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Abridged version of an Address by Bishop David Cremin
Catalyst for Renewal Dinner
17
October 2008
MC and introduction :
Jan Brady
Thank
you, Jan. It is good to be
here with you all and to be sitting at a table with Michael Whelan who
is the father and founder of all of this.
If it weren’t for Michael we would not be here this evening.
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I had the very great privilege of meeting on a number of occasions
Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan who was in prison for thirteen years
nine of which were in solitary confinement.
He lived for some time in Five Dock with his mum and sisters
and I used to visit him there. I
was thinking about him as I wondered in preparing for tonight what
might have been if I had been ordained a bishop five years ago rather
than much earlier because he had a dream with which I resonate.
It is:
I
have a dream of a Church that is a holy door that admits everyone;
that is full of compassion and understanding for all the suffering of
humanity.
I have a dream of the Church with a Eucharist that allows itself
to be consumed by everyone so that the world will have a life in
abundance.
I have a dream of a Church that carries in its heart the fire of
the Holy Spirit and where the Spirit is there is liberty, sincere
dialogue with the world, discernment of the signs of the times.
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Last Sunday when I was attempting
to give a homily at Hurstville where I live and say something about
marriage enrichment, I said, “Why should I be talking to you?
I am a bachelor.” I
said, “In the present arrangement, Roman Catholic priests are not
allowed to marry.” I
said, “If I stay as a bishop and I am elected pope I will change all
that!” There was a
thunder of applause. They
were all in favour. That’s particularly interesting because
Hurstville is the most multicultural parish I know.
I recently said Mass there and there were 56 people at
it—Japanese, Polish, Italian, French,
Bangladesh
, Indonesian, Irish—and I asked out of curiosity
how many were born in
Australia
and one hand went up. Actually
it should have been two. The
other one was a deaf nun. I
asked if they really meant that they wanted married priests and they
said yes. I believe
that married priests will have to be accepted by the church
authorities and I think it was a great shame that at the Roman Synod
on the Priesthood the issue was not even on the agenda.
I was at a bishops’ conference where there were a number from
the
Pacific
Islands
who attended the Synod and they were mortally
offended because they told me that members of the church there regard
a non-married priest as “not a real man”. |
I want to speak for a moment about the ordination of women to
the priesthood. I often
recall that I was influenced very much as a young priest at Woollahra
by Bishop James Carroll who came there as parish priest.
We would often talk about the possible ordination of women and
he would say that he could not see any theological reason against it
and he would always say that it was a matter of social history because
in Jesus’s day the social climate was such that women were not even
counted when the census was taken.
He would say that in years to come when it actually happened
people would look back and say, “What on earth was the problem!” Who
in their wildest dreams would have thought that one day Golda Meir
would be appointed prime minister of her country—and actually she
was appointed on St Patrick’s Day 1961. I
agree with James Carroll that it will happen one day but, ladies and
gentlemen, don’t hold your breath! At
the same time for the Church to say, “Don’t talk about it” seems
to me like saying to girls in year 9, “Don’t talk about boys.”
I have talked to generations of girls in year 9 and I say to
them what do you talk about? Boys,
they say. What else?
I ask. And they say, More
boys. I am going to
talk about the Vatican Council and what happened with that beautiful
man Pope Paul VI whom I met. I
also I met John Paul II many times.
He was a fine man too but he promised me that before he died he
would beatify Matt Talbert and he never. I
would have much preferred that he would beatify and sanctify Matt
Talbert, the good old drunk, rather than all of those founders of
religious congregations. Many
times I was going to write to him and say, “You promised to beatify
Matt Talbert, please Holy Father, but you never.”
I loved and totally identified with
John XXIII. He was
human, humble, good-humoured. He had the courage, as an old man, to go
against the prophets of gloom all around him to call a general council
of the Church. He once
said, “Any one can become a pope.
The proof of this is that I have become one myself.”
He said it often happened that he would wake up at night and
think of something brilliant to say and think he must tell that to the
Pope. “Then I’d say to myself, My God, I am the Pope!”
This is what he said when he announced Vatican II: “The
Council now beginning rises in the Church like the daybreak, a
forerunner of most splendid light.”
He opened doors and windows to let in that splendid light.
In his opening speech to the Second Vatican Council John XXIII
made it clear that the Church was moving from defensive mode to a more
open, confident and joyful proclamation of the message of Jesus.
He explicitly warned against the prophets of gloom who would
seek to undermine the reforms of the ecumenical council.
It was in one expression of the council’s final and landmark
documents, the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, that
signs of the times really came to the fore.
The bishops of Vatican II saw the Church deeply immersed in the
heart of humanity. Like
Jesus himself, the Church must stand in solidarity with the people of
this world. The opening
words of the Constitution proclaim this boldly:
The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the
people of this age, especially those who are in any way poor and
afflicted, these too must be the joys and the hopes, the griefs and
the anxieties of the followers of Christ.
The
Second Vatican Council enabled the Catholic Church to engage with
contemporary culture, challenged it to seek closer communion with
other Christians and to pray and work with them.
It sought to be in dialogue with other believers and with
non-believers. It enabled
the liturgy to be celebrated in the language of the people and called
on all its members to take an active part in the life of the Church.
No longer was it the role of lay people simply to pray, pay and
obey. Human and religious
freedom was promoted, as was the primacy of conscience.
The notions of collegiality and dialogue were very much part of
the aspirations of the Council. John
XXIII’s successor Paul VI, wrote a wonderful encyclical, Ecclesiam
suam, which spelt out the qualities of respectful listening
dialogue. How urgent is
that message in today’s world!
It saddens us that in recent times the
prophets of gloom whom Pope John XXIII warned against are exerting
more and more influence within the life of the Church.
There are people who would seek to wind back the reforms of
Vatican II. However, I
always point out that we should not allow their negativity to obscure
the many expressions of the vitality of the Church at the grass roots.
I am no great
Vatican
watcher but one would have to be deaf, dumb and
blind not to notice that the Church climate has changed dramatically
in recent times. I love my
church, warts and all. It
is my family, it is my home, it is the house where I dwell and hope to
live in for the rest of my life. But,
my God, as Brian Doyle wrote in Tony Doherty’s latest book, it is a
house that needs cleaning. We
cringe at the huge amount of child abuse and apathy in recent times in
that house—a house in which, as Brian says, savagery and cowardice
thrived, where evil had a house with a view.
But it is my house; the house where I receive the bread of life
from Jesus who died on the cross for me and because it is my house and
my family I am allowed to
say that I am not happy with he sounds of doors being slammed shut and
the creepy sounds of drawbridges being hauled up.
I admire immensely the giftedness and courage of my great friend
and colleague Bishop Geoff Robinson for challenging the use and non
use of authority and the centreing of so much authority up top in the
church.
I do believe that I am an optimist.
I see many signs of hope in our church as I move around
although I believe there are not enough signs of delegating
responsibility to lay people. It
has happened in a number of areas--Catholic education and health for
example
--
but not to the same degree in the local parishes.
Some priests have appointed parish managers and people who are
experienced and trained in matters of finance, building, fund raising
as well as parish coordinators and secretaries but many have not. I
realise only to well that one of the difficulties is getting the
finance to employ people and also that because the parish priest has
grown up in an environment in which the priest was in charge of every
aspect of parish life delegating and sharing the power may not be easy
for them.
I want to raise another matter of
concern. I think there is
a danger of getting caught up in the categories of division in our
church—right wing v. left wing, avant-garde v. conservative, Holy
Communion on tongue or hand, clergy in black or white or other colours,
hands joined very piously or otherwise; religious communities—very
conservative versus more radical groups.
I am sure you know what I am talking about.
And so often there is a creeping infallibility in a lot of
people because they know all the answers and as somebody said they are
chained by certitude. I
knew a priest one time and I said, “How’s your brother?” and he
said, “Ooo, he’s suffering from an incurable disease.”
I said, “What is it?” and he said, “He’s always right
and there is nothing we can do about it.” More
important than all of this, of course, is the need to have a deep
relationship with the Lord in our prayer life. The famous quote
from Karl Rahner sums it up: "The Christian of the future
will be a mystic or he will not exist at all."
I will conclude with this prayer:
May
God bless you with DISCOMFORT at easy answers, half truths and
superficial relationships so that you can live DEEP within your
hearts.
May God bless you with ANGER at injustice, oppression and
exploitation of
People,
so that they may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with TEARS to shed for those who suffer from
pain, rejection, starvation and war so that you may reach out your
hands to them and turn
their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough FOOLISHNESS to believe that
you can make a difference in this world; so that you can do what
Others claim CANNOT BE DONE.
Questions/Discussion
Q1
Why is it necessary to import priests? If
I were able to explain why we are not producing vocations in
Australia
I would have to be a very wise man.
I honestly don’t know. I
wish I did. Some of the
observers say that when countries that normally produce a lot of
priests become affluent the number of vocations falls away.
Poland
is an example.
There is an old saying that when money comes through the door
God flies out the window.
Q2
What makes David Cremin tick? I
love being a priest. I
often say to people, I love the Eucharist and I am absolutely amazed
at the wonder of the Eucharist; that God stepped out of the high
heaven and walked on our planet and then the night before he died he
gave of himself in the Eucharist.
I am amazed at the enormity of God’s love for us. I
remember looking up one night recently and I had never seen the sky
looking so beautiful. It
looked as if the moon and the stars had been taken to the car wash.
I came home and sat reading more astronomy and cosmology and
discovered that in the Milky Way there were 300 million stars and that
there were 200 million galaxies and I thought, My God is an amazing
god.
Q3 What
do you think is the extent of the crisis in the ministry and the
shortage of priests and what
is the implication of this for the parishes of the future?
That is a very big question.
A couple of months back I was over here at Joey’s for a
Confirmation and there was a woman there for the confirmation of her
son who told me she lived 200km or so back of Burke where there was no
priest. She said
“in the meantime, thanks be to God, we go to the Anglican church
where there is a wonderful minister and are nourished by the word of
God.” So it is
absolutely crucial that we get vocations to the priesthood.
In some places there haven’t been any for donkey’s years,
and the problem is enormous. So
what is the answer? The
answer would be to allow priests who have left the ministry to come
back. They would be
welcomed in parishes, I am sure they would.
Married priests have simply got to come—I feel in my bones
that it will come. Does
anyone here have an answer?
Q4 I
certainly have an answer because I am a woman
and I know there are a lot
of women who want to be priests. I
know it is not going to happen in our time but I would like to ask you
a question. You mentioned
Bishop Robinson’s book and I want to know what part of his book did
the bishops take exception to. I
have read it twice and I can’t find anything in it that is against
anything that I have been taught about the Catholic church. Can
you tell us what the bishops of
Australia
are so
unhappy about. I
have not been at bishops’ conferences for at least three years and
that is a long time. It is
well after my time that that happened.
I was saying to Michael at dinner that I was asked to sit with
a representative from the bishops’ conference and Geoff Robinson and
I sat there as an honest broker and, honest to goodness, I cannot for
the life of me find what it is that they are referring to because I
know that many people like myself are saying, “For God’s sake what
are you on about?” He is
raising issues that had to be raised and he is raising them at the
right time. I am not of
the bishops’ conference so I claim no responsibility whatsoever for
what the bishops did.
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