Joanne Mccarthy: a Classic Case of Karma

Newcastle Herald
March 7, 2014

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2133587/joanne-mccarthy-a-classic-case-of-karma/?cs=308

AND so to one of my favourite Catholic stories, on the eve of another confronting royal commission public hearing into the church that will feature evidence from soon-to-leave-these-shores Cardinal George Pell.

This is the story about the Pope, the former Marist Brothers school student, and the 300 metres of red carpet.

The former Marist student is a friend of mine. We run together. Whenever we’re especially tired, or it’s raining, or it seems like our destination is too far away to bear thinking about, I ask him to tell me the story about the carpet, and suddenly we’re smiling again.

It started back in July 2008, a week before Pope Benedict XVI was due in Sydney for World Youth Day festivities, with a phone call to the former Marist student from a mate. The mate was plumbing-in thousands of port-a-loos at Randwick racecourse for the church event.

The plumber had just had a conversation with a worried World Youth Day organiser. Someone, or everyone, had forgotten to organise the strip of red carpet on which the Pope was to walk from the papal vehicle, aka the Pope-mobile, to the altar where he would say Mass.

The plumbing mate rang the former Marist student, a carpet business owner. Could he put his hands on some red carpet in a hurry?

Before you could say, ‘‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’’, the former Marist student had unhitched the tape measure from his back pocket, pulled out his calculator, and whipped out an order sheet.

‘‘How much do they want?’’ he asked.

‘‘Lots,’’ said the plumber mate.

‘‘When do they want it?’’ asked the former Marist student.

‘‘Now,’’ said the plumber mate.

And so it came to pass that the former Marist student, whose memories of his school days included being bullied and fearful on a regular basis, went to Randwick and advised the World Youth Day organisers they needed 300 metres of carpet, 1.2 metres wide, so the Pope would not have to put a foot on actual Australian racecourse soil.

And because it was a rush job with no contract, and money didn’t appear to be a consideration as long as the red carpet strip was provided, my former Marist student friend added a hefty mark-up to make it worthwhile.

How hefty? He’s never admitted, and I’ve never pushed.

‘‘Let’s just call it karma,’’ he said. ‘‘What goes around, comes around.’’

He had a lousy time at school. He had a smile on his face the whole time he rolled out that very expensive carpet so the Pope’s slippers stayed clean and dry while he celebrated with youths, and apologised for the church’s child sex offenders.

A couple of days after the Pope went back to Rome, my former Marist student friend went back to Randwick to roll the red carpet up and take it away. The church didn’t have any other use for the red carpet so removing it was part of the original deal.

My former Marist student friend didn’t have any use for 300 metres of Pope-trodden red carpet either. And because it was Pope-trodden, and he was a former Catholic school boy, he didn’t feel right about simply disposing of it.

‘‘So I thought some of the parishes or schools might like some of it,’’ he said.

As it turns out, there weren’t any takers, so he did the only thing a sensible former Catholic school student living in a capitalist democracy would do, and flogged the Pope-trodden pieces of red carpet on eBay, complete with certificates of authenticity he drew up himself.

‘‘Well who else was going to confirm it was red carpet the Pope had actually walked on but me, the person who supplied the stuff to the church?’’ he said.

‘‘Good point,’’ I replied.

So he advertised on Ebay and sold 20 pieces of Pope-trodden red carpet for $20 a piece.

Then he received a sternly-worded letter from a legal firm representing the Catholic Church, warning him about church action if he didn’t cease and desist.

He sent one back, saying there were no conditions about what he was to do with the red carpet after World Youth Day had come and gone, other than to remove it from Randwick racecourse.

He still has a piece left at home, which prompts a little smile every time he walks over it.

There won’t be much smiling next week when solicitor John Ellis gives evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about how he was sexually abused by a priest when he was a school student, and the church’s response when he reported that abuse.

Mr Ellis is well known to many Hunter victims of Catholic Church child sex offenders. He negotiated just settlements for most of the 64 known victims of notorious paedophile priest John Denham, despite the devastating impact of his own experiences with the church.

He is a champion and a gentleman.