Chris McGillion Responds to the “Exacerbating” Actions of Cardinal Pell

In reflecting on the recent actions of Cardinal Pell,
Chris McGillion ponders what it means to be Catholic.

Earlier this evening a friend who is a priest here in the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese informed me of a very well written commentary by Australian academic Chris McGillion in today’s (or, in Australian time, yesterday’s) Brisbane Times.


Described as “one of [the] most penetrating observers of the religious life of [Australia],” Chris McGillion (pictured above) teaches in the school of communication at Charles Sturt University. A journalist and author, McGillion has for a number of years been the religious columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.

His latest commentary is in response to recent statements made by Cardinal George Pell of the Sydney Archdiocese. As has been noted in a previous post, a number of these statements focus on Pell’s seeking of a public commitment to a profession of faith and an oath of fidelity by principals, deputy principals and religious education coordinators in Catholic schools.

A profession of faith, McGillion notes, is “little more than the Apostles creed . . . which all practicing Catholics recite each Sunday at Mass.” An “oath of fidelity,” however, is something quite different. It is something “usually subscribed to only by senior clerics in the church,” and requires one “to hold fast to the deposit of faith in its entirety, to avoid any teaching contrary to it, and to follow the common discipline of the entire church.”

Such an oath would require those working in Catholic schools to publicly commit to non-core Catholic teachings on such issues as homosexuality or women’s ordination. As McGillion points out, these are teachings that “ many Catholics conscientiously reject and which even many bishops concede need further exploration and finessing.”

McGillion also highlights Pell’s “recent warning that Catholic politicians should consider the consequences of their vote on therapeutic cloning or, as [Pell] put it in the Herald last Friday, just as members of a political party who cross the floor on critical issues don’t expect to be rewarded and might be penalized, so it is in the church.” (So much for the primacy of conscience!)

It’s clear that it is the “veiled threats” by the Cardinal that most concern McGillion. Indeed, his main concern, as expressed in his commentary, is to do with “the way [Pell] is acting – rather than in his purpose.”

Such actions, McGillion observes, are “exposing and exacerbating disunity and division in Catholic ranks.” This is all the more unfortunate given that as a bishop, Pell should be “a symbol of unity of the faithful.”

McGillion concludes his commentary by offering two very different responses to the question, “What does it mean to be Catholic?”

“One answer,” he writes, “is to employ the faith to inform one’s decisions. That’s an understanding that is messy and uncertain but it is also creative and conducive to the development of responsible adults.”

And the second response? Well, it’s the one that Cardinal Pell “seems to prefer,” says McGillion, and it says that “to be Catholic means having ready-made answers universally applied to the dilemmas that life inevitably invites.”

Such an understanding, says McGillion, “is neat and tidy but also potentially stultifying.”

“More worrying,” he writes, “is that this is an answer that betrays an acute doubt about whether God is involved in some ongoing sense in human affairs.”

McGillion, who is the editor of the book A Long Way from Rome: Why the Australian Catholic Church is in Crisis (Allen and Unwin, 2003) writes with great clarity and a discernable sense of love for the Church. The perspective he shares and the questions he raises are valid and crucial at this particular stage of the Roman Catholic Church’s pilgrim journey.

To read Chris McGillion’s June 11 commentary in its entirety, click here.


UPDATES:
Cardinal George Pell Charged
with Multiple Sexual Offences
– Melissa Davey
The Guardian
June 28, 2017

Cardinal George Pell
Found Guilty of Child Sex Abuse
– Adam Cooper
The Sydney Morning Herald
February 26, 2017

Cardinal George Pell Released From Jail
After High Court Quashes
Child Sexual Abuse Conviction
– Melissa Davies
The Guardian
April 7, 2020

Why Have Media Outlets Been Fined
More Than $1 Million for Their Pell Reporting?
– Rick Sarre
The Conversation
June 4, 2021

Cardinal George Pell
Dies in Rome Aged 81
– ABC News
January 10, 2023

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Two-Sided Catholic Crisis
• Thoughts on Authority and Fidelity
• Coadjutor Archbishop Nienstedt’s “Learning Curve”
• Reflections on the Primacy of Conscience
• The Question of an “Informed” Catholic Conscience
• Who Gets to Be Called “Catholic” – and Why?
• Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment”

Recommended Off-site Link:
“Secularism is Simply Respecting Difference” – a 2004 commentary by Chris McGillion.

Image: Allen and Unwin.