Pope acknowledges the ’shame’

I for one welcome yesterday’s “sorry” from the Pope, not because it affects me personally, but because it is a good thing to have happened.

IT WAS much longed for and, when it came, Pope Benedict XVI’s apology to victims of clerical abuse took everyone by surprise.

The lines of apology were not included in the text given to journalists before the Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral but were added by the pontiff during his homily, to the joy of victims watching around the world.

Before 3400 guests, including cardinals, bishops, Australian seminarians, victims and pilgrims from around the world, he said: “Here, I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country.

“Indeed I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that as their pastor, I too share in their suffering.

“These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. They have caused great pain and have damaged the Church’s witness.”

Of course more needs to be done, but this also needed to be done, and now it has been.

I suspect tonight’s Compass will be worth watching, to gain some insight into the views of intelligent Catholics.

On the occasion of Pope Benedict XVI’s World Youth Day visit, Geraldine Doogue in a two-part Compass special examines thorny issues facing the Roman Catholic Church in Australia: the crisis in the priesthood, and the role of women in the church.

Tonight deals with the matter of celibacy, among other things.

Why I did not join the No To Pope demo

My friend norrie did; the amazing and challenging norrie is clearly visible here:

I will probably see norrie in an hour’s time, so I will no doubt hear more about it. And I have participated in such protests in the past, one very memorable example being described very much as it happened here.

When the Reverend Fred Nile and his fundamentalists march into Oxford Street set on a bit of cleansing I am out there with the crowd. I wear my Mardi Gras T-shirt with additions:

FOR JAY

Sept. 1961-Sept. 1989

‘Gone where fierce indignation
can lacerate his heart no more.’

AND FOR LUKE
WHO LOVED HIM

Fred has his thousand, harmless-looking folk pushing strollers, mingled love and fear on their faces as they march up Oxford Street.

But we have five, ten thousand voices chanting NO MORE GUILT! NO MORE GUILT!

And my voice is the voice of three, a trinity of love grief and anger, and in me sing J and Luke and I:

We shall all be free
We shall all be free
We shall all be free some day
And it’s deep in my heart
I do believe
That we shall all be free someday.

And I see his face, a touch side-on, the slightly crooked nose and shy smile, eyes so often fearful, the bursts of anger, the incredible gentleness and my tears choke my singing and a gay man hugs me and says So you’re human after all…

At that time, as you may see, I needed to do that.

Yesterday I had my doubts about the efficacy or wisdom of such forms of protest, and I would not have really wanted to throw condoms at visiting teenagers, even if some of the (presumably) older visitors had need of the advice, as I mentioned in relation to gay saunas, and as this story also notes:  Pilgrims boom Sydney sex trade: “Adult Business Association spokesman Chris Seage said the boom in business had taken brothel owners by surprise.” Geoffrey Chaucer would not have been surprised…

Liberal - Conservapedia: this is not a joke

Yes, convinced that Wikipedia, aside from its real sins, is a hotbed of “liberal bias”, people have come together to create a serious Conservative (US sense) alternative. Let’s see how they define “liberal” — and anything more parochial and US-centred is hard to imagine. No, this is not Landover Baptist Church. I only wish it were.

Liberal - Conservapedia

[Note that links here are Conservapedia's and do not open in new windows or tabs. -- N]

A liberal supports many of the following political positions and practices:

• A government with large spending on social programs, and high taxes to support such programs
• Taxpayer-funded and/or legalized abortion
• Income redistribution, usually through progressive taxation
• Government-rationed and taxpayer-funded medical care, such as Universal Health Care
• Taxpayer-funded public education
• The denial of inherent gender differences
• Wanting men and women to have the same access to jobs in the military
• Legalized same-sex marriage
• Implimentation of affirmative action
• Political correctness
• Censorship of teacher-lead prayer in classrooms and school sponsored events
• Support of labor unions
• Teaching “comprehensive” sex-ed programs instead of abstinence-only programs.^[1]
• A “living Constitution” that is reinterpreted in a modern context, instead of how it was originally intended
• Support for gun control
• Government programs to rehabilitate criminals
• Abolition of death penalty
• Environmentalism^[2]
• Disarmament treaties
• Globalism
• Opposition to an interventionalist American foreign policy ^[3]
• Support of obscenity and pornography as a First Amendment right^[4]
• Opposition to full private property rights^[5]
• Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine
• In 2005, it was reported by CBS News that liberals were the most likely supporters of the theory of evolution. Support for the theory of evolution which is a key component of atheistic ideologies in the Western World.
• Opposition to domestic wire-tapping as authorized in the Patriot Act
• Calling anyone they agree with a “professor” regardless of whether he earned that distinction based on a real peer review of his work (see, e.g., Richard Dawkins and Barack Obama).

Feel free to express your disbelief! I seriously thought this to be satire, but am convinced after looking at other articles that is is not.

After that definition comes more detail which you can check for yourselves.

Pilgrim watching in Surry Hills

So I just went out to buy one of the lovely fresh breads from The Baker’s Bun in Baptist Street, and on the way back paused in the park up by the Northcott and watched the passing parade.

And what a sight it is, I have to say.

Devonshire Street — maybe 500 metres from where I live — is one of the main pilgrimage routes to Randwick. It’s just a shame I don’t have a camera…

Best music came from a large group of Argentinians. There was another big group from India whose music was interesting too. More flags than I have on my new flag widget.

::: Alexander McCall Smith :::

Yes, I am again able to report sheer delight in the latest I have read by Alexander McCall Smith: The Careful Use of Compliments (2007). As I said before:

The thrust is gently conservative, with a folk wisdom that has much to commend it… Po-faced indeed would be any reader who is not drawn in and delighted, even if at the expense of an odd cringe or two — the latter probably being therapeutic.

I really am reminded of Jane Austen.

Among many lovely moments is a concert:

With the Pie Jesu, which was sung by Nicola Wood, whom Isabel knew slightly, her mind came back to the music. Dona eis requiem; grant them rest. It was not a complex melody, with its cautiously developed melody and its utter resolution; it was a lullaby really, and that, she thought, was what a requiem really was. If one were to be taken up to heaven, then it would be Faure who might accompany one.

This blogger tells you more about the series, and this one puts a different spin on the novel.

Over the fold there is a little more Faure, and a PDF extract from The Careful Use of Compliments. Enjoy.

Australian poem 2008 series #18: YouTube - Poetry Clip: Robert Gray

Robert Gray is one of my favourite contemporary Australian poets.

Catholic Church sex abuse investigations ‘a joke’ and other WYD reflections

Catholic Church sex abuse investigations ‘a joke’ | NEWS.com.au is a most interesting story, coming as it does not from outside but from inside the Catholic Church, from Father Chris Riley, a kind of living Mary McKillop in my book and as troublesome perhaps as she was in life.

THE Catholic Church should scrap its program to investigate sex abuse within the church because victims have been denied justice, a maverick Sydney priest says.

Father Chris Riley [right], who heads Youth Off The Streets, a Sydney welfare service that assists homeless, drug addicted and abused young people, said the Towards Healing program hurt the church’s credibility and meant victims often did not have their day in court.
He told the Nine Network tonight that any family confronted with sexual abuse should go straight to the police and have the matter dealt with in court.
“Towards Healing, to me, I have to say, is a joke,” he said.
“The perpetrator is the only winner there because often they are not charged, because it (the case) is settled.
“This is obscene, settling those sort of cases behind closed doors,” Father Riley said.
“It should be out in the court, and then if they (victims) want to deal with the church, we then do that after the person is … found guilty, and my position is, jailed for a long time.
“Then, if they want to go to the church, let’s heal them then, but get justice first.”

Visit Youth Off The Streets via the logo on the left.

 

Last night’s Q&A on ABC1 featured “former Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, Minister for Finance, Lindsay Tanner, author, journalist and critic of the Howard government, David Marr, columnist, Angela Shanahan and rising star of Young Labor, Rose Jackson.” Inevitably it became something of a forum on faith, politics, and reason. I won’t bother to go into it much here, but do commend you visit the program and even watch it if you can. I must say I have never actually read Angela Shanahan, and don’t think I will after her performance last night. I also found Alexander Downer’s attitude to the church quite puzzling, though it is not an uncommon position. He is clearly uncomfortable with theological honesty.

David Marr’s passionate response to Angela Shanahan’s parroting of traditional dogma on GLBT people certainly scored with me, even if I do worry that his somewhat patrician delivery would alienate quite a few punters; still, he can’t help being in his own way just as “posh” as Downer. Lindsay Tanner was good; Rose Jackson embarrassingly got her Pavlovs and pavlovas mixed up and will, I hope, outgrow her school debating style.

I should add that so far as my own church is concerned David Marr would have expressed most nearly what we believe.

Brightens up the city a bit, doesn’t it?

That’s what the Lebanese pharmacist said just now down in Elizabeth Street as another crocodile of Neocatechumenal pilgrims, from Florida this time, went singing their way down to the city.

And indeed it does.

Mind you, down in Chinatown Gloria Jean’s Coffee Shop was quite empty. “What’s this?” I asked. “A pilgrim-free zone?” Perhaps, I wondered (but not aloud), they had heard of GJ’s connection with Hillsong?

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Chaucer certainly understood pilgrims.

Here bygynneth

the Book

of the tales

of Caunterbury.

 

 

Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye-

So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

Bifil that in that seson, on a day,

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,

Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage

To Caunterbury, with ful devout corage,

At nyght were come into that hostelrye

Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle

In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,

That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.

Ninglun scores a first

Yes, that’s right — an honest-to-God pioneer!

I am just back from Redfern Centrelink, you see, where I had gone with my proofs of identity and other stuff to confirm my recent online application for an old age pension. Yes, that birthday happened last week.

“You are the first online application we have ever had!” the nice man told me. He didn’t know what to do with it, and had to ring Port Macquarie, where due to the wonders of decentralisation online applications actually live. Anyway, it was all sorted and I, as I tend to do, went on to interview him… What he said I won’t say; nothing untoward, I assure you.

Court backs WYD activists’ right to annoy - News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Court backs WYD activists’ right to annoy is good news for any Australian concerned about the creeping erosion of civil liberties in this country.

Two student activists have won a court challenge to special World Youth Day laws that allowed police to detain people or fine them $5,500 for annoying or inconveniencing Catholic pilgrims.

No To Pope Coalition members Amber Pike and Rachel Evans took the New South Wales Government to the Federal Court, arguing the laws were unconstitutional because they would make their peaceful protest illegal.

The Government passed the rules two weeks ago without discussion or debate.

The Full Bench of the Federal Court ruled the definition of ‘annoyance’ was too broad and the scope of the laws was uncertain.

It found that in giving the World Youth Day Coordination Authority the power to set the regulations, the Government would not have intended to infringe on freedom of speech.

The court said the law was intended to encourage policing and public safety but could be misused to infringe on people’s rights.

Not of course freedom to be downright offensive, or, as some have chosen to do, scrawl anti-Pope graffiti over the Hyde Park War Memorial. But you can wear that shirt! Oh, and condom distributors may go about their business, even if it is just a reminder to visiting pilgrims of the reality of the world out there and the inadequacy of the Catholic Church in this area. On the other hand, it isn’t really all that smart proffering said condoms to under-age pilgrims, is it? Zeal can be unfortunate at times, whatever side of the fence one might be on.

And whatever the Catholic Church officially teaches, on the ground here in Sydney Catholic institutions such as St Vincents Hospital and the Hospice are second to none in their practical help in the area of AIDS, and much the same might be said for initiatives like the Kings Cross injection room for drug users, even if on the surface it is the Wayside Chapel and the Uniting Church that have most been associated with that important venture.  The fact is that St Vincents at some levels has supported the idea, though church politics — i.e. Pell and company — made direct association difficult.

Similarly, it is ironic given what parts of the Catholic Church do for Sydney’s homeless and down-and-out that WYD has not exactly played the Good Samaritan role: Homeless ‘removed’ for WYD.

The Politics of FEAR - Barack and Michelle Portrayed As Militants « E Pluribus Unum

The Politics of FEAR takes as its starting point the satirical cover of the latest New Yorker. The post goes on to cite the Huffington Post on the matter:

The illustration, by Barry Blitt,is called “The Politics of Fear” and, according to the NYer press release, “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.” Uh-huh. What’s that they say about repeating a rumor?

Presumably the New Yorker readership is sophisticated enough to get the joke, but still: this is going to upset a lot of people, probably for the same reason it’s going to delight a lot of other people, namely those on the right: Because it’s got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama’s campaign — all in one handy illustration. Anyone who’s tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who’s tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism — well, here’s your image.

The companion article by Ryan Lizza, who has written extensively about the campaign, is very long (18 pages!) and probably won’t thrill a lot of Democratic party faithful, either, since it advances the image of Obama as a skilled and calculating politician who advanced by becoming a master of the game:

“[P]erhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them….he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist. He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game.”

Channel 4 - News - Dispatches - Undercover in Tibet

This is the documentary shown last night on Four Corners on ABC: Undercover in Tibet.

As Tibetan protesters take to the streets in the biggest and most bloody challenge to Chinese rule in nearly 20 years, Dispatches reports on the hidden reality of life under Chinese occupation after spending three months undercover, deep inside the region. Dozens are feared dead after the recent clashes and crackdown by Chinese troops, but with reporting so rigidly controlled from the region little is known of living conditions inside Tibet.

To make this film, Tibetan exile Tash Despa returns to the homeland he risked his life to escape 11 years ago, to carry out secret filming with award-winning, Bafta-nominated director Jezza Neumann (Dispatches Special: China’s Stolen Children). Risking imprisonment and deportation, he uncovers evidence of the “cultural genocide” described by the Dalai Lama.

He finds the nomadic way of life being forcefully wiped out as native Tibetans are stripped of their land and livestock and are being resettled in concrete camps. Tibet reveals the regime of terror which dominates daily life and makes freedom of expression impossible. Tash meets victims of arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and “disappearances” and uncovers evidence of enforced sterilisations on ethnic Tibetan women.

He sees for himself the impact of the enormous military and police presence in the region, and the hunger and hardship being endured by many Tibetans, and hears warnings of the uprising taking place across the provinces now.

There is no doubt about it. What the Chinese government is engaged in is colonisation, and a systematic and ruthless colonisation at that. What else in all honesty could it be called?

Watch this for yourself and make your own judgement.

ENOUGH ROPE with Andrew Denton - episode 176: Bob Hawke

Last night’s Bob Hawke interview was certainly worth a look, and now you can read, hear, or see it too from that link. Hawke was PM of Australia for nine years.

ANDREW DENTON: How intoxicating is the excitement of being in office, of having the Prime Ministership?

BOB HAWKE: I think it’s probably like when you start drinking. I mean you get more easily intoxicated in the beginning and it’s more exciting but certainly on that first day when you wake up and say, “I’m Prime Minister” it’s an exhilarating feeling but the reality is Andrew that the weight of work, the sheer intensity and volume of the things that you have to deal with doesn’t leave much room for exhilaration.

ANDREW DENTON: How do you deal with the actual and emotional intensity of a position like that?

BOB HAWKE: Well by making sure it’s not the work of one man. Look at the duration with Carter, President Carter. Insisted on supervising who was going to be using the White House tennis court. Come on. I mean it’s a question of prioritisation and delegation and if you haven’t got that capacity for prioritisation and delegation then you’ll be on the road to the bin.

ANDREW DENTON: What in your view is the essence of power?

BOB HAWKE: Well the essence of power is the knowledge that what you do is going to have an effect not just an immediate but perhaps a lifelong effect on the happiness and wellbeing of millions of people and so I think the essence of power is to be conscious of what it can mean for others. One of the great things about being Prime Minister was that hardly a day would go by at the end of which you didn’t have the knowledge that you’d been able to do something. It may only have been from one person or may have been from the country as a whole or even might have been an international thing but you’d been able to do something which you thought was going to make someone or a lot of people better off or happier.

Could that be a message to Kevin Rudd?

Just back from tuition…

H*d*s actually reappeared!

Meanwhile, the place is wall-to-wall pilgrims…

Much like that, from which…