The oft quoted words of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador are even more relevant today than they were in 1980, the year of Oscar’s martyrdom:

Encouraging statistics of an increase in vocations on a worldwide scale do not alter the gloomy prospects of the Australian scene.

A variety of approaches among our dioceses to the looming Eucharistic famine bespeaks a national church that is facing ‘a future not our own.’

The rediscovery of many ministries that flow from our baptismal calling is indeed a welcome lamp as we stumble through the twilight of an era that is ending.  Is it towards a roseate dawn as proclaimed by optimistic seers?

Nothing to hide

There are obstacles that prevent our facing the future as a united people.Russell Shaw, formerly a communications adviser to the American bishops, has written a book Nothing to Hide. Its theme is advertised as “secrecy, communication and communion in the Catholic Church”.

Shaw believes that the church’s penchant for secrecy in its dealings is “the very worst scandal of our times”. He quotes examples from parishes, religious orders, dioceses and the Vatican. This addiction to unnecessary secrecy (many matters, of course, must be treated confidentially) does allow the media at times to delight in revealing the church’s skeletons in the cupboard.

While Australia has had no national scandal comparable to the Boston archdiocesan failure to deal with paedophiles, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church discloses our Achilles’ heel. Does this concentration on secrecy distract us from seizing opportunities to publicise positively our strengths?

World Youth Day

The 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney brought to the fore a new breed of Catholics who are far removed from the generations of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. They are hungry to explore the neglected treasures of the church’s spirituality. Anyone who mingled with the crowds in July last year will know this.

As a national church, have we sought to harvest this crop? These apostolic young Catholics may not constitute a majority of our youth, but they do exist. The popularity of the lectures of the American theologian Christopher West on The Theology of the Body at WYD demonstrates that there is a new generation of Catholics open to the challenge of the Gospel teaching on marriage and celibacy. It is from their ranks that the vocations to the priesthood and religious life will come. At a time when the image of the priesthood is relayed so poorly in the popular press, is it too fanciful to imagine a positive concerted campaign led by the Bishops over several months?

The drive could include brochures in every school and parish, advertisements on TV and on-line material. The confident united voice of the Bishops Conference in leading a beleaguered church to cast wide its net only needs the political will to institute such a strategy. The talents and material to implement a campaign of this kind are there if the call to evangelise is seen to be our first priority.

Job description

One Australian diocese has a committee preparing a ‘job description’  for those who may be called to minister as priests.  All dioceses could benefit from this endeavour. The oceans of goodwill that exist among our people are of little value if there is no compass. We face a future not of our own making, but we must face it squarely guided by the Spirit, who may be at times the Discomforter.

St Mary’s South Brisbane

The media is having a field day in highlighting the unfortunate dispute between the diocesan authorities and Fr Peter Kennedy, of the Parish of St Mary’s, South Brisbane.

As is always the case with church affairs that smack of the sensational, there is no lack of armchair critics.  These onlookers are the equivalent of the meagrely informed football fans who have readymade solutions for every disagreement among the participants in that sport. The parishioners’ commitment to social justice is admirable.

The hope of all Catholics is that the community’s enthusiasm can be combined with an appreciation of what is entailed by a true sense of belonging to the universal church.

Guest Editors:

Robert Egar

Bob Wilkinson