On March 15, 2022, the Roman journalist, Sandro Magister, published a memorandum that, he alleged, was circulating among the Cardinals of the Catholic Church at that time. This memorandum was intended to inform the Cardinals about the current state of the Church and the papacy and was calculated to influence them when they would gather in conclave to elect the next Pope after the death of Pope Francis. The memorandum was very critical of Pope Francis himself and particularly his interventions in the operations of the Vatican Curia. It deplored the financial transactions in which the Curia had been involved – and where the Holy See had incurred substantial losses. Even more significantly, it was dismissive of the Synod on Synodality and the model of ecclesiastical governance the Synod was proposing to introduce where a much greater participation of the laity in the lead-up to, and review of, episcopal decision-making was envisaged.
The memorandum was circulated anonymously under the name, ‘Demos’, but the author was reliably identified soon after as the Australian Cardinal, George Pell. Cardinal Pell on other occasions had spoken critically on the way in which synodality may dilute the ‘apostolic tradition’, the authority which a bishop, as the successor of the Apostles, may exercise in his own diocese.
When Cardinal Pell died in Rome in January, 2023, it was anticipated that an Australian archbishop would soon be designated to succeed him in the ranks of the Cardinals. He and his immediate predecessors as Cardinal had been the Archbishop of Sydney, and it was confidently predicted that the present incumbent in that diocese, Archbishop Anthony Fisher, would soon be raised to that dignity. Indeed, some of his supporters and colleagues in the diocesan offices and in the Australian newspaper had been more than a little forthright in their remonstrances that such a papal designation had not been more immediately forthcoming. Imagine their consternation, then, when, instead of Archbishop Fisher or even some other Australian archbishop, Bishop Mykola Bychok, the Ukrainian Eparch of Saints Peter and Paul in Melbourne, was designated Cardinal-elect by the Pope on October 10, 2024. He was duly installed in Rome on December 7, the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.
It was both a surprising and not-so-surprising appointment. Surprising, because a Ukrainian Eparch has been appointed a Cardinal in an Australian Church and the Archbishop of the traditional see has been overlooked. Not-so-surprising, because Pope Francis has on not a few occasions overlooked the incumbents of traditional sees and gone into the highways and byways to select his Cardinals. Not-so-surprising, too, because Archbishop Fisher is well known to be a former protégé of Cardinal Pell and a subscriber to many of the same conservative views, particularly on Church governance and the value and magisterial authority of the recently concluded Synod. Perhaps Cardinal Pell effectively shot the cardinalitial aspirations of Archbishop Fisher in the foot when the memorandum, which he circulated to his colleagues, came (as it inevitably would) to the attention of Pope Francis.
Of course, the successor of Pope Francis might revert to a more traditional schedule of designating Cardinals, and the Archbishop of Sydney might once again be seen as the legitimate aspirant to the Australian red hat. But it would be unusual, if not without precedent, for there to be contemporaneously two Australian Cardinals. And Cardinal Bychok is only 44 years of age. Retirement age is 80.
These two contrasting ecclesiastical ideologies – Pope Francis ‘wide-ranging and inclusive synodality on the one hand, and Cardinal Pell’s hierarchical clericalism on the other – are now on full display in a dispute that is currently racking the Australian Church. It is epitomized in an apparently ‘furious’ six-page letter that Archbishop Fisher directed to the Pro-Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, Ms. Virginia Bourke. The initial spark that led ultimately to this incendiary missive was an address that was delivered at a medical and nursing graduation at the Melbourne campus of the ACU by a former trade union official and committed Catholic, Mr. Joe de Bruyn, on Monday, October 21st.
Mr. de Bruyn has been a long-time forthright and courageous promoter of Catholic social principles in trade union and Labor political circles. Accordingly, he was nominated by Archbishop Fisher as a worthy recipient of an Honorary Doctorate at the ACU. The ACU endorsed this nomination and, as is customary on these occasions, invited Mr. de Bruyn to deliver the graduation address to the students, their parents, friends and guests and the staff of the University.
After briefly congratulating the graduates, Mr. de Bruyn spent virtually the remainder of his address in recounting his own personal history in promoting and defending Catholic values in the trade union and political arenas. He spoke specifically of abortion, of access to IVF, and of same-sex marriage. Even though in each instance he confessed that his efforts to promote Catholic values were ultimately unsuccessful, nonetheless, in concluding, he urged the graduates not to be deterred from being as outspoken as he had been in defending and promoting Catholic values in their subsequent professional and personal lives.
'I have come to appreciate that one cannot profitably explore with students (and, indeed, with their elders) the topics of Mr. de Bruyn’s address except in the context where there is a right of reply and where there is an opportunity to put an alternative point of view. To pontificate from the pulpit or lectern is a recipe for disaster.'
Apparently, his advocacy of these Catholic values in a graduation address antagonized many of his audience, both students, parents, guests and staff, and they showed their disapproval by leaving the auditorium even as he was speaking. The University was embarrassed by the walkout and attempted subsequently to alleviate the distress by returning graduation fees to the students and offering counselling both to them and to the other attendees. The University had been aware of the content of Mr. de Bruyn’s address prior to its delivery and had suggested that he edit and moderate some of his more challenging remarks, but all to no avail. Neither the Chancellor nor the Vice-Chancellor of ACU attended the graduation.
In the aftermath there has been a strong defence of Mr. de Bruyn’s right to speak on these matters in a graduation address. There has been strong criticism of the University’s reactions, mainly from the commentators of the Australian newspaper and the officers of the Sydney Catholic archdiocese, many of whom are still in thrall to the legacy of Cardinal Pell, who had also at times been a strong critic of the ACU and its alleged failure to be more upfront in promoting Catholic values. Both the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, and the new Cardinal-designate, Mykola Bychok, weighed in subsequently in defending Mr. de Bruyn’s right to address these matters even in the context of a graduation address.
It has been an unfortunate incident, driving a (further) wedge between the lay-led University and official Catholic authorities. Mr.de Bruyn and his supporters have continued to defend his right to speak on these matters in a graduation address, and the University has not resiled from its belief that, at least in the context of a graduation address at a public university, it was inappropriate to address these topics which continue to be controverted not only generally but even in some Catholic circles. It regretted that, if one disagreed with Mr. de Bruyn, there was no alternative to express one’s disagreement except by leaving the auditorium. But this also meant foregoing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate one’s graduation or that of one’s offspring or friend.
I have lectured and tutored in moral philosophy and bioethics at three different universities. I have been a member of over twenty clinical and human research ethics committees in universities, hospitals and research centres, and for most of the past fifty years I have lived as a priest cheek by jowl with university students in four different residential university colleges, and I must admit that as a result of these experiences I was not surprised by the audience’s reactions to Mr. de Bruyn’s address. I have come to appreciate that one cannot profitably explore with students (and, indeed, with their elders) the topics of Mr. de Bruyn’s address except in the context where there is a right of reply and where there is an opportunity to put an alternative point of view. To pontificate from the pulpit or lectern is a recipe for disaster.
And, unfortunately, there are five further dimensions to the specific topics that Mr. de Bruyn addressed which would have made that address even less attractive and credible and more likely to antagonize many of his audience, especially, I suspect, the students.
The first of these dimensions is that Mr. de Bruyn is male. It is increasingly difficult for a man to speak credibly on abortion. Abortion is ineluctably women’s business. I suspect that in this day and age it is only a woman who has undergone an abortion or a woman who has resisted the temptation to abort that can speak credibly on abortion.
The second dimension is that Mr. de Bruyn spoke as a committed member of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, for many students, even Catholics – and more than a few of their elders – the Catholic Church is viewed as an insensitive and authoritarian institution. Edicts from on high, especially on matters sexual, are given scant respect, particularly if they are issued from the pulpit and the lectern without the opportunity for debate and discussion.
The third dimension that diluted Mr. de Bruyn’s credibility is that the matters that he addressed relate, primarily at least, to women. For much too long the official Church has treated women as second-class citizens. Anything the official Church says about women is likely to be taken with a large grain of salt, and that not only by students, of course, but especially by them.
Fourthly, this compromise of is credibility is further compounded by the fact that the matters of which he spoke relate specifically to women’s bodies. Despite the fact that the Church is often perceived as either irrelevant or authoritarian, despite, too, its long-term inability to come to terms with ‘the feminine mystique’ and treat women as equal, a male celibate clergy have never hesitated to pontificate on aspects of women’s bodies and women’s sexuality – even apart from abortion, there is contraception, reproductive technology, same-sex marriage, gender diversity, etc. It is not surprising if a younger generation in particular find these pontifications unconvincing and those who advocate them unpersuasive and lacking in credibility.
And finally, of course, there is what every Catholic spokesperson has to deal with, especially if he or she is unwise enough to enter the field of sexual ethics. There continues to loom large the spectre of pedophilia, specifically the sexual abuse of children by clergy and the subsequent efforts of the Catholic hierarchy to protect the Church’s reputation by covering-up and minimizing the incidence of these crimes. Not only Mr. de Bruyn’s, but any Catholic spokesperson’s, credibility is inevitably diminished by this spectre.
Now, these five limitations of the Church’s credibility in these sexually related matters does not mean that there are not contexts where these highly contentious matters should not be addressed and what is relevant and cogent in the Church’s teaching should not be elaborated and defended. Mr. de Bruyn himself, as he reported in his address, has given eloquent witness to these values in trade union and party-political contexts. But I suspect these were contexts where alternative points of view were accessible, and the matters were subject to debate. I cannot but have serious doubts, however, that a graduation address to students, their parents, their friends and the University staff at a public university is such an appropriate context. Perhaps there are still confessional Catholic tertiary institutions where a committed Catholic speaker will not labour under the five credibility compromises that I have outlined – perhaps Campion College in Sydney, where Mr. de Bruyn is a board member, is one of these. But I doubt whether the Australian Catholic University is such an institution. It accepts students of all faiths and none. It is committed to engaging in non-confessional terms with the wider tertiary sector and the staff and students that people it. Granted that, a confessional graduation address must at best appear anomalous, at worst, ill-advised.
I am not surprised there was a walkout.
In conclusion, I note that the ACU Senate, despite the ongoing brouhaha, has recently renewed the Vice-Chancellor’s appointment for another five years.
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Bill Uren, SJ, AO, is a Scholar-in-residence at Newman College at the University of Melbourne. A former Provincial Superior of the Australian and New Zealand Jesuits, he has lectured in moral philosophy and bioethics in universities in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth and has served on the Australian Health Ethics Committee and many clinical and human research ethics committees in universities, hospitals and research centres.