Wherefore art thou, Catholicism

The last few years in Australian society have been demanding and confronting times for Catholic clergy.  The revulsion and odium of priestly sexual abuse has not diminished and in substantive form has taken hold in the public imagination as a distinctive characteristic now associated with Catholicism.

The sad, new reality sees many priests avoiding children in their schools or as altar servers and displaying a reluctance to wear clerical attire in public, noting the intermittent yet growing public abuse and comment.  Another, perhaps not unrelated challenge concerns the liberty of the Church freely to teach what she believes and to express these convictions in public forums.  A recent complaint to the Tasmanian Antidiscrimination Commission concerns the Tasmanian Archbishop's right to produce and disseminate information, within his own schools, regarding the nature of Catholic marriage.  Whilst this complaint does arise from the loony fringe of society, the more serious aspect concerns the increasing willingness to use legal mechanisms to muzzle free speech and legitimate debate.

The Church also has been seriously distracted in recent years, perhaps from an insecurity surrounding its relevance, perusing with excessive attention causes not shared by the majority of Australians, such as increasingly open borders and high refugee intakes.  Sydney's Archbishop Fisher's recent call for an increase in Syrian refugees, but with a particular preference for persecuted Christians, was a welcome balance in this debate.  It remains to be seen if government is prepared to act in such a way.  Nevertheless, it is not hard to feel that the Church has been oblivious to many of the core social issues confronting Australian life, even those with a particular Catholic heritage or concern.  Many Australians are right to discern something unsound within our political and social fabric.  Of most obvious concern is the huge debt we have accumulated over the past decade.  Whilst this is not in the American or European stratosphere, net foreign debt standing at $976 billion represents 60% of Australian GDP.  The indifference of both sides of politics to rising debt and budget deficits, coupled with a falling trade deficit in 2015, sees Australia consistently living beyond its means.

This is a fundamental Catholic issue, which goes to the heart of our understanding of community and responsibility to future generations.  Even if other Australians are exclusively imbedded in the concerns of the present, Catholics are called to envision a society beyond ourselves.  Catholics cannot continue to remain indifferent to a public debt that allows the current generation to live at the expense of those too young to vote or yet unborn.  In these inter-generational transfers Australians are witnessing an erosion of our societal contract which notes that Western Society has a responsibility to treasure the heritage left to us but also to ensure that our children and grandchildren will enjoy this same heritage.

If Catholicism does not speak earnestly about the high cost of home ownership for the young or a national youth unemployment rate of 13%, then we can hardly expect young Australians fully to take their place in civil society.  We are already witnessing the great reluctance of young Australians to join churches or religious institutions.  This is mirrored in their avoidance of sporting clubs, political parties, professional associations, in art or educational organisations or even charitable and humanitarian groups.

Something is certainly broken when volunteerism for the young is desperately low, where sporting groups cannot find players or coaches.  Certainly Google and Facebook have a role to play and yet even here online communities in western society show large measures of indifference and lack of passion.  Australian society is under substantial stress when so many of its citizens, particularly the young, are unable to identify with any organisation apart from a government that is constantly called upon to provide security from "the cradle to the grave".

The Catholic Church is one of the few Australian organisations with a core interest in freedom, in modifying government and in highlighting choice and human flourishing.  It's time she spoke again for such fundamentals.

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Church negativity erodes Australia

Australian Churches have undoubtedly had a lot to say to the Australian community over the last 20 years.  Unfortunately, the message is almost certainly not what you might have expected from organisations claiming centrality for a person called Jesus for all our lives.  Banners strung from Cathedrals demanding freedom for David Hicks (an Australian jailed for fighting with the Taliban) or changes to refugee policy, are often backed up by statements from those in Church leadership positions slamming various policies of Australian government on an endless array of issues.

Refugee policy is described as “inhuman and demeaning”, reductions in overseas aid as “a devastating blow to the global poor and breach of trust with the Australian Public”, detention centres are “measures of intentional cruelty”.  A Prime Minister's “trustworthiness” is regularly called into question, western missionary activity is “very aggressive and lacking in cultural sensitivities”, the collapse of Christianity in the West is “a good thing”.  Even mum and dad shareholders are encouraged to divest shares which are “deeply embedded in damaging corporate behaviour”.

Concurrent with all this commentary on our community and government is a dramatic collapse in Church attendance, particularly for Anglicans and other protestant groupings.  In recent years, another community concern has also arisen.  That is a realisation that many younger Australians seem unenthusiastic about their national identity, generally delaying commitments to marriage, family and home buying and sometimes lost in consumerism and self-indulgence.

Naturally, it is unfair to lay the blame for disengaged, bored or cynical youth at the feet of churches alone, yet they have a significant role to play in advocating for a positive narrative on the astonishing benefits still offered by this nation to its citizens.

Almost totally, they have failed in this endeavour.  In the course of my work, I come across a substantial cross-section of locally born young Australians.  Almost all of them are inculcated with a view that suggests migrants to Australia are fabulously lucky as they bring with them a culture, language, family and a group identity that provides extended support.  Yet, few of them see how fortunate they themselves are, living in a country where democratic and free principles are strong, where women have significant opportunities and where drive and determination will still unfold opportunities found virtually nowhere else!

Two of the colleagues with whom I am fortunate to work, both psychologists, highlight to me two underlying views found with most Australians who undergo psychological counselling.  The first is an increasing sense that things are not fair, (but one that is not always based on supporting fact), the other, a feeling of lack of support, a lack of community, a lack of place where their own identity is valued and supported.

What a shame that most of Australia's churches have absolutely nothing to say or do in this space.  In my view, it is only the Catholic Church which still seeks to speak to this “place” in Australian life.  The right to life, the joy of finding a lifelong partner in marriage, the wonder of starting a family, of buying a first home, of raising a child, of starting a business, of actually taking some pride in Australian things and of generously sharing with others.

All of the above can be sometimes tough and may not all be achievable, but that does not make them boring, depressing or worthless.  Whatever other journeys some may make, these are all still the building blocks of a happy, healthy and contented life.  Wouldn't it be a shock for a few other Churches to see some value and centrality in such “ordinary” things?  Perhaps then, those churches may not be so empty!

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Church collapse has specific reasons

The Australia of the early 21st Century is a society that is laden with moral and ethical language, to the point where there is hardly a political, sporting, or community experience that does not have moral champions suggesting ways in which our society should proceed to a desirable future outcome.

Green groups have given climate discussions a moral framework of hurt, pain and damage inflicted on Mother Nature.  The Australian Football League is challenging racism amongst those who attend their matches, and groups as diverse as Essendon Football club, the Catholic Church and the Australian Defence Force are upbraided for failing to care properly for those for whom it is thought they are responsible.  Football coaches, priests and generals along with politicians are diminished in community eyes as leaders with moral failings and tendencies to hide or cover up their alleged self-serving ways.

It is not difficult to see that perceptions of moral failure and alleged self-indulgent leadership, has created a society distrustful of any authority and ready to complain of victimhood at the earliest opportunity.  The resulting number of Australians who are suffering drug-related illness, psychological traumas, unfair dismissals, divorce, child abuse or betrayal and rejection of any sort must now be in the millions.

Concurrent with this moral surge has been a collapse of the traditional moral guardians of society — Australian churches.  Whilst Roman Catholics are holding their own, mostly through immigration, the other mainstream churches are at virtual collapse.  The Anglican Church itself notes that up to one-third of its dioceses face bankruptcy.

Whilst financial strife is unsettling, there has been virtually no analysis as to how such circumstances have arisen.  Increasingly, Protestant churches are panic stricken into mindless support for any issue that will be seen to garner community support.  A desperate need for financial security rules all.  We have witnessed these churches support David Hicks (an Australian captured fighting for the Taliban), criticise the actions of the Australian Border Security and cast coal mines as the new evil.  Church attendance continues to wither.

These churches lack a central narrative as to who they are and what they stand for.  If they stand for anything, it will only be the latest left leaning popular cause, which will be packaged in language eliciting guilt, shame and disgust at the actions of government or society as a whole.

Suggesting that Jesus Christ may be relevant to modern Australia cannot be considered.  Many of these Christians are ashamed of their church and their nation.  A vision of church corruption and a society that oppresses minorities, destroys freedom and suffocates the individual, sees these churches repudiate their own traditions.

These churches recognise that Western civilisation was developed by the church, but they see both Western civilisation and church tradition as oppressive of women, minorities and individual rights.  In their view everything good and proper in human society has been opposed or ignored in the name of Jesus.  Currently, there seems to be no alternative to endless shame, dishonour and victimhood and no hope of resurrection in these churches, so perhaps a gratuitous suicide is the correct outcome.

Fortunately, such a brutal view of the faith contains little truth.  The Church has left an indelible and good imprint on Western civilisation.  Western law is largely the gift of Church canon law.  Intellectual inquiry, sponsored by Church universities, triggered the scientific revolution and the idea of helping the poor without thought of reciprocity is a fundamental Christian idea.  This is the continued narrative of the Churches that still have Jesus Christ at the centre.

The Church is the builder of Western civilisation and, despite the obstacles confronting societies like Australia, still insist that self-hate, victimhood and shame in our society are attitudes that build nothing and invite deserved decay.

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Churches need a sea change on welfare

Over the last 30 years, Australian Churches have regularly raised with the Government and with their parishioners the need to be generous with money.  After all, the argument goes, we are a wealthy country with a responsibility to be a good neighbour both to countries in our region, and locally, especially to those less fortunate than ourselves.

Sometimes, this is such a strongly applied principle that the very nature of the faith itself can be rarely moved beyond "Be generous to others as God has been generous to you."

Recently, there has been an increasing number of Australians who have come to question the entire premise.  Primarily, there is little evidence to suggest that giving local people welfare raises living standards in any significant measure, or that foreign aid does anything to develop poorer nations over the longer period.

A snapshot of our region actually highlights another more vital reality;  it is giving people work, developing local business, encouraging local entrepreneurs and giving the poor the means to create their own wealth that raises people out of poverty.

Australia has recently concluded a Free-Trade Agreement (KAFTA April 2014) with South Korea, a significant player on the world economic scene but one that only sixty years ago was largely devastated by the Korean War (1950-53).

It is not aid that has resulted in the South Korean transformation, it is a philosophy of economic freedom, a striving for excellence and an entrepreneurial class that has pursued wealth-generating enterprise.  Australians have also benefitted hugely from South Korean growth;  our trade is worth around 30 billion Australian Dollars, and our citizens benefit significantly from competitively priced cars, TVs, electronic and other electrical goods.

Yet South Korea, is only half the Korean story, North Korea is stringently opposed to economic freedom and ruthless in suppressing religious and political freedoms.  North Korean restrictions breed massive starvation and poverty, yet in South Korea free enterprise has raised fifty million from poverty to prosperity.  South Korea is but a tiny microcosm of the world, yet its basic principles hold true:  where people are given economic freedom, poor countries are more than capable of producing wealth.  Without this freedom North Korea waits.

It is at this point that Australia's churches have a vital role to play.  Currently, most discussions about poverty focus on the need for government intervention, the desirability of minimum wages and the necessity of increased welfare provisions.  Yet key components are missing from Church statements on poverty and welfare questions.

How can Australia encourage the entrepreneur?  How do we support the essential role of business in providing employment?  How can we develop and support those who wish to start their own business initiatives?  In short, Australia's churches have underplayed the pivotal and indispensible component in moving people out of poverty — business support, which leads to the provision of employment.

Part of the reason for such neglect appears to be a general mistrust of wealth creation in the capitalist system and a feeling that inequality and greed may result.

A focus on the exceptional wealth of a few individuals often attributes to them selfish motives or corrupt practices.  A more truthful analysis suggests that Australia's churches are also perceived as excessively wealthy and with secretive and self-protecting practices.  It is not just millionaires within the capitalist system who may be tempted by greed;  communists, politicians, trade unionists, footballers, sheiks and bishops can also show themselves to be fragile human beings!

Capitalist nations will always need the rule of law to ensure corruption is contained, but Samsung, Daewoo, Kia, Hyundai, LG and a host of others did not get to the point where they can employ thousands of people in both South Korea and Australia by corrupt and untrustworthy practices.  They are successful by providing at affordable prices quality goods that modern Australians are keen to use.

For Christianity, humanity is made in the image of God with a fundamental call to be co-creators in the human future.  Importantly, it is God's direction to be "fruitful and multiply" that drives us to a creativity beyond the confines of reproduction alone, to a full humanity with a vocation to keep safe our environment and to care and provide for each other.

Economics and work are not morally free environments;  the goods, services and employment they provide are essential to dignity, hope and a strong sense of self.  In the fullness of faith and human flourishing, work and enterprise are important components in the Christian life.

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Church Social Justice mired in strange agendas

The fact that Australia's mainline Protestant Churches are near collapse doesn't seem to have deterred them from aggressively pursuing a number of dubious social justice agendas.

Recently, Anglicans have been busy loudly condemning coal as the new evil, questioning the conduct of Australian border security and encouraging local parishes to use dolphin-friendly tuna and vegetarian options at all church gatherings.

This begs the question, what should Australia's churches actually be advocating as social benefits for our community, particularly from denominations that are numerically, financially and spiritually disconnected from mainstream Australian life.

Pope John Paul II has given a powerful focus to the central issue that is confronting Australian society in the 21st Century in his encyclical Laborem exercens (English:  On Human Work), highlighting the dignity and value of human work.  Australia has not been immune from recession, the restructuring of manufacturing and the constant need to compete and adapt to global markets.

The Australian government is sharply focused on a free trade agenda that will go a long way to ensuring our continued prosperity, particularly in our trading relationship with Asian neighbours.  This is a good policy.  Nevertheless, there are Australian workers, urban and rural, whose employment has been affected or eroded by international competition.  In many cases there are limited opportunities for alternative employment.

Whilst churches also talk a great deal about poverty reduction, they are usually silent and blind to the obvious;  gaining employment and holding it is the key platform for human fulfilment.  Employment is the foundation of the whole social justice agenda.  It is the means to provide for marriage and family, the ownership of a home and the resources to raise and educate children.  It also allows for all of us to contribute to the welfare of our nation beyond our family and friends.

But the demands of the modern economy must not destroy employment or the dignity of the worker.  As John Paul II noted, Jesus spent most of his life working, hence, the Pope's call for worker support whenever employment is threatened or lost, care for their families and a strong emphasis on new employment as central to our community life.  (Laborem exercens, No 8)

The world of work changes;  that is the one constant reality of work.  Nothing stays the same and adaptation is the key.  All businesses must be focused on continued improvement and all workers on the need for adapting and developing skills.

In Australia, employment issues are directly related to the health of all Australian States.  It is not just South Australia or Tasmania in which this is keenly felt.  States unable to support their population with long-term employment which encourages individuals to build lives over a sustained period, will simply lose population to states which can.

Some churches also need more honesty surrounding the benefits that flow from free-enterprise.  The generally socialist ethos of church pronouncements is often restricted to the idea that business is motivated by profit alone.  Broader notions of wealth which include physical, psychological, moral and spiritual benefits almost always stem from the world of work.

Australian business has overwhelmingly allowed Australians to participate in the benefits and goods that define our humanity and has made an irreplaceable contribution to our society.  The Business Council is making a powerful call to lower company tax and personal income tax.  Currently, Australia is at severe competitive disadvantage against our Asian neighbours, whose average corporate tax rate is around 22% compared to our 30% rate.

However, let's not expect our churches to get on board with this soon.  The real challenge facing young employed Australians is the need for more political engagement and greater social justice.  I know, lets hold a sustainable, multi-cultural rally in aid of Animal Welfare!

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