Page 2, 22nd August 1986

22nd August 1986

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Page 2, 22nd August 1986 — Good Shepherd heading for a vast roundup
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Good Shepherd heading for a vast roundup

Letter from
AUSTRALIA
by Alan McElwain
A WEEKLY, widely-read magazine, The Bulletin, published in Sydney, recently ran a cover story bannered "The Pope's Australian Mission Impossible — A divided Churchprepares a wary welcome".
Rubbing in the gloom, The Bulletin assured us that when Pope John Paul comes to Australia in November, "he will find the Catholic Church suffering a leadership crisis and his flock in a spiritual malaise". The Pope will be in Australia for only six-and-a-half days. The Bulletin, quoting "conservatives", says this will not give him sufficient time to "hustle the local bishops into shape".
How do you "hustle" bishops? And into what "shape"? You might find an answer in the second Vatican Council's Decree (1965) on the Pastoral Office of Bishops (promising material here for cartoonist Ryan).
The Bulletin article puts
forward the "chronic shortage of priests" as the most obvious sign of institutional stagnation within the Church in Australia. "In metropolitan Sydney, for instance, the number of active priests under 75 has fallen from 314 in 1976 to 243 today. By (the year) 2000, it is estimated the number will have fallen by more than 50 per cent to 113 which will be sufficient to staff only 58 per cent of existing parishes".
There was a good deal more about our "uncertain and confused" Church. I have just spotted that the Catholic Leader in Brisbane (Queensland), asked a newly ordained bishop, Bishop John Bathersby, of Cairns (also Queensland), for a counterassessment of the Church now waiting to greet Pope John Paul.
The Church, says Bishop Bathersby, is very much alive and well. "We live", he says, "in a worldwide Church that has been enormously affected by Vatican It. ft struggles to understand the theology of the Council and to find structures adequate to that vision and understanding. As a result there is confusion. But it is a confusion that is marked by an inquisitive vitality and healthy disagreement that is surely a mark of its maturity and indicates the lifegiving activity of the Spirit."
Bishop Bathersby sees materialism and secularism as the greatest threats to the Church in Austrailia — the same threats that bedevil Australian society as a whole. To this situation, Pope John Paul will bring his oft-stated powerful message of Christian humanism.
And, the bishop says, Australia's ageing priesthood and religious life must be seen in the context of a renewed sense of ministry among lay people.
The Bulletin article quotes Bob Santamaria, of Melbourne, one of Australia's outstanding, outspoken and most controversial Catholics. He says the task the Pope has set himself and to which his extensive travels are directed is the restoration of a clear sense of what it means to be a Catholic. Santamaria believes that the Pope's task in Australia, no less than elsewhere in the western world, is to reassert traditional doctrine against its critics among priests, nuns and even bishops.
The Bulletin offset its dismal story with a big, beautiful colour
illustration captioned: "High Mass at St Mary's (Catholic) Cathedral". It was, in fact, a picture of leaders of the Sydney Anglican Diocese, splendidly robed, processing through St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral.
A Sydney Morning Herald columnist saw this muddle in an' article dealing with the "chronic shortage of priests" as indicating that "the shortage must be a lot worse than we thought". Myself, I thought High Mass in St Andrew's Cathedral was carrying ecumenism a bit far.
Octagenarian priest
We were speaking, some paragraphs back, about priests under 75. In the over 75, I can produce a real winner. He is Mgr James Delaney. At 82, he is still parish priest at Rose Bay, an inner Sydney city suburb. In
fact, he is the oldest parish priest in active service in Australia.
He was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, and ordained on May 30, 1926. He celebrated the 60th anniversary of his ordination the other day. Parishioners and a host of other friends gave him a dinner. There was no local hall big enough to accommodate them all, so, with a nice ecumenical touch, the dinner was held in Sydney's spacious Masonic Centre.
A Jewish friend for more than 40 years, Sir Asher Joel, paid Mrg Delaney tribute. He told of visiting the priest when he was in hospital not long ago for a serious throat operation. Mgr Delaney couldn't speak, so he and Sir Asher wrote notes to one another on a pad.
As he left, Sir Asher handed Mgr Delaney this little parting note: "Mons: Get well. Remember that an Irish Catholic priest without a voice is about as impressive as a Rabbi without a beard".




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