In recent weeks the media have given some coverage to a petition circulating among Australian Catholics. The petition was composed by a lay group called Catholics for Renewal, comprised of Catholics who have been active in parish life. They hope many Catholics will sign the petition, and that the Bishops will communicate its content to Pope Benedict when they meet him later in the year.
The petition offers a sombre picture of the state of the Catholic Church. It speaks of a Church that has lost contact with young people. Many older Catholics have also become increasingly disaffected. The Church has been unable to provide ministry to communities, especially in rural areas.
The document attributes the malaise in part to defects in governance, displayed in the handling of sexual abuse by Church representatives, in the process by which Bishop Morris was dismissed, by the attitude to women within the Church, and by the inability of Bishops to adopt pastoral strategies suitable to their own dioceses. It then offers a vision of a faithful Church, and proposes that pastoral synods be held, bringing together the resources of laity and clergy.
The petition raises two questions: about the truth of its argument, and about the place that such petitions generated by the laity have in the governance of the Catholic Church.
Although some media reports have presented the petition as radical, its assertions and requests are moderate. Its reading of the general loss of contact by the Church with young people is supported by the decline in Mass going. The alienation of young Catholic women has been remarked on for many years, and observers have also noted the more recent disillusionment of many older Catholics.
The dire lack of resources, especially in rural dioceses, and the inadequacy of presently available pastoral strategies to address them are increasingly evident. So too are the corrosive effects that the early failure to deal adequately with sexual abuse has had on trust in governance.
The lack of due process evident in the new Mass translation and in the treatment of Morris has also been widely criticised. The desire for a Church in which women are treated as equals, which is free from homophobia, and in which