The Catholic Archbishop of Tasmania has sent a letter to students of Catholic Schools throughout Tasmania denouncing, no, that word is way too soft, decrying, vilifying, castigating, basically saying he condemns the just about every advance in human rights attained in Australia over the last 30 or so years.
Quoting from the ABC’s news item, The Letter, by Archbishop Julian Porteous, takes aim at a “radicalised transgender lobby”, legal abortion access, voluntary assisted dying and euthanasia, and same sex-marriage, as well as the “woke” movement which he says is “seeking to overturn other traditional values and beliefs.”
I have just a few concerns about this on several levels.
Firstly, it was not long ago that the appalling behaviour of Catholic priests toward children was exposed in the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, and what was found in that was that the church moved accused priests around from region to region, from diocese to diocese, rather than admit that there was a problem with young children being raped by their clergy, and secondly that when it came to redressing these issues, cases against the church or against specific priests were delayed time and again, hoping the aged priests would die before facing courts, seemingly to not having to face up to the crimes committed against innocent children. Thirdly, when addressing the call for financial awards made against the church they cried poor, and yes, the diocese may have been a bit short of cash, but the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest organisations in the world and fights tooth and nail to retain, even grow that wealth… oh and need I mention they pay no tax!
Mostly, the priests abused young boys. Priests are sworn to celibacy, but I guess the urges felt against young boys is OK, since they are not women… but could it be that maybe, just maybe such peadophilic behaviour could be considered ‘homosexual’?
So could it be that just maybe, this self-righteous Archbishop is not addressing that issue within the organisation he leads?
The second area of concern is that waiting in the wings of our Federal Parliament, resting, gathering dust, is a Religious Discrimination Bill, ready to present to the Parliament to vote into law when tacit agreement is reached between the political parties. Waiting so that with minimum debate on the floor of the House, in both the Representatives and Senate chambers the bills will be voted into law, making it legal for the various religious school bodies to discriminate against teachers who do not comply with the dogmas of the religious employer, meaning that students will only see teachers and other workers within the schools who conform to those standards. Essentially a rubber stamping the right to discriminate, to continue the hatred of difference, continue to deny basic human rights to be accepted within those organisations.
But of greater concern, is what the teachers are permitted to teach when it comes to cultural issues, when dealing with sex education, when dealing with teaching about laws and how they are made, when teaching history such as the unit which deals with the holocaust where not only Jewish people were murdered but also Gypsies, homosexuals and people who were considered ‘insane’. In other words, how can a teacher be presenting these lessons with honesty and integrity?
Can they present the colonisation of Australia in an honest, truthful way as they extoll the wonderful work of the missions which introduced Aboriginal children to Jesus and his saving grace while stripping them of their cultures, removing them from their families, and their lands, denying them their languages?
Can they teach sex education in the same way it was taught in the 1960s? Basically ignored, but a small focus on how animals reproduce in biology lessons, but at the same time setting up ‘birthing facilities’ at monasteries or other church run facilities, out of sight and out of mind from the community, for pregnant teenagers to be held and the babies adopted out?
Or that teenagers struggling with their sexuality can be bullied with impunity, since these difficulties are not real, you are either a boy or a girl, get over it!
And so the right to discriminate perpetuates the hatreds embedded in the dogmatic teachings of the church, those teachings which allow vilification of difference and yet that same organisation does nothing to redress the very ‘sins’ within their own organisations.
Yes, there is more.
The third are of concern is that the church-based school systems are very well funded by the Federal Government. Much has been written in recent months about the funding, well in excess of what is needed to some of the wealthiest schools, including the Catholic Education system. Churches are tax exempt yet hold vast tracts of land on which they pay no council rates or land taxes, church income is not taxed nor are many of their community-based activities… usually for ‘their’ community. Housing for the clergy is provided by the church and is not subject to the same costs you and I pay in council rates, and so forth. Yet, these organisations hold capital greater many large businesses hold, when they build and use some of the most beautiful, valuable historical building which exist, when they hold art treasures greater than many national galleries and have revenue and cash flows many banks would struggle to come close to, but we pay them more per student at the schools they operate than we are able to pay for children in the public system.
It is absolutely mind blowingly crazy that the letter the Archbishop sent out to apparently all students within the Tasmanian Catholic Schools system can be excused. It reinforces the very prejudices which have been used to criminalise people for being ‘different’, for not to locking themselves in ‘closets’, for not wearing the mask of being ’normal’. But what really grates the very organisation he represents has a record of appalling behaviour when it comes to addressing those very issues within the church he leads, among the clergy he and his organisation have protected from the legal sanctions they should have faced for the crimes committed against innocent children.
I really think we need to address out concerns to our parliamentary representatives before the Religious Discrimination bill resurfaces for a vote.
And we need to address the funding of these organisations which demand taxpayer funding for undermining the basic human rights we have written into law over the past thirty or so years, the legal right to safe abortions, the legal right to be who we are in our sexual self-definition, the legal right to determine that when our end of life suffering becomes unbearable (a friend recently passed, having gone through the legal process to end life when she could no longer endure her pain. Although she did not use the process, she found comfort in having signed, so she had a measure of control over how her passing could be).
We need to urge our representatives to reject that bill, to not wind the clock back to a time when religions suppressed human rights, criminalised those who for no fault of their own were different.
We need to deny funding to schools which do not uphold the human rights we have fought for and have enshrined in our laws.
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