Here is the verse that was quoted so often at the Plenary Council, Gal 3:28
“And there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
 
It was quoted with an emphasis on the equality of all the baptised, with a view to implying that if all are equal, then all roles in the Church should be open to all people, including priesthood.
 
The equality of all persons before God is not in dispute, but the deduction that this means equality of roles is.
 
Firstly we need to remember that St Paul is writing this letter to the Galatians, someone who has studied the Old Testament with particular diligence and who is very familiar with the worship conducted in the Temple at Jerusalem.
 
Therefore when he talks about distinctions between Jew and Greek, male and female, he expects his audience to bring to mind that in the Temple at Jerusalem there was a court of the Gentiles which excluded those of gentile birth from entering the inner court. Also in that Temple is a court of the women which excluded them from the inner court too.
 
Slave and free likely refers to the freedom a non-slave possesses to travel to the Temple at any time. A slave however can only go to the Temple when the person who owns him/her permits it.
 
In Christ Jesus then, everyone has equal access to God the Father, everyone may approach Him in the inner court.
 
These distinctions with regard to Temple worship are man-made. Therefore they can be changed, and in Christ Jesus they are.
 
It is noteworthy that St Paul did not add ‘priest and non-priest’ to that list.
 
A priest has access to the Holy of Holies, and only a priest, by the eternal decree of God about the sons of Aaron, recorded in the Old Testament. That’s unchangeable.
 
During the history of Israel, God underlined the seriousness of that eternal degree several times.
 
The sons of Aaron were under strict obedience to fulfill what God had decreed. In Leviticus 10:1 we find that when two of Aaron’s sons took a shortcut and filled their censers with ordinary fire instead of the fire from the altar, they died immediately.
 
In 2 Sam 6:6-7 we see a Levite, who as a Levite had permission to handle and carry the holy things in prescribed manner, reach out with his hand to touch the ark of the covenant when it seemed unsteady. He died immediately because he had not touched the ark in the prescribed manner.
 
But the really big story is in Numbers 16. Here we have a group of Levites and a few non-Levites complaining that since the whole community is consecrated to God why do Moses and Aaron have extra special roles and not others? This is exactly the same argument those working towards a pathway to the priestly ordination of women were using at the Plenary Council.
 
The complainers in Numbers 16 asked, ‘The whole community and all its members are consecrated, and the Lord God lives among them. Why set yourselves higher than the community of the Lord God?’
 
Moses answered them, ‘the Lord God will reveal who is His, who is the consecrated man that He will allow to come near Him. The one He allows to come near is the one He has chosen.’
 
In effect, this is God’s choice, not ours, and this depends on God’s permission, not ours.
 
As the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us in Heb 5:4, ‘No one takes this honour on himself, but each one is called by God, as Aaron was.’.
 
As emphasis, fire came down from heaven to consume the complainers who wanted to assume the priesthood, and the earth opened up and swallowed their tents and families alive.
 
No one in Israel tried that argument again!
 
You may retort, but the 12 apostles of Jesus weren’t priests or levites. Shocking isn’t it?! Theirs is a priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek not according to the order of Aaron. Melchizedek was chosen directly by God, around the time of Abraham, and in this different non-temple order of priesthood Melchizedek offered to God bread and wine. Even more shocking, the order of Melchizedek isn’t a hereditary priesthood.
 
This is God’s direct choice, His calling, which needs to be both responded to and discerned.
 
Remember, this about God’s own decrees, not about the kind of human laws that can change from time to time.
 
When the Church confirms that she has no authority to ordain women, that’s what the Church means, ie. that this particular authority is reserved to God alone, with Whom there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change. James 1:17
 
It’s one of those things that you can accept, or reject, but which you can’t change.
 
So although each of us has equal dignity before God, and everyone has access to His Heart, we do have different roles given by Him.
 
As a cautionary tale, lest anyone think those roles are interchangeable, have a look at 1 Maccabees 5. The desecrated Temple has finally been cleaned and purified, and the temple sacrifices have resumed. Much effort, much prayer and many battles made that possible. Now the threats to Israel have multiplied. Because there are threats in both Galilee and Gilead the warriors in Israel form into two groups to go and meet those challenges. But the Temple they have all fought so hard for, it needs protecting too. So a priest and a community leader were placed in charge of the remnant in Jerusalem, of the people, levites and of the remaining warriors left behind. These were placed under obedience to guard the temple and to not go and fight the enemy until the other two groups of warriors returned. However the desire for military glory tempted them, they left their post at the temple, went out against the enemy, and got completely slaughtered.
 
The role of warrior was important. The role of guarding the temple was important. Both were needed. When those with the role of guard wanted to take on the role of warrior, disaster followed.
 
Heed this, please! It is God’s choice alone who is to undertake the role of priest. If that is not the role God has given to you, then do not set your heart upon it. Only disaster will result if you insist on a role that God has not given to you.
 
If we were not so scripturally illiterate and not so lacking in reverence towards the Lord God, we would see how groundless the push for the priestly ordination of women really is.
 
May God help us in His mercy, lest we perish at the frown of His face. Amen.

Many parishes are stuck in what seems to be an endless, and fruitless, cycle of sacramental preparation for children; First Penance, First Holy Communion and Confirmation.

It doesn't seem to make any difference whether in a diocese First Holy Communion comes before Confirmation, or vice versa. Even delaying Confirmation until the teenage years makes no difference.

Lots of parish resources are poured into the sacramental preparation of children, and then we don't see those children and their families again.

Because they don't know how else to do it parishes feel stuck, and all parishes seem to be doing much the same kind of preparation.

However a few parishes have begun experimenting with different models for the sacramental preparation of children, and the initial fruit is good even though the different models require significantly more man-power and teamwork.

If you don't mind reading through cathartic layers of grief and pain explaining why the current models don't work as a lead in to a description of these experimental models, then these 9 pages are for you. P.S. There's a bit of ranting included too.

But our human grief and pain is only a drop in the ocean compared to the grief and pain of God at this situation. The desire of His Heart is for life-long relationships of deep intimacy with these youngsters, not for the precious sacramental gifts won by His Passion and Death on the Cross to be disdained so thoroughly.

If we desire to please Him, then we must whole-heartedly seek fruitful alternatives to replace our currently fruitless models of sacramental preparation of children.

Dear God, please send Your Holy Spirit to help us pioneer effective new ways of bringing children into the fulness of the sacramental life which You long for them to experience. Amen. 

Lord Jesus, grant us a holy dis-satisfaction with the way things are, and sufficient holy frustration to do whatever it takes to find and implement the new sacramental preparation pathways You have for us. Amen.  

​The Gospel for this Sunday, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from St Mark Chapter 10 and tells us what happened when Jesus was interrupted with a man’s nagging question.

Jesus had just been to the man’s locality and had presumably done His normal preaching, teaching, and healing in the public gathering areas of that locality. Whatever Jesus said has caused a stirring within the man.

We might ask, why didn’t he ask this question earlier?

It is a real interruption to the schedule Jesus had, and we aren’t told what the consequences of setting out then and there actually were, eg not getting to the next place before night fall; having to stay an extra day where they were, missing a meal or celebration, maybe spending the night on the ground instead of under a roof. But Jesus doesn’t complain, He patiently listens to the man, and gives him His full attention.

Unlike the question the Pharisees put last week, this question is real and authentic, and we’ve all heard someone ask a version of it.

He asks, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’

In other words, What’s the minimum I have to do to get a dead-cert entry pass for heaven?
Or, ‘If there a one-stop, fix, set-and-forget way to obtain eternal life?’

This man is thinking in terms of a transaction, like buying a plane ticket or a car.

But this question must have been niggling at him for a while.

I can imagine an internal battle going on inside him:
Do I really want this question answered?
How much do I want this question answered?
What if I don’t like the answer?
This Jesus person is the only person I’ve come across who could really answer this question.
So are you going to approach Him or not?
Does my desire for the answer outweigh the possible public notoriety for asking it?

He’s possibly been wrestling with himself for days, ever since Jesus showed up; and it is only the thought of missing out on ever getting the answer - because Jesus is leaving and unlikely to ever return - that eventually pushes him into action but at the last possible moment.

Jesus now seeks a bit more background before He answers. It isn’t quite like answering a question with a question as He did with the Pharisees, but it is similar.

From the 10 commandments, Jesus selects only those that are about our relationships with each other, and not in our memorized order either, No 6 You shall not kill; No 7 You shall not commit adultery; No 8 You shall not steal; No 9 You shall not give false witness, an interesting spin on No 10 You shall not defraud; and No.5 Honour your father and your mother.

The man replies, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my earliest days’; in other words: ‘I know these are not enough, otherwise I would not have come to You, I sense much more is required, but I don’t know what that ‘much more’ is, and I do want to know’. To be capable of desiring the ‘much more’, the man would have to be feeling restlessness and dissatisfaction with his current life.

Aha! It is God Himself who has been stirring within this man if he is able to verbalize this truth.

Jesus gazed at him with ‘agape’ love and gave him the momentous answer; ‘Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have wealth in heaven; then, come, follow Me’.

‘Come follow me’ is what Jesus said when He invited each of the apostles into special relationship with Him.

Later on, when the man has left, Jesus speaks to His own, and He gazes at them with the same ‘agape’ love.

Answering like this, Jesus tells the man (and us), that heaven isn’t an object to be purchased, but a relationship with Him that requires 100% ongoing commitment.

For this man, used to purchasing all he desires through material wealth, the price of eternal life is far too high. Purchasing objects needs zero emotional involvement; entering an apostolic relationship with Jesus needs total emotional commitment, and total commitment from every other area of his life.

High calling, high reward, requiring high personal cost.

Who can make and keep such an audacious commitment to the person of Jesus?
Only those called and empowered to do so by God.

This is what sets the vocational call to consecrated, religious, or priestly life beyond the regular baptismal call to holiness.

As Jesus promises, it is this 100% giving of themselves to Him, the leaving everything and following Him, which gets rewarded a hundred-fold in this life, and in eternal life.

Notice that Jesus leaves the man completely free to decide, He neither badgers, coerces nor entices. He just offers an invitation.

We know that the man walked away sad. He was offered the Great Treasure, an apostolic calling, yet he rejected it.

It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was saddened as well. Who knows? If this chap had said ‘Yes’ maybe today he would be a household name of the same magnitude as Peter or Paul, instead of a nameless cautionary tale.

Where does that leave us?

Firstly it leaves us praying for those whom Jesus is calling into an apostolic commitment to Him, that they may be given the heavenly help to say their total Yes to Jesus.

Secondly it makes us take a good hard look at our own commitment to Jesus, and the things that we are, and aren’t, willing to give up for His sake.
​
Finally if you have been experiencing that same restlessness, dissatisfaction, and sense that there must be ‘much more’, and that you want ‘much more’, then put the terms ‘Vocation Director’ and the name of your nearest regional or capital city into an internet search, and give that person a call.

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, comes from the beginning of Chapter 6 in St Mark’s Gospel. It tells us what happened when Jesus took His disciples to visit Nazareth, His home-town.

This was a very deliberate move by Jesus for several reasons:
He understood that His disciples needed to see where He had grown up, so that they could witness to this later on.
He also needed them to understand this uncomfortable lesson about the likelihood of rejection by those close to us when God calls us in to His ‘more’.
He would have had a natural hankering for home, and would have ardently desired to give to those He loved so deeply as much of what God had been filling Him with as possible.

We see in this passage of scripture that the inhabitants of Nazareth who knew Jesus in His hidden life, were very comfortable with that experience of Him.

They experienced levels of panic, shock and astonishment as this very different Jesus who came to them bearing divine wisdom and divine teaching, and miraculous 'dynamite' power.

In this coming of His to Nazareth, Jesus wanted to give them access to this side, to this experience of Him, as He had done for so many other villages in the surrounding area, but the beloved people of Nazareth were happy to settle for the lesser experience, and didn't want a bar, not one iota, of the greater experience of Him.

In fact it actually scandalised them; the word used in the Greek is ‘eskandalizonto’.

So they sadly missed out on all that Jesus wanted to give them through this coming, and they didn't have a clue just how humongously much they missed out on – because they were not open to the possibility of more.

Recently others have written and spoken about how often when we invite God in to our lives and into times of corporate prayer and worship that we tend to expect something like a tame kitten when as God He has full right to come in as a roaring wild lion and everything in between.

It is the difference between expecting the ‘O good and gentle Jesus’ and receiving the Almighty universal Emperor and majestic Conqueror of sin and death.

He is certainly both, but we definitely have a preference for the former and often too little experience of the latter – much like the inhabitants of Nazareth.

The thing is, if God is going to step in and change our world from the cesspit of malevolent evil to the garden of goodness where His will is done on earth as it is in heaven, then He is going to come as mighty Judge and Ruler.

Are we ready for this?
Are we open to the kind of coming of Jesus that the money changers in the Temple experienced?
Are we open to receive and accept the more that this Mighty All-powerful Jesus wants to give us?

It is possible that this coming of Jesus could be the one foretold in Revelation 20:1-6 that leads to a thousand years of peace, or a precursor to it.

May God grant us the grace to be ready and willing to welcome Him however He chooses to come, especially if that coming of Jesus doesn't match our expectations at all. Amen.
​
Obviously Mary, His mother, was ready and waiting for Jesus on His homecoming visit. May she help us prepare for His coming, and help us to welcome Him properly when that great moment comes. Amen.

Yes, I have read the McCarrick report, especially the footnotes, and skimming over those places in the main text that were obviously repeating previous information. It is 461 PDF pages long, prepared over at least 2 years by people working at the Vatican, with the aim to determine who knew what about Cardinal McCarrick and when.

I do recommend that you read it, because as they say, those who do not learn the lessons from history and doomed to repeat it.
​
http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_rapporto-card-mccarrick_20201110_en.pdf

There are sections of the report that have lodged in my memory for various reasons, and deserve comment. I will try to go through those sections in chronological order. Many of these things have already been mentioned in online analyses.

Lest we be tempted to judge anyone mentioned in the report too harshly, we must recall that they had to view everything that came to them with the presumption of McCarrick being innocent. We read this report with the hindsight of knowing that he was guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, of exploiting power over minors, vulnerable adults, and maybe more besides, and that these activities were pre-meditated.

And it is difficult to keep this in mind.

As you would expect, I am reading the McCarrick Report through my own lens, which includes observed behaviour of at least one convicted priest, and the dodgy behaviour of many others.

A previous, particularly strict, parish priest had a policy of ignoring any information he was given unless it was attributable to a real person. Anything anonymous went straight into the bin.
In the light of the McCarrick report, such a policy must be completely re-thought.

The agonies Mother 1 went through, knowing that she had to alert the church authorities, yet being legitimately fearful of reprisals towards herself and her family, are real. Taking the only option she had, she sent her concerns in an anonymous manner.

The 1992 and 1993 letters which appear in the report in all capitals, are as we know now, telling the truth. Thankfully someone didn’t throw these ones away, but others were thrown away. But no investigation into the merits of these accusations was done. The excuse was the anonymity of the writer.

None of them should ever have been thrown away, but kept by an independent body, until fully investigated. Not that such investigations are easy, because no one wants to become the whistleblower or scapegoat or to be retaliated against for speaking up.  

In the report, persons in authority took the stance that if allegations were credible, then the persons alleging should provide details. No one put themselves in the shoes of a possible seminarian or ex-seminarian or ‘nephew’ and considered that providing details would be the same as agreeing to martyrdom.

I recall a blog I read a few years back where an ex-seminarian shared his story. He had been out of public view for several years, yet he was still tracked down, and subjected to the most vile reprisals for having spoken out, both by former friends and colleagues as well as the general public, so much so that he couldn’t leave the house.

The court of public opinion normally sides with the very clever, very charming, perpetrators, who have only ever shown their best side to the vast majority of people.  

I put it to you, that when it comes to the abuse of power, expecting a whistleblower to expose himself or herself to that kind of public martyrdom is completely unreasonable. Therefore all allegations, especially the anonymous ones, must be investigated.

Yes, there may be some unfounded accusations made for malicious purposes, but in the main, if someone has gone through the kind of soul searching that Mother 1 did, and that the writers of the 1992 and 1993 letters did, and have risked quite a lot to even put those thoughts in writing, then it is far better to take them seriously than to ignore them.

Yet, I really feel for Mother 1, because when you have a known problem at curial and therefore bishop level in your own diocese, where do you go, where should you go, to report it and ask for it to be fixed?

Our sacramental programme for children had major theological errors in it (it still does). Who do you write to? How are us people in the pews supposed to know which Vatican dicastery is the correct one to contact? I recall sending a full dossier to a retired cardinal, who sent it back. Not his bailiwick. And that is the same general response if you try and ask another bishop or higher, for assistance in fixing something in another bishop’s diocese.

The more I think about this problem, the more I want to see an independent body set up, one that does not contain any hierarchy, one that is only answerable to the Pope, but one which has real investigative expertise, and one that has sufficient authority to take real action, and to persevere until the issues are truly resolved. It may need to be a new order of religious, who not only work through the problems entrusted to them, but also pray through them too. Due to the long-term nature of many situations, I lean in favour of a new religious order.

Since as we read in the McCarrick report, part of the problem was how frequently the position of Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America was replaced with a new person.
The lack of full handover from predecessor to new incumbent was also a significant factor. Not only with the Nuncio, but also with the bishops and archbishops. If you have known situations that may or may not explode during the reign of the new incumbent, then the new incumbent should be warned.

But the standard procedure with the clergy seems to be dropping one’s fellow clergy member in it. I see it all the time. Cleric A agrees to fill in at a Mass for Cleric B, in Cleric B’s parish. But does Cleric B inform Cleric A that the particular Mass he is helping out at also has associated commitments for the sacrament of reconciliation, or for benediction etc, or how to find the list for the roster of Mass offerings, or how to work the complicated sound system? No.

95%, if not more, clergy drop their brother priests in it without any handover of relevant information.

If the habit forms at priest level, a habit like that it isn’t going to be undone at bishop, archbishop or nuncio level. This standard operating procedure just has to change. First of all it isn’t a loving thing to do. Secondly, it does permit sub-optimal transfers of authority to take place.

As we have seen in the McCarrisk report, it is very easy for the hierarchy to get compromised. They, like the rest of us, are vulnerable to flattery, and vulnerable to manipulation through favours, gifts, and inside information. Vigano is getting a bad rap in the report, because at times he was looking into McCarrick’s errors, and at times he was ignoring and not following up on them. As Nuncio, he was a sitting duck, because McCarrick went out of his way to be charming, take him out to dinner, and provide him with useful contacts, inside information and reports. None of us are immune. But if you are outside the hierarchy, you have more chance of not being compromised.

However, it is what is lacking in the McCarrick report that really fills me with dismay. We see that the only things that motivated the hierarchy to action were loss of reputation, and public scandal. Please, God, may that change, and be forever changed. At no point is there any reference to concern or care for those who had been abused or mistreated. To me, this is the greatest problem of all, because it shows that a shepherd’s primary concern is for the welfare of other shepherds, and that there is no concern for the sheep at all.

If there had been concern for the sheep, then proper investigations would have happened when the first anonymous allegations arrived, because the thought that the sheep were being preyed on, that any sheep was being preyed on, should have been motivation enough for action.

Up until this point, the release of the McCarrick report, most of us lived under the illusion that it was a duty of the bishop to protect and safeguard the members of his diocese from predators of all kinds.

I’d like for a moment to talk about glamour and holiness. Secular glamour is easy for us to pick up on. I remember being at an event when Bob Hawke and Blanche D’Alpuget walked in. The physical impact of their presence dimmed the impact of everyone else at the event. All of us have encountered people like this from time to time. Holiness is similar, but different. True holiness makes a similar impact, however it doesn’t draw us to the person, but it draws us to God.

When glamour is seen in a member of the clergy, it is easy for us to mistake it for holiness. Any of you who have met Cardinal Wuerl would acknowledge that he makes an impact that makes you pay immediate attention. How much of that is glamour, and how much is holiness, I don’t know; all I know is that I couldn’t put a finger on why I was unsettled by it. But it does make those in the inner circle look like the ‘haves’ and everyone else feel like the ‘have nots’. I suspect that McCarrick was similar. The thing is, that when someone is part showman, that they can pull a magician’s trick and redirect your attention elsewhere while they do deeds of darkness. It is only the extremely likeable people who get away with heinous crimes. Whereas if that attraction isn’t present, we easily go after and investigate the people we don’t like.

There’s yet another reason why an independent investigative body is necessary. It goes like this. The average diocesan curia develops a sense of elitism. Maybe that’s the wrong word, but the net effect is, that of you don’t approach them according to their unwritten protocols, then whatever you try to communicate with them gets discarded. Maybe an analogy would help. At the time that I was attempting to deal with a diocesan curia on what I considered important stuff, I was also playing an online game, and the parallels were striking. In the game there was a regular level of play, but then there were other upper echelons as well, where deals were done in alliances with regard to ownership of territory. On the face of it, if a territory was vacant, it should be up for grabs to all comers. But in this upper echelon, certain areas of territory ‘traditionally’ belonged to certain tribes from certain alliances. If you had been part of the upper echelons for a while, you knew these unwritten rules. Those who didn’t know or comply with these unwritten, non-publicly declared rules, were jumped on from a great height. The curia was working in a similar way, if you didn’t abide by the unwritten rules, there was no comeback. Pew dwellers like me, and like most of the people who may need to pass crucial information up the food chain from time to time, don’t know these rules. However, an independent body shouldn’t be nearly so precious, and should act on any piece of information, no matter how crudely or how unsophisticatedly it was presented.
 
The McCarrick report does show that we do everyone a disservice if we break existing protocols. At the beginning the only red flag showing for McCarrick’s candidacy for the episcopate was ambition. That flag should have been enough to sideline him. When you read through Church history, and through the lives of the Saints, it was those who did not want to become bishops who were the best bishops. Anyone who sets a true store on the value of his soul would shudder and dread being given the responsibility for the welfare of so many souls, because he knows God will call him to account for the eternal destination of all of them. I also recall the story of a man who called at the door of a monastery and said that he wanted to be a priest. He was sent away forthwith. Some time later, the same man returned with a degree of fear and trembling and said, I believe God wants me to be a priest. This time he was admitted.

I also want to ask how McCarrick could possibly have been considered a candidate for the episcopacy when he didn’t have any time as parish priest in a parish. Yes, you need the further advanced degrees, but observed success in pastoring a parish is another normal requirement, under the biblical tradition of being promoted to higher things after having been successful and faithful at smaller things.

The protocols for investigation prior to elevation to an archdiocese that carries a Cardinal's hat should not have been waived. They were there for this precise reason.

The waiving the protocols of the canonical punishments for ordaining without due permissions, should never have been done either.

I am also struck at how astute McCarrick was from the get-go. The wisdom that made him alert to participation in projects that would make him noticed by the higher-ups. It would be good to have answered where the funds for the finishing school in Switzerland were obtained, by gift, by own funds, by scholarship or award, and who the benefactors were and what the criteria for selection were. I am only making an hypothesis here, but McCarrick could have had a mentor during these years, presumably a mentor well aware of McCarrick’s weaknesses, perhaps more than one mentor.

Given this fixation on ‘uncle’ and ‘nephew’, a further hypothesis is that McCarrick had some predators in his formative years, and with whom touchy-feely activities were just ‘normal’.

Fundraising, administrative paperwork and the odd bit of head-kicking (a.k.a. having disciplinary conversations), are things that the majority of clergy shy away from. Someone who likes doing those unpleasant tasks will win favour, even if they don’t win trust.

The few references to lack of candor in the responses that were part of the investigation before being made an auxiliary bishop do take on a whole new light in hindsight. Again I come up against this reluctance to speak the whole truth, lest there be some kind of retribution. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence suspects that these confidential reports may one day find themselves in the hands of the person about whom they were written. Lack of candor means an ability to deftly steer conversation away from its intended trajectory, and an ability to perhaps disclose part of the truth, but not the full truth that should have been disclosed.

We can only hope that in the light of the McCarrick report that those on the selection teams will ask further questions of any respondent who has the slightest reservation about a candidate, and seek details of the incident/s which led the respondent to make those judgements.

We can only hope that the protocols of no sleepovers, and of only sending out seminarians in pairs will continue. But to this should also be added a ban on alcohol. Far too many stories in decades past of seminary antics have reached me, and even within the last 12 months rumours of lateness at important functions due to celebrations including alcohol have reached me. As Mother 1 noted, alcohol decreases inhibitions, and exposes drinkers to the risk of some kind of predator taking advantage.

Risk taking behaviour comes in many forms, and all of us need to be aware of the need to speak out when we notice it. Take for example a parish priest who seeks out the company of vulnerable women; older single women of marriageable age, and single mothers. Spending time close to the thrill of temptation is always a risky strategy, and it never ends well. Either the temptation gets given in to, or hearts get too involved and broken, or both.

It looks like McCarrick also lived a high risk, ‘close to the wind’ life. It was, after all, the 'work hard, play hard' era. He sought opportunities to be close to vulnerable young men, and was known to be touchy-feely (other people would call it groping). But if you have a predilection for young adult male company, getting a feel for whether there is a flight, fight, freeze or welcome response, is a selection process. He made sure that he only went ‘so far’ and ‘no further’, other than the times he forgot and expunged from memory, so that he could in good conscience make the Clinton-Lewinski defence, ‘I never had sexual relations with that woman’ – using a definition that only included completion of the act, and not the many preludes prior to the act.

What we must realize is that as soon as you overstep someone’s sexual boundaries without permission, that you cause trauma. There will be many degrees within the levels of overstepping those boundaries, but they will all cause levels of trauma, of discomfort, of trust being violated. Being repeatedly molested in pre-adult years damages a person, and the more sensitive and vulnerable they are, the worse the trauma will be, even if there was no deposit of bodily fluids.

Yet any of us who have watched enough detective shows on TV will know, over time a predator will seek higher risks because the lower risks don’t satisfy any more. They call it ‘escalation’. We can see this progression up until the time the sleepover ban came in and the episcopal request to stop whatever he was up to, which all ceased as the possibilities for episcopal advancement increased.

However, the little hidden apartment speaks to me of pre-mediation, as does the cancelling of beach house visits if there were insufficient guests to provide bed-sharing.

What gets to me is that such high risk behaviour normally doesn’t cease as much as it morphs. Perhaps it morphed into more consensual arrangements, but I worry that it may have morphed into high risk activities conducted only when he was in third world countries. This is only an hypothesis, but if it is hard to bring forward an allegation in English, how much harder would it be to bring forward an allegation in a third world language?

Another predatory behaviour is the going on the offensive, and the re-framing of the narrative. I’ve seen this in action; the plea to feel sorry for the predator and to plea to believe in his innocence, and the belittling of those who have made allegations. It begs others to see the predator as a victim, and one that needs protecting, thus inviting others to unwittingly join in the cover up. To call something an indiscretion or lapse of judgement when it was premeditated and had traumatic consequences for others, is part of the iniquity of sin, where we keep telling ourselves that what we did was excusable, and not so bad after all.

As always, the litmus test of holiness is obedience. To be asked by the reigning pontiff to retire to a life of prayer and penance for the good of the church is serious stuff. True obedience doesn’t require a formal order, the request made, and made for such a particular purpose, should have been sufficient. Instead what do we hear? Echoes of the serpent, ‘Did God really say?’, ‘Did the pope really mean me to curtail everything?’ Not only that, flaunting disobedience at every opportunity, even at World Youth Day, knowing that no one likes to create a public scene of conflict. This flaunting of the papal request alone should have been enough for further investigations of the sexual misconduct allegations to be made. ‘I will not obey’ is the mantra of the evil one.

I do maintain a concern that many of these unauthorized international trips had more than their outward agenda. Yes, there was the perceived personal need to remain seen, and active, and relevant, by gathering inside information and sharing it. But what if there was some spy craft afoot as well? Hypothesis only, at this stage. And/or the freedom to engage in high risk behaviour? (And we know this didn’t cease, because even in his 80s living in seminary quarters he was still perceived as touchy feely (ie grope-y).

“The cardinal is always agitated, nervous; he does not feel himself if he does not travel and if he does not have people around him”. This report bothers me. A moving target is always harder to hit than a stationary one. It is this report that makes me hypothesize that there was more to these international trips than we realise.

Are there other McCarrick’s out there? Probably.

Here’s why. I vividly recall in the mid 80’s, when some religious orders were already being called to account for sexual abuse-tour, visiting the mother house of an order, and being so proud of these men because there hadn’t been any scandal attached to them. Now several are serving custodial sentences. So I put it to you that the easy cases get found first, and that the more difficult cases get found second, and that the most heinous cases only get found out last.

Here’s another why. No one is yet investigating the other clergy problems, gambling, inappropriate relationships with women, alcohol, homosexuality, abuse of power. Very few people have the stomach to start draining the swamp, because they are legitimately afraid of what they will uncover. Very few don’t have their own private secrets.

Here’s a third why. There are many rumours of these high risk behaviours being organized and of intricate networks of rings of corruption. I can point to two elusive situations, one where I felt my siblings and I being watched and evaluated by an unknown third party; the other when a visiting international priest got a bit touchy-feely (my unproven gut feel on this, in hindsight, is that such actions wouldn’t have happened unless a previous predator had bragged/shared in a network). None of these kinds of rings and networks have been exposed yet. May God grant that they will be, that those in authority will be given the guts to deal with it, and that these levels of corruption in the Church be expunged forever.

Will there be further McCarrick’s? Probably. But they will be even cleverer at hiding their high risk behaviours, and even more astute at dealing with dysfunctional hierarchies.

​May God have mercy on us, and upon His Church, even if it needs to be a severe mercy. Amen.

Bear with me while I twist a few strands of thought from wildly different places into hopefully a coherent whole.

The first strand of thought comes from artist Nicholas Wilton (@art2life_world) and the series of three videos on design, value and colour. In them he demonstrated quite effectively that it is the differences, and relative differences of shape, contrast and saturation that make an artwork interesting enough to obtain that elusive 'Sold' sticker.

The second strand of thought comes from the natural world, designed by God. In His universe there is infinite variety, even in the world of flowers. Even when we think of gardens, the image that comes to mind isn't of neat rows of the same flower, but the riotous mix of flowers in an English country garden.

The third strand of thought comes from Pope Francis, and his latest apostolic exhortation, 'Chrisus vivit', written to all the Church but especially to young people.

181. Think about it: if someone tells young people to ignore their history, to reject the experiences of their elders, to look down on the past and to look forward to a future that he holds out, doesn’t it then become easy to draw them along so that they only do what he tells them? He needs the young to be shallow, uprooted and distrustful, so that they can trust only in his promises and act according to his plans. That is how various ideologies operate: they destroy (or deconstruct) all differences so that they can reign unopposed. To do so, however, they need young people who have no use for history, who spurn the spiritual and human riches inherited from past generations, and are ignorant of everything that came before them.

185. In this regard, I would note that “many Synod Fathers coming from non-Western contexts pointed out that in their countries globalization is bringing with it forms of cultural colonization that sever young people from their cultural and religious roots. The Church needs to make a commitment to accompanying these young people, so that in the process they do not lose sight of the most precious features of their identity”.

186. Today, in fact, we see a tendency to “homogenize” young people, blurring what is distinctive about their origins and backgrounds, and turning them into a new line of malleable goods. This produces a cultural devastation that is just as serious as the disappearance of species of animals and plants. For this reason, in addressing young indigenous people gathered in Panama, I encouraged them to “care for your roots, because from the roots comes the strength that is going to make you grow, flourish and bear fruit”.

Our differences matter, in fact they seem to be clearly willed by God.

Our differences do not prevent unity.
Our differences help us come up with better answers to life's problems, answers that last the test of time and transcend regional cultures.

This is why bubbles are a problem.

The national plebiscite in late 2017 brought home to me how easy it is for us to get into bubbles of social media where the only views that come across our screens are those that we agree with. Partly this is due to the social media algorithms, yet my own choices of what to like, who to follow and who (and why) to unfollow are very significant. When you are in a bubble you get a very big shock to discover that the majority of the world disagrees with you.

In the wake of the recent federal election I read of a young woman who was shocked to discover that the climate change eco-friendly militantly feminist world view she shared with many others from inner city suburbs as a 'no-brainer' package of values was definitely not shared by the rest of the country. Sadly she now seems to be on a quest to put the rest of the country in touch with these values that she assumes will be embraced by everyone who comes across them. I fear she is in for more unwelcome shocks.

It is so easy to get into a bubble without noticing it happening.
It is far easier to see where other people are in bubbles that to see where we ourselves are in them.

We live in tension between the God who infinitely values differences (no two snowflakes, finger prints and animal pelts are the same) and humanity who wants things safe, predictable and the same.

Differences make us richer, uniformity makes us poorer.

The challenge is to fight against the forces that want uniformity, and to keep our hearts and social media accounts open to those who think in ways alien to our world views.

Definitely this is not an easy task,
but it is crucial to determining the kind of future we are building for generations to come.

May the Holy Spirit help and guide us. Amen.

A very long time ago, in a university chaplain's office far, far away, I was told this story for the first time. I can no longer remember the fine details, but the gist of the story has never dimmed in my memory. Sadly I cannot remember why it was told in the first place. Having done a few internet searches with nil results, I will attempt to retell this story to you.

Our story starts with a youngish monk, relatively new to the rigours of living out poverty, chastity and obedience within the bounds of community religious life.

He was a rather clever chap, quite charming and friendly, and he soon worked out that the juniors received the lion's share of the less appealing chores that had to be done. Some of them he liked doing, but most of them he disliked.

So he came up with what he thought was a brilliant plan to get more time doing the good stuff and less time doing the bad stuff.

If he was sent to the kitchen, he would wash up so slowly, or peel the vegetables so inefficiently, that the monk in charge of the kitchen would get so frustrated that he'd say, 'Here, I'll take over here, you head off to the chapel and pray for me'.

If he was sent to help muck out the cattle stables, he did such a half-hearted job at such a slow pace that the monk in charge of the farm soon begged the prior that someone else be sent to help instead.

If the monk in charge of keeping the accounts was a very punctual person, our young monk would aim to always arrive a little late and every so often put a 6 instead of a 9, or an 8 instead of a 3 in the ledgers.

At those chores he liked to do, he would coast along, and give them the bare minimum of effort. There would be just enough unconscious flashes of brilliance to irritate those who suspected he could do much better if he wanted to.

Everything was going wonderfully, our young monk had extra free time and less of the chores he disliked.

But something happened over time.

When opportunities for greater responsibility came up, they started to be given to other monks who hadn't been a religious as long as he had.

When the abbot went on official visits and would take a junior monk as an aide with him, our monk didn't get selected.

Worst of all, when tasks came up that were ideally suited to his talents, he wasn't even considered for them.

He was becoming an increasingly embittered monk who was perplexed that his superiors didn't seem to know how talented he was, and what a great leader he would make, and didn't seem to take him seriously.

Tragically he was unable to see that he had built up a bad reputation for himself that would be quite difficult to rectify.

And the moral/s to the story?

Always do your best, no matter how menial or distasteful the task is.
​
If you catch someone being a 'bad monk', strive to hold your frustrations in check, and for their own good and for the good of the community don't let them get away with it. Deal with any underlying causes, and call them to excellence.