AUSTRALIA
Catholica
Editorial Commentary by Brian Coyne
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 ABC had provided a twelve and a half minutes video summarising the main points made by Bishops Robinson and Power in launching the petition. Click the image above or HERE to watch the video.
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?
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