A Tale of Two Popes

Pic courtesy Britannica

 Jorge Mario Bergoglio is an Argentinian Jesuit, and an ex-bouncer. His father's family left Italy in 1929 to escape the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini.

 He is essentially a pastoralist, a reformer, and perhaps represents the last hope of the Catholic church in its quest to remove the cancer of clericalism which has almost destroyed its viability in western societies.

Unless the church is reformed towards the authentic social developmental role it assumes in developing countries, especially in Africa, it has no future. The Australian church I grew up in has become a clerical, rather than a pastoral institution.

Pic courtesy Britannica

This is best illustrated by an experience I had as a rifleman, a Catholic conscript, in Vietnam in April 1970. My dog tags were embossed “RC”.

We were halfway through Operation Finschhafen and were recuperating in FSPB Anne, when the Catholic Chaplain, Captain Keith Teefey, invited all ranks in my Company (B Coy) to attend mass. He invited all present to take Communion irrespective of denomination, providing they did so with respect.

Most did so. Piety is often a characteristic of soldiers in harm’s way.

                                                        Mass at FSPB Anne 

I was impressed and wrote home telling my father about this. Dad was an advocate of eucamenism, committed to Vatican 2 and was chuffed, to the extent that he told the local parish priest, a conservative, whom out of respect, I will not identify.

This priest became very angry, and reported Keith Teefey to the Bishop of the Toowoomba Diocese who incidentally had no jurisdiction in the situation.

Subsequently the Bishop dismissed the complaint, pointing out that Canon law made that invitation (to those at risk of death) completely appropriate.

By 22nd April, two members of that congregation had died, one killed by an RPG in a bunker contact, the other died of heat exhaustion.

The parish priest maintained his outrage and refused to talk to my father. Dad withdrew my siblings from the local convent and enrolled them at the state school where he was principal at the time.

This example of the clerical hierarchy becoming indignant at an act of pastoral care was illustrative of the state of the church in Australia in 1970, and frankly it hasn’t improved much.

The greying of the Australian congregation is clear evidence of that.

The 2011 sacking of Bishop Bill Morris by Bergoglio's predecessor, ironically enough in the Toowoomba Diocese, was the nadir of clericalism in Australia. Morris' sin was his attempt to root out an insidious culture of child abuse in a couple of schools in the diocese, although that wasn't the reason given for his dismissal.

He had challenged the hierarchy and paid the price.

Unfortunately, Francis' intervention may have come too late.