Mission & Justice

Barney Zwartz; 17/5/08

The Sydney bishop disowned by Australia’s Catholic bishops as failing to understand basic church teaching says the church is trying to restrict debate on sexual abuse. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson released a statement yesterday replying to his condemnation by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference last week, saying he was disappointed but not surprised. Bishop Robinson, the auxiliary bishop of Sydney, who for a decade headed efforts by the Australian Catholic Church to tackle sexual abuse, resigned in disillusionment in 2004. Last year he published Confronting Sex and Power in the Catholic Church, arguing that until the church considered radical reform from the Pope down, it was not serious about tackling clerical sexual abuse.

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Larry Buttrose; 17/5/08

I was born into a loving family. As far as I can remember, my parents never smacked me; hardly even raised their voices. But they were churchgoing Roman Catholics and, a few weeks after my fifth birthday, one summer morning my mother walked me from our home to the local parish school. Things there were very different. I vividly recall the red carbolic-scrubbed face of the young Irish nun swathed all in black who met us, and the strange gleam in her eye. Within days she was belting us with a cane, and being a left-hander I was singled out for special treatment; my hand beaten hard and often so I could no longer hold my pencil in “the hand of the devil”.

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16/5/08

Church leaders in western India’s Maharashtra state have welcomed a court order that they say provides temporary respite for thousands of villagers who fear being displaced. The state’s High Court on May 5 directed the government to keep the status quo on village land the government proposes to develop. The order remains in force until the next hearing on June 25, the government’s deadline to respond. Four fishermen filed the petition that led to the court order. They did so after state-run Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation issued a tender in April inviting developers to lease plots of land in the Gorai-Manori area to create tourism projects such as hotels and spas.

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16/5/08

Some women theologians say theology in India is still dominated by men because Church traditions remain patriarchal and leaders have yet to accept women as theologians. Women theologians “are inferior to none,” Sister Pauline Chakkalakal told UCA News. “But we have to fight for recognition, as Church leaders (have) yet to recognize and accept the role of women theologians in India,” said the Daughters of St. Paul nun, who has a doctorate in biblical theology. Other women theologians also spoke with UCA News on the sidelines of the Indian Theological Association’s annual meeting. That event, held April 26-30 in Aluva, near Kochi, 2,595 kilometers south of New Delhi, brought together 64 theologians, including five laypeople and seven nuns. Sister Chakkalakal, 55, pointed out that the Church’s mission would fail if it does not assure gender equality within the Church. This is why she takes it as a “challenge” to fight for gender equality within the Church, she said. “It’s a fight for Jesus and part of my conviction.”

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14/5/08

Every Friday, Clarita Alia takes time off from selling vegetables to pray and light candles at a public cemetery. She visits the graves of her three sons, all stabbed to death in separate incidents between July 2001 and November 2002. “I am still hurting,” the mother told UCA News on May 11. “I have hatred in my heart,” she admitted, adding that she wants justice for her sons. Police reports say the three brothers were allegedly killed by members of a vigilante group after being involved in several pickpocket incidents in the city. A case has not been filed against the suspects, however, because of “uncooperative witnesses,” Alberto Sipaco of the regional Commission on Human Rights told UCA News. “They do not want to testify because of fear,” the lawyer explained. Alia, 56, runs a vegetable stall with her five remaining children at the biggest public market in Davao City, 965 kilometers southeast of Manila. She is also a member of Stop Summary Executions, an advocacy group composed of mothers whose children were victims of extrajudicial killings in the southern Philippines.

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Samir Khalil Samir, SJ; 14/5/08

Last 20 March various news agencies reported the following news from Riyadh: “No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed.” This is the proposal put forward by some mediators in Riyadh who are negotiating with Vatican authorities the possibility of building a Catholic place of worship in the kingdom. Anwar Ashiqi, president of the Saudi Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, expressed this view in an interview on the site of Arab satellite TV network, al-Arabiya. “I haven taken part in several meetings related to Islamic-Christian dialogue and there have been negotiations on this issue,” he said. “It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian Churches recognise the prophet Mohammed.”

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Barney Zwartz; 14/5/08

Australia’s Catholic bishops have disowned retired Sydney bishop Geoffrey Robinson, accusing him of failing to understand fundamental church teachings. The country’s bishops have released a public statement suggesting that Bishop Robinson — as a bishop, a man chosen by the Pope to guard the teaching of Catholics — is wrong about the authority of Christ and the authority of the church to “teach the truth”. The statement was the first official response to Bishop Robinson’s controversial book published last August, in which he said the church needed to reverse 2000 years of teaching on sex and power as part of radical reforms from the Pope down.

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Alan Gold; 14/5/08

In July, Sydney will be visited by Benedict XVI, spiritual father to one billion Catholics and occupant of the world’s oldest seat of government. Yet with just weeks to go before the visit, insecurity, top-level resignations and a growing sense of doom have turned the organisation of World Youth Day 2008 into a potential nightmare. Organisers of this vast operation are comparing the Pope’s visit to the 2000 Olympics, but this is hardly a valid analogy. A huge team of experts spent eight years ensuring that the Sydney Olympics ran like a well-oiled machine. The same can’t be said for the organisation of the Pope’s visit. Despite assurances from the organisers, most of the extensive preparatory work needed to ensure the health, welfare and safety of the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who will descend on Sydney has still to be undertaken. And almost nobody contracted to the organising body is willing to speak on the record.

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Heath Gilmore; 11/5/08

The arrival of Pope Benedict in Sydney for World Youth Day is looming as an unholy disaster for the luxury hotels of Sydney. Top-end hotels and businesses are reeling from the huge shortfall in predicted numbers. Domestic tourists are also reluctant to take holidays in Sydney because of the expected disruption to roads. One five-star hotel set aside 1000 beds and has not received one booking. NSW Tourism Minister Matt Brown yesterday said the Government was determined to change the public perception about the event. It aimed to let potential visitors know that central Sydney was open for celebration during the pope’s visit as long as they used public transport.

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Paul Collins; 10/5/08

Edited extract from: Believers: Does Australian Catholicism Have a Future?; Paul Collins; University of NSW Press, $34.95. Collins is an author, commentator, former priest, historian and broadcaster.

…Despite my initial optimism that BenedictXVI might come to grips with some of these issues, I now feel there is little evidence that he will take action. I am now convinced that change will not come from the top. Another John XXIII or a progressive pope who will act as a kind of circuit-breaker or messiah for reform-minded Catholics is a most unlikely possibility. That is why bishops are so important. But a central problem is that many bishops feel their sole line of responsibility is upward to Rome because it was the Vatican that appointed them. There is little or no consciousness that they have responsibility to the local church and that they must answer to priests and laity. …

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