It is Passiontide and autumn. I am in Australia, “the great southern land of the Holy Spirit”, as Benedict XVI described it when he came here for World Youth Day (WYD) in 2008. That was the last time I was here, and I vowed then that I would never make the journey again, averse as I am to the pressurised purgatory of long-haul flights and their after-effects. But now, as then, it is a mission that has brought me here. “Join the priesthood and see the world” is fast becoming my vocations recruitment slogan.
WYD in Sydney was brilliantly organised and marked by an intense spirit of prayer. There were 24-hour Adoration chapels at every possible venue, from Randwick Racecourse to the Sydney Opera House, queues for Confession everywhere and a massive vocations expo with priests on hand to give spiritual direction to visitors.
It had all the joy and sense of festival that WYD always has, but of those I have attended it felt the most substantial. It dared to challenge the tired 1970s agenda: that all that young people respond to in their lives of faith is pop culture and Protestant-style testimony.
The Way of the Cross, staged throughout the city with the utmost reverence and verisimilitude, moved the young people I had brought to tears. All the liturgy dared to bring out treasures old and new. WYD presented an Australian Church which, though there were scandals emerging, seemed to be forward-looking, which seemed to have grasped that its youth needed authentic catechesis, a liturgy which connected them with tradition and a Christological spirituality based on the worthy celebration of the sacraments. It presented a confident Church. It felt, as Benedict XVI said at the time, like a Pentecost.
Seven years later I arrived to find a Church in the throes of its own passiontide. The royal commission on child abuse recently completed several months of hearing damning evidence on the scale of the problem in the Australian Church. As well as the usual engagement at the level of school and parish, the Church has been hugely involved in professional social services of every kind. In some states the Church is the second biggest employer after the state itself.
The commission has uncovered widespread abuse, but also what it claims is widespread cover-up. It estimates that some seven per cent of Australian clergy have been abusers. There is no finessing the findings. An archbishop expressed the mood among the clergy here. He said to me: “We are hanging our heads in shame.”
It was into such a milieu that I travelled with a certain fear and trembling, offering the gift to the Church which is the Grief to Grace programme (grieftograceuk.org) This is now being piloted in Australia with the support of the Archbishop of Tasmania, the inspiring Julian Porteus. He not only welcomed this programme of integrated spiritual and psychological healing to his diocese, but he also visited us towards its conclusion to meet survivors of all kinds of abuse who had participated.
With great sensitivity he manifested in a personal, fatherly way his concern for everyone there. I admired his willingness to show his genuine solidarity with victims of clergy abuse and to stand in the breach of a crisis not of his own making. I was reminded of what a vaticanista said to me a few years ago: “Do you know what Pope Benedict does when he meets with the victims of clergy abuse? He weeps with them.”
I return to England with a heavy heart because the damage is great, but also with a sense that we found fertile soil for the work of this ministry which shines hope in a very dark place. I think the Church in Australia has a long-haul journey to recovery. Equally I suspect that I am in for a lot of long-haul travel as the programme spreads.
I pray that more bishops will direct their engagement and their practical and financial support towards the work of Grief to Grace or similar programmes. And all of us in the body of Christ need to make the journey which allows us to understand that the first and most important response to this ecclesial crisis is to weep with those who have been abused. For how else will his “Little Ones” know he does if the Church does not manifest it?
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