AUSTRALIA'S BISHOPS' CRISIS OF LOYALTY
No man can serve two masters, for either he will
hate the one,
and love the other;or else he will hold to one, and despise
the other…
Matthew 6: 24
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On
Wednesday,
September 22nd, at about 9.15 am Eastern Standard
Time, an
earthquake, the strongest felt since Australia was settled by
the British in
the late 18th century, shook the State of Victoria in
Australia’s
south east. Eight days
earlier, on the
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross six priests from four
different
Australian dioceses, exasperated at the lack of episcopal
leadership in the
face of mounting challenges to the well-being of the Catholic
faithful
precipitated by the response of the country’s state governments
to the Corona
virus, had circulated a Statement setting out the applicable
Catholic
principles inviting support for their initiative from fellow
priests. By the time of
the events referred to below,
some 75 priests had signified their approval.
The Statement and its introductory letter
are
reproduced in the Appendix. We
have
refrained from nominating its signatories.
The reader is invited to peruse the documents now.
The six priests had set midday, Wednesday,
September 22nd as the time for publication.
On the morning of that day, the morning of
the earthquake, one of the prime movers among the priests was
called by his
bishop to a meeting, which call was sufficient to bring the
priest’s initiative
to a halt. At the
meeting, which took
place at 2.00 pm, the bishop directed him to abandon the
exercise; there was to
be no publication. The reason reportedly given was that the
Statement
"would be divisive". There can be little doubt the bishop
concerned
was acting for the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. Earlier, two others of the
six priests had
been instructed by their bishop to withdraw their names.
If you need to do so, Dear Reader, you
might care to
refresh your recollection of the contents of the Statement. See if you can discover
anything in the
document which would tend to divide the Church or which departs
from Catholic
teaching. There is
nothing. It follows that
the division to which the bishop
adverted—a division which Australia’s bishops feared
collectively—must relate
to something else.
Could it be that they feared that the
Statement
expressed succinctly, if not comprehensively, the issues
attention to which any
bishop true to his oath of allegiance to Christ and His Church
would feel responsible
in the current crisis, and that it would expose—
·
the extent to which they had abandoned
Catholic
principle in embracing without due enquiry and investigation
edicts imposed by
secular authorities as to the need for vaccination?
·
their failure to question publicly the
morality of
vaccines which relied for their vigour on cells taken from
aborted infants?
·
the bad example they had thus given to the
faithful to
whom they stood as a father stands to his family?
·
the fact that as bishops of God’s Church
they have a
duty not just to Catholics but to all men to proclaim the need
of adhering to
natural principle?
·
their failure to advise and to make known
to secular
authorities the primacy of the right to follow his conscience of
every citizen confronted
with the edicts imposed and the duty of the State to respect
that right?
·
the facility with which they had abandoned
the
Church’s ontological superiority over the temporal order?
·
their failure to insist that attendance by
the
Catholic faithful at Mass and the Sacraments was not to be
reduced to, nor
would they allow it to be reduced to, parity with attendance at
any merely social
gathering?
·
their failure to insist that every man,
whether
believing in God or not, is subject to God who gives him life
and existence and
accordingly owes Him the return of his regard, if not his
obeisance?
·
that the dominance of atheism in men’s
thinking is the
cause of the serial evils that afflict society notably the
appalling evils of
contraception, abortion and euthanasia?
·
that it was inevitable that atheism’s
abandonment of
moral principle would lead to moral and physical harm to the
people?
·
that men have understood throughout
history that any
plague is a punishment for their immoral behaviour, and the
present virus is
just such a plague?
Could it be, in short, that they feared
that the
Statement would expose the divide between their responsibilities
as bishops and
the glaring failures in their conduct with its associated
scandals?
Michael Baker
October 3rd, 2021—St Thérèse of the Infant Jesus, Patroness of Australia
Nineteenth
Sunday after Pentecost
27th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
________________________________________
APPENDIX
To Our Brother Priests
14
September 2021
Dear
Brother in the Priesthood,
As you
are well aware, over the past 18
months we have seen our most fundamental liberties drastically
curtailed, and
at the moment we are under growing pressure to receive a vaccine
that many of
us are opposed to.
Whether
or not you have or intend to
receive the vaccine, there is so much at stake in the way our
people have been
treated over the past months that you will want to consider our
proposal. As priests we
are being approached by many of
our people who are in distress: what can they do to resume
normal lives without
violating their conscience or losing their jobs?
Our people need solid, clear, Catholic
criteria to make their prudential decisions.
The
attached Statement is intended to
support them in this and to encourage them to demand that their
rights be
respected. The Statement
is based on the
Natural Law and the Gospel and as such appeals to all.
Even
though this is not an initiative of
the ACCC, we are among its members and would like to invite you
and other
faithful priests in Australia to join and sign the document. We think it important to
garner at least 100
signatures, but we hope for many more!
Our
intention is that it be published some
time in the next week or two once we have collected enough
signatures.
If you
are happy to add your signature to
the Statement, please send an email to … … … … … … … … … … … and
please
share with other priests as well.
Let us
pray for each other.
Yours
fraternally in Mary Immaculate,
__________________________
________________________
__________________________
________________________
__________________________
________________________
CATHOLIC PRIESTS OF AUSTRALIA
Statement on Certain Aspects of the
Covid-19 Crisis
As Catholic priests
ministering in a
range of pastoral settings across Australia, we acknowledge our
responsibility
to work with the government and health providers to protect our
people from
infection, especially the weak and the vulnerable.
We are also conscious, however, that in any
crisis a legitimate and proportionate response cannot be at the
cost of human
rights, which are not conferred by the State but rather bestowed
by the
Creator, and therefore constitute the inalienable foundation of
human dignity. We
believe it our duty to respond to the
serious concerns and questions addressed to us by many Catholic
people and
other men and women of good will.
Just
as health workers have important insights into health
emergencies through their
professional experience, so we wish to share the fruits of our
experience on
the front line of dealing with what has also developed into a
“spiritual
emergency”. By speaking
the truth in charity
(See Eph 4: 15), we
desire only to serve the supreme good of individuals and of
society. Basing
ourselves on the Natural Law common to
all people and our Christian faith as professed by the Catholic
Church, we
affirm the following:
·
Any person in possession of his
intellectual faculties
has an inalienable right, within the limits of the moral law, to
make
individual medical decisions. No
human
authority may legitimately usurp that right.
For many, the decision to be vaccinated or not is
complex, requiring
study, consultation and counsel, and deliberation free of
coercion. As the US
National Catholic Bioethics Centre
states: “The best ethical decision-making occurs when
individuals have
sufficient information for discernment and are able to reflect
without undue external
pressures place on them. Mandates,
by
their nature, exert pressure that can be severe if employment or
the ability to
further one’s education is threatened” (Statement of 2 July
2021). In the context of
a responsible approach to
Covid-19, this involves individuals being able to inform
themselves about
available vaccines, including possible side-effects, weighing up
the risks and
benefits to themselves as well as considerations of the common
good, and
possible alternative measures. Covid-19
vaccines,
consequently, may not be mandated by governments or employers. Discrimination against
those who choose not
to be vaccinated – such as refusing them entry into public areas
or most
workplaces – is unacceptable.
·
Segregation based on medical choices is
contrary to
the Natural Law. Were it
to be imposed,
it would lead to a medical apartheid in which some would receive
favour and
others would be marginalised.
·
A vaccine passport would result in
ostracising and
alienating from aspects of public life those who decline to
vaccine; it would
also cause deep resentments in those who accept vaccination only
under
duress. In both cases,
the seeds of
serious division would be sown in our society.
History tends to discredit those who promote or tolerate
such segregation,
however high-minded their declared motives might be.
·
A person who has not been justly convicted
of a crime
has a right to freedom of movement and association within his
own country. The State
exists to protect this freedom, not
to negate it by forcing people to remain in their homes or to
restrict their
movements. This right is
inalienable. It accords
with the social
nature of human beings and allows people to provide for
themselves and their
families.
·
Human beings have the right to go about
their daily
activities without the fear of being tracked and under
surveillance. The
present state of fear and sometimes
violent repression which we are witnessing in some States is an
affront to
human dignity. This
denial of basic
rights threatens the social fabric.
·
The physical needs and health of the human
person
cannot be provided for at the cost of their spiritual needs. To attempt to do so will
often put at risk a
person’s physical and emotional health as well.
In particular, the State has an obligation not to impede
the spiritual
needs of the sick and the dying from being met; likewise funeral
rites and the
legal right to marry (for those who are morally free to contract
marriage) must
not be impeded by the State.
·
As Christians and Catholic Priests, we
believe that
rights grounded in the Natural Law and the dignity of the human
person are also
affirmed and protected by the gospel and the Catholic Church. Each person has a
conscience that is the
voice of God in his heart, a voice which he is bound to obey. Conscience is not to be
understood as one’s
personal preference or desire, or as the origin of the moral
law. Conscience acts not
as a legislator, but
rather as a judge that seeks to apply the demands of God’s law
to a given
situation. Every person
is obliged to
act with an informed conscience, but no human authority
remaining within the
context of just public order, may licitly substitute itself for
or violate the
certain judgement of conscience.
This is
a fundamental axiom of society and civilisation.
If it does not continue to be recognised and
upheld, we can only expect to see a growing authoritarianism.
·
As a Church which has received its mission
from Our
Lord Jesus Christ, we require the freedom to go about doing good
(see Acts 16:
20) and preaching everywhere the Word of God (see Mark 16: 20). Civil authorities have the
obligation to
respect our mission and our right to preach and to hold
religious services in
public and in private at our discretion.
As ambassadors of Christ, we expect this right to be
respected by
all. In a secular
society (that
nevertheless has its roots in Christian belief – as the Preamble
to the
Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia bears witness,
when it speaks of
our people “humbly seeking the blessing of Almighty God”) we ask
nothing more –
but also nothing less – than the freedoms that our non-believing
fellow
citizens rightfully claim.
·
Not
in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that
proceedeth from the mouth
of God (Deut 8: 3; Matt 4: 4).
As Catholic priests and stewards of God’s
Holy Mysteries, we believe that the seven sacraments – Baptism,
Confirmation,
the Holy Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage and
Holy Orders –
are visible and efficacious signs of invisible grace, instituted
by Christ and
gifted to the Church, as the principal and ordinary means of
conveying to God’s
people His saving grace, which is a created share in the Divine
Life
itself. Just as the
body, even in the
midst of emergencies, must still receive all that is necessary
to its
continuance, so the spirit, especially during times of trial and
distress, must
also be permitted to receive all necessary provisions.
·
The right to worship according to one’s
conscience
includes the right to access places of worship.
It is therefore contrary to the rights of citizens when
the State forces
the closing of churches and other places of worship – especially
when prudent
steps can readily be taken to ensure the safety of all.
·
Segregation or exclusion of members from
normal
participation at worship is contrary to the Gospel, by which we
are called to
be a source of unity by bringing all souls to God through Jesus
Christ. As Catholic
Priests, Guardians and Ministers
of the Holy Eucharist, we acknowledge that segregation in
worship is eminently
contrary to the very meaning of this great mystery and sacrament
which unites
us in Christ.
In
conclusion, to all our fellow Catholics and to all men and women
of good will
in Australia, we say: Be
not afraid
(Matt 10: 28), and have
confidence (John
!6: 33), for God is with
us (Matt 1:
23).
We
Catholic Priests of
Australia
… … …
… … … … …
14 September 2021
Exaltation of the Holy Cross
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