Politics in the pulpit

09 July 2012

‘I don’t think politics should be brought into the pulpit,’ said the gentleman who waited for me at the church door after all the other mass-goers at Sunday’s 8:30 am Mass had departed. ‘You upset my wife: she wanted to walk out during your homily.’

It was the start of International Refugee Week, and I had taken the opportunity to preach about asylum seekers in Australia. The gospel according to Mark was propitious: the Kingdom of God is like the tiniest of seeds sown in the ground, growing slowly and invisibly, but eventually producing the greatest of trees, a place of shelter and welcome.

Every member of that Sunday congregation was a seed; every word they uttered in support of asylum seekers was a seed; every gesture of welcome they showed to asylum seekers was a seed.

If I had read out at Mass the pastoral letter about marriage issued by the Archdiocese of Sydney on Refugee Sunday, would anyone in the congregation have protested about politics being brought into the pulpit?

The letter was an unambiguous statement of the belief of the bishops regarding the nature of marriage and the current discourse about rights: a broadside fired against attempts to legislate for gay marriage. Some might have disagreed with the letter’s exegetical strategies, or its presentation of natural law. No reasonable person, however, would have questioned the right, nay, the duty, of the bishops to enter into the same-sex marriage debate or to engage in the public square with issues raised by proposed parliamentary legislation.

We hear the voice of the Church on issues of sexuality and reproduction all the time, but we strain to hear the Church speak out on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers. Recently Malcolm Fraser berated Tony Abbott for the Coalition’s recently announced asylum seeker policies, which he said were based on ‘falsehoods, misinformation, and a blatant playing of politics with the lives of vulnerable people.’

Mr Fraser went on to describe Abbott’s policies as ‘the closest thing to evil you can get.’ It was perhaps my desire to hear an authoritative voice in the Church speak out boldly on behalf of asylum seekers that I detected the tone and cadences of a prophet in Mr Fraser’s article.

What particularly provokes Mr Fraser’s ire is the lack of integrity in the presentation of information, with the result that this deliberate misinformation fuels unfounded fear. Richard Towle, the regional representative of the

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Politics in the pulpit

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