Ecclesial watchdogs snapping in
Australia
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff
Catholic theology understands confession as a means to
reconciliation, but in Australia a tumultuous national debate over confession
has left many Catholics feeling anything but reconciled to the church or to one
another.
While the details may be specific to Australia, the underlying
issues -- the ability of local churches to craft their own pastoral practices,
and the role of self-appointed ecclesial watchdogs -- have a wider
resonance.
In recent months the Vatican has moved to end use of the
third rite of reconciliation, a communal form of confession widely
popular in Australia. Most observers believe the crackdown was triggered by the
Australian Catholics Advocacy Centre, a lay group that approaches church
disputes like lawsuits -- amassing evidence, framing arguments in terms of
canon law and filing requests for action with church authorities.
The groups founder says he is in contact with American
Catholics interested in copying his methods.
The conflict has its roots in 1973, when the Vatican approved
three new rites for confession. The first is individual; the second is a group
service leading to individual confession; and the third is a group service
ending in a general absolution. The third rite is reserved for cases of
grave necessity, a phrase Rome has interpreted over the years in an
increasingly narrow fashion.
Some conservative Catholics have long complained that
misuse of general absolution is part of a pattern of disregard for
liturgical rules in the post-Vatican II church.
Sources in Australia -- a country of 18 million with 5 million
Catholics -- say the third rite has nevertheless been broadly used there,
especially during Advent and Lent.
They feel at home
[People] fill the church, sometimes more so than for
Mass, said Fr. Peter Robinson, pastor of St. Martin of Tours parish in
suburban Melbourne. They feel at home, they feel forgiven, they feel as
if they have loved their God more than yesterday. Thats the Australian
scene.
Were facing the most serious crisis in the Australian
church ever, Robinson told NCR in a telephone interview.
Years of pastoral work are being destroyed overnight.
Another pastor who asked not to be identified told NCR that
in his experience, One-on-one confession was dead by 1974. Theres
no forcing people back into the box.
Paul Brazier, a Sydney lawyer and founder of the Catholics
Advocacy Centre, says claims that the third rite works miss the
point. It doesnt work, because the sacrament is invalid under canon
law, he said.
The third rite may work in the sense of everybody feeling
happy-happy and slapping each other on the back, he said. But
thats not what the Catholic church is all about.
Brazier spoke to NCR from San Francisco, at the end of a
series of meetings with Catholic activists in the United States.
Some Australians believe an alarming precedent has been set, given
the near-universal impression that Braziers group got what it wanted from
Rome.
Do you really want a situation where every time a Catholic
feels aggrieved, they hire a barrister and start compiling dossiers? said
Sacred Heart Fr. Paul Collins, an Australian broadcaster and church historian.
Collins book Papal Power is under investigation by Rome.
Though theres no official link between the Vatican action
and the Advocacy Centres efforts, it was in December 1998 -- a few months
after the bulk of Braziers data went to Rome -- that a joint statement
from curial officials and 15 of Australias 39 bishops called for, among
other things, a halt to third-rite confessions (NCR, Dec. 25, 1998).
A Dec. 14 letter to the Australian bishops from John Paul II
reiterated the ban.
The most strident language came in a March 19 letter from the
Congregation for Divine Worship, which warned that misuse of the third rite is
punishable in accordance with the sacred canons.
Braziers campaign to collect evidence of illicit third-rite
celebrations was remarkably systematic. The group published a detailed
four-page witness observation form for use at penance services in
parishes across the country. Members kept detailed notes during the services
and later swore out notarized statements, which Brazier included in dossiers
sent to bishops, and in some cases to Rome.
Some priests objected to having witnesses present.
Twice, priests scuffled with witnesses who refused to identify themselves or to
surrender their forms -- altercations Brazier says were
stage-managed.
Robinson expressed his frustration differently, actually burning
the forms during a Holy Week penance service, along with a letter asking him to
report on other priests. Media reports say the action met with whoops of
applause in his congregation.
They were as angry at these bastards as I was,
Robinson said. Australians just cant stand spies and dobbers
-- the latter term being an idiom roughly equivalent to
back-stabbers.
After what many say was a contentious national meeting, the
countrys bishops issued an April 14 letter addressed to all Catholics.
Signed by Cardinal Edward Clancy of Sydney, the letter says they must abide by
the popes instructions.
The Clancy letter is a tragedy, Collins said.
Its such a complete failure of leadership. It simply refuses to
listen to the experience of people and takes the authority of people who
dont know what theyre talking about.
Despite the statement, Archbishop Leonard Faulkner of the Adelaide
diocese said the third rite can continue there for now because of a
pre-existing arrangement with the Vatican. Archbishop John Bathersby of
Brisbane said the decision doesnt prevent Catholics from explaining to
Rome why they support general absolution.
The April 14 letter also contains an indirect rebuke of the
Advocacy Centre: Some groups have initiated a deliberate and intrusive
surveillance of clergy and liturgical celebrations, it said. While
Catholics have a right to be heard, such tactics are not acceptable to most
Australians.
Compromise language
Brazier dismissed the criticism, telling NCR that
sympathetic bishops told him the language was part of a compromise to secure
consent to ending general absolution.
Brazier claims the third rite is virtually dead in
Australia. Others believe it will endure -- even if priests omit the actual
words of absolution, and hence no sacrament is offered in the strict canonical
sense.
Bernadette Reeders, a member of a lay group called Women and the
Australian Church, told NCR she has already experienced community
penance services that do not include the magic words.
No one was bothered, she said. We knew the
presence of Christ in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Brazier warns that if priests hold communal services giving the
impression of absolution, its tantamount to falsifying the sacrament. In
such a case, he said his group will bring a canonical petition asking for the
removal of the priests faculties.
Some observers predict ideology in this case will give way to
arithmetic. Given the priest shortage, they say, communal penance will
eventually be the only form that makes sense many places.
Brazier declined to identify anyone with whom he met on his
just-concluded American trip, but he serves as an advisor and Australian
contact for two U.S.-based groups: Human Life International, a pro-life group
headquartered in Front Royal, Virginia, and the St. Joseph Foundation, a San
Antonio-based group that also assists laity in bringing complaints under canon
law.
Brazier said Americans he spoke with hope to challenge
liturgical abuses here as well as laxity in Catholic
schooling. He said they mentioned the Los Angeles archdiocese as one possible
place to begin.
I have no plans right now to take the Centre
international, he said. But who knows? If things dont get
moving here, maybe Ill be like Rupert Murdoch and come over and do it
myself.
National Catholic Reporter, May 21,
1999
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