A well-known Australian Catholic priest is under investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for his book, Papal Power. In this article he criticises the procedures and approach of the Roman congregation. AFTER the publication of my book Papal Power early last year, I joked, perhaps a little defensively, that I would soon be selling tickets for reserved seats at my burning. I suggested the venue should be the Melbourne cricket ground during lunch in the England-Australia test series. I could not, of course, resist adding a prediction as to who might actually win the ashes.

It still came as a nasty surprise to me early this year when a letter arrived from Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It was forwarded to me by Fr Michael Curran, the superior general of my order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Curran was told by the CDF that Papal Power contained certain doctrinal problems and Bertone asked him to get me to provide the needed clarifications for submission to the judgement of this congregation. Attached were two-and-a-half pages of anonymous Observations.

There was no reference in Bertone?s letter to the Regulations for Doctrinal Examination issued on 29 June 1997 by the CDF, and now, more than seven months later, I have still not been told what stage my book has reached in the process.

In fact, not a single word has been addressed directly to me by the CDF, despite the fact that I have written to them and sent a 10-page response to the Observations. I am tempted to think this is an attempt to string out the process in order to wear me down.

I suppose I should not have been surprised by the CDF?s interest in the book. I have subsequently learned that even the title Papal Power caused offence in Rome, though this is odd given that the word potestas constantly recurs in the papal vocabulary from the Middle Ages onward. Apparently these days they prefer to talk about papal authority. Admittedly, however, my book could hardly have been construed as a primer on how to win friends and influence people in the Vatican, seeing that it contains such comments as that the CDF is irreformable and therefore should be abolished, having no place in the contemporary Church.

Of course, the book was much more than a criticism of the CDF. It was subtitled A proposal for change in Catholicism?s third millennium, and that is what it is really about. It is an attempt to use both tradition and church history to argue that papal leadership in the future should be more concerned with service to the Church than with power over it. It proposed a model of how this might work, and discussed how faithful Catholics could participate in church ministry and decision-making.

But it was not these issues that the Observations focused on. The document says I imply that a true and binding revelation does not exist, that I appear to deny the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, suggesting a reunion of Christians characterised by indifferentism. It also says that I appear to reject papal primacy, that I have a more than nebulous concept of tradition, and that I fail to understand the true harm caused by Modernism. Finally, it said that I hold an erroneous concept of infallibility inasmuch as I only conceive of it in its ex cathedra manner, thus excluding the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium.

After I received the letter and Observations I wrote to Bertone direct, informing him that I intended to make the whole investigation public by putting out a press release and making all relevant documents available to the media and posting them on the Internet.

Given that my ministry since the early 1980s had been in radio and television with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, this was a perfectly natural thing to do. My book was a public document, and criticism of it ought to be debated in public. My view has always been that the media provides a protection from the arbitrary exercise of power, whether ecclesiastical or civil.

The Observations are actually quite extraordinary, in the sense that the consultor does not seem to have read the whole book carefully. Except on the issue of the ordinary magisterium, the criticisms are actually inferences and conclusions drawn by the consultor from the book, rather than clear statements of mine which have been found to contain specific doctrinal problems.

Take the key issue of primacy, for instance. The consultor says that the author appears to reject papal primacy. Note that he says appears to reject. But you could only say this if you had not fully read the book. For example, I say unequivocally on page 150: The Petrine text is clear that the leadership of the Church was conferred on Peter and it is also demonstrable that there was a strong early tradition of identifying the Bishop of Rome with Peter. I express agreement with Fr J.M.R. Tillard, who points out that the notion of Petrine succession is far more significant than is generally recognised today. He argues that there is almost a sacramental sense in which Peter lives on in his see of Rome. I do not know how much clearer you can get.

Perhaps the key problem lurking behind the whole issue is that the CDF consultor and I emerge from different theological worlds. I am a Catholic believer, indeed a passionate one, but for me faith is always lived out in the context of history. Thus my view is that our theological comprehensions are always determined and limited by the constraints of language, culture and human experience.

But the CDF consultor uses a theological perspective in which faith is seen in a more normative, static sense. He proceeds from the assumption that the profound mysteries at the core of the faith can be clearly expressed within a specific theological tradition, and that within that context the development of doctrine, inasmuch as this occurs, evolves through an almost logical process. There is a kind of timelessness about it all. Understanding this difference of approach helps to explain much of the contemporary mutual incomprehension between the Vatican and Anglo-American Catholics and theologians.

I remain ignorant of who it was who delated my book to Rome. Subsequent events have suggested that one or other of the Australian bishops may have played a role. Certainly Archbishop George Pell, recently appointed to Melbourne, who is also a member of the CDF, has publicly said that I have a case to answer. Of course, Archbishop Pell may be my stoutest defender at the CDF. But because the process protects accusers, it breeds suspicion.

OVER the last six months I have realised that the treatment of the Sri Lankan theologian Fr Tissa Balasuriya was only the most spectacular attempt to muzzle a Catholic writer. I have learned of more and more people being investigated by the CDF. Most are sisters and priests, but there are also some laity. Among these are some of the most creative and ministerially committed people in the Church. The psychological and human consequences can be devastating, especially if their support structures, usually religious orders or dioceses, capitulate to the CDF. But worse than this is the poisonous atmosphere created in the Church.

Reactionary Catholics now know that they can delate theologians, lay teachers, priests, sisters and even bishops with impunity. This atmosphere of suspicion will be strengthened by the recent apostolic letter Ad Tuendam Fidem (For the Defence of the Faith) and the confusing commentary by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It is clearly a move to muzzle dissent, no matter what gloss is put on it by officials such as Archbishop Bertone, who said the Pope was not trying to put the brakes on theological discussion.

The only strategies that I have found to deal with the CDF are, first, communication and publicity, and, secondly, a simple refusal to be fazed by it all. I guess I am lucky, because I have close and continuing connections with the Australian media. But others who are under investigation can still communicate with each other and the wider church community if they are prepared to speak out. While the CDF processes remain secret, the person under scrutiny is very vulnerable.

One result of letting the Catholic community know about an investigation is the marvellous support that is forthcoming from right across the spectrum of church membership. I have had literally hundreds of letters of support from bishops, clergy, religious and above all, lay people. I have never felt so much part of the Church.

Even if the ultimate sanction of excommunication were applied, I know that I would still belong to the Catholic community, because the people who really constitute the Church have not hesitated to tell me so.

That is why we should refuse to be upset by the unfortunate goings-on that often characterise the end of a long papacy. For at heart the Catholic doctrine of reception somehow acknowledges that it is the congregation of the faithful which is the ultimate norm and judge of all that is truly Catholic. Without the consent and participation of the people, where would the Pope and the hierarchy be?

Back to homepage