Can Bishop Robinson's Petition Help Revitalize the Catholic Church?

By Brian Coyne
The Catholica
June 5, 2013

http://www.catholica.com.au/editorial/e_01/051_edit_040613.php

[with video]

[the petition]

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book, and the accompanying petition were originally planned in the expectation that Pope Benedict would still be leading the Catholic Church in the world. A lot has changed in the last few months. Within the institution a mood of cautious optimism has even re-emerged that Catholicism might be turned around in the world and become something that the broad community might hold in some respect again.

The bottom line for the Catholic Church today is not actually the Clerical Abuse Scandal and its cover-up. That is merely a symptom of a much deeper malaise and illness reflected in the fact that in a country like Australia around 88% of the adult baptized have ceased listening and ceased participating. The statistics for Australia, it seems, reflect the mean of the statistical disenchantment across the industrialised world. The figures are even more disturbing across the Europe – the original heartland of Catholicism, and buoyed only slightly by the statistics across the United States.

While some might place hope that the future of the Catholic Church lies in the Developing World where the use of simple devotions and simple theologies still work as they once worked so effectively in what today is the Developed World, the likely reality as that as the Developing World acquires the general education levels and affluence of the Developed World the Catholics of the Third World will end up following the attitudes of us "clever and affluent things" in the First World. Do the priests and hierarchs of the Church who believe that the future of Catholicism lies in the Third World ever stop for even a microsecond and reflect on what this Supreme Mystery we condense into words like Almighty God actually think of this thinking? Do they ever reflect on how history might judge their judgements, or what accountablity might accompany their lives — whether it is some literal judgment before Almighty God, or that is merely symbolic of some other form of accountability?

One of the themes that emerged at a Media Conference held at the Aquinas Academy in Sydney on 4th June 2013 to launch the Petition is the frustration people have for Catholics to sign anything or do anything when it comes to criticism of the Church. There is this frustration, or weariness as one lady suggested at the launch, within the Church. The vast majority feel it is futile writing to bishops and instead just leave participating. Today nearly 90% of the adult baptised across the face of the educated world have dropped out of participating in the sacramental and pastoral life of the Church. They don't complain to bishops as they have this sense they are not being listened to. Here's a snippet from the conversation after the media conference from three members of the audience that express something of this frustration so many people have...

A way in which you can help make this petition more effective...

While it is amazing that the petition has now reached over eighteen and a half thousands signatures — more than the Catholics for Ministry petition in 2010 — many will remain sceptical (a) of getting ordinary Catholics off their backsides to sign anything, and (b) it actually having any impact on the thick heads who today control the institutional agenda even if someone got a hundred million signatures. As the above clip shows this emerged as a sub-theme in the discussion yesterday — both from Bishop Robinson expressing some frustration at getting people to make their voices heard and also in the later discussion from the floor with Bishop Power. While there's not much any of us can do about (b) above except rely on the Holy Spirit or some miracle and, continue to hope that Pope Francis might be a little more open than his predecessors, we think there might be a way to dramtically increase the number of signatures in (a).

This petition, if presented in the right way, may have huge appeal to young people — and particularly young people in senior school years or at Catholic universities. The trouble is finding a channel to reach them. If they became enthusiastic about this initiative it may well lead them to providing some enthusiasm for their parents and teachers to show a bit of enthusiasm as well. This thought partly comes from the comment on the floor today that the Church in Australia employs 150,000 people. While privately a huge majority of them might be enthusiastic about this petition they're unlikely to be signing it publicly for fear of any impact it might have on their employment. Take it as a sign that the institutional Catholic press wasn't in attendance at the media conference yesterday for precisely the same reason and you're unlikely to see any comment in the diocesan-owned press in coming weeks that there is even a petition in circulation. Everybody employed by the Church today has been silenced today because of the fear of the temple police and their allies in taliban Catholicism — and what was done to Bishop Bill Morris has only made the situation magnitudes worse.

Now young people are unlikely to be buying or reading Bishop Robinson's book. It might be argued though that a social media campaign with the right sort of graphics and a very simple message might move like a firestorm amongst young people — and eventually, via them, carry impact in their parent and teacher cohorts of the population. If any of you have objections to this don't forget that the likes of Cardinal Pell and Bishop Fisher invest a massive amount of energy in trying to "cultivate" a certain sector of the youthful population whom they believe will eventually "re-evangelise the world". What we are proposing therefore is no different to what they have been engaged in for a long time. These latest "Catholic Voices" and "Catholic Talk" initiatives in Melbourne and Sydney are only the latest example of this attempt to try and manipulate the youthful population for their agendas.

Our considered view, largely picked up by listening to our own children and their networks, is that the (educated) world may have entered a major sea-change in outlook towards the entire spiritual dimension of life. We sense young people, or at least the "opinion leading" segments of that population, are still interested in the importance of the spiritual dimension. The statistical evidence demonstrates they have lost almost total confidence that the institutional Church has anything worthy to say about the subject. The sexual abuse crisis, and what is now emerging from these parliamentary inquiries is the "final nail in the coffin". We're not even confident that they might be persuaded that reforming the Church is a worthwhile endeavour such is their negative attitude to it, particularly in the whole area of its thinking on human sexuality, and in particular the horror they feel about sexual abuse. Unlike most of us "oldies" they have never experienced that brief period of excitement many of us felt during those years of our youth immediately after the Second Vatican Council. With older people who still retain a memory of that "emotional lift" caused by VII it is easier to rekindle enthusiasm. As one young person said a few years ago in an interview we published on Catholica and we asked him when he had begun to be disenchanted with Catholicism, his pointed reply was "when was I ever enchanted with it?" We believe his response reflected the attitude of many.

What we do detect with young people today, even the majority still with a tenuous link still to the institution through Catholic education, is this deep disenchantment, particularly over the sexual abuse revelations. To them, they only confirm the impressions they have already discerned that this institution simply doesn't know what it's talking about when it tries to give the world lessons about sexual morality of any description. What we are suggesting here then is that the direct and subtext of any message that is directed at them, unlike what might be directed at an older audience who do have some nostalgia for the post-VII feelings they experienced, is that these social media messages ought not to offer any prospect of trying to re-kindle some emotion from the past. They simply do not have those feelings like our generation does. The focus of the message has to rely purely on affecting change and an end to the abuse crisis.