both nationally and internationally. I am not arguing here for some "liberal" agenda that is the political counterpoint to the agenda loved by the likes of Cardinal Pell. Truth is not some political football. Truth transcends politics, as does God, as should our Church. Gentlemen (and, unfortunately, this is mainly addressed to the gentlemen who control the institution), if what our Church teaches is true there is going to be an accountability for what has been allowed to happen. It will apply to each one of us, whether our name is Benedict, Joseph, Tom, Brian, Phillip or whatever. It is not going to be an accountability to our mothers, nor to our egos, nor to any Pope, living or dead. The only accountability will be to Truth — the Word and Logos that sits at the very heart of Creation. None of us, whether Popes or Robert Bolt's "common man", will con that Logos by our childish political games trying to assuage our insecurities, or by the games we play trying to con ourselves that we've been engaged in productive work. Blessings, Tom Link:
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Phillip
Adams: I think that it is more at risk because of the lack
of curiosity from the people who participate or don't participate in democracy.
You can choose not to know. It seems to me that a multitude of Australians
don't want to know the truth and they avoid it whenever it is thrust at
them. They avoided it on the refugee and asylum seekers issue. They avoided
it on "Tampa". They avoided no end of truth on "Kids Overboard".
They avoided no end of truth, many of them, about the motives for the
Iraq war.
