Sounds like a stupid takeover by pro-abortion ideologues in Canberra’s state government. It’s a wonder the Federal government cannot intervene to overturn it.
To understand how things got to such a ‘point of no return’ we need to first critically examine one major current area of concern and then follow on from that with a related historical other, one which no doubt preceeded the closure of Church inclusivity or participation in this more current area.
If institutions like the healthcare system become in the habit of inclusively adopting so-called “culturally sensitive protocols” for certain sectors of society, why can’t they follow through in this manner towards other equally relevant social sectors such as those which are more rudimentarily faith-based? Surely, if they truly believe in the ethos of “cultural competency”, this ought to apply all across the board and be inclusive of sensitivity to a diversity of cultures and faiths which function according to time-honoured traditions and value-systems that are at one and the same time similar in some ways to each other but ethically different in some vital areas to those of secular society or the general public. And here I’m talking about the necessity of putting into place legislative protocols and procedures to protect those traditions which are life-honouring rather than those which detract from upholding the sacred value of life.
This current debacle is in some ways the fault of some within the Church in the regards to the poor decision-making of some of its members, i.e., those who headed up these hospitals and other health care institutions and facilities in times past.
The problem came not so much with opening up the care provision side of things to laity but doing this recklessly and by that I mean they opened it up to atheists in such a way as to let these unbelieving ones into the more decision-making roles of these establishments, and in so doing, this enabled the secular interests of these unbelievers to prevail and have greater saying and staying power over that of spiritually-focused interests. And furthermore, the problem we see has absolutely nothing to do with being ecumenical and opening the active participatory life of the hospitals and other health-care centres to Protestants or those of other faiths, for ecumenism is healthy, but inviting the spirit of the world in on the game isn’t.
Firstly, the nuns and priests whose vocational mainstay this was ought not to have exited the field either in droves or in dribs & drabs. Secondly, these nuns & priests ought not to have divested themselves of their habits, their religious attire – on the job. The reasons for them doing this were not so much practical as they were ones of them wanting to look “with it”, “with the times” in the eyes of the world. Hence their dedication to the upholding of the sacred tradition and oath of this tradition, which is not to cause harm but to help and to heal, became lost in the quagmire of becoming adaptational to the changing whims, fashions, trends, and ultimately values of “the times”. This has invited in unwittingly an ogre into the sacred space of giving succour to those suffering in both body and soul. With the increased influx of secular nurses and specialists into these Catholic health care domains, these places have become less about genuine care and healing and instead more about money, purse-strings, and pandying to the next so-called politically correct fad.
And since a huge proportion of Catholic and even other faith-based health-care service delivery had been parcelled off to secular interests bit by bit, here & there over quite a lengthy trajectory of years, the traditional faith foundations of these institutions have become way less rock-solid to the point where these foundations are just about giving way, caving in from beneath them on account of this. Which is also why not only do we see corporate and state take-overs abound but we also, and perhaps ironically, see the rising of a newly perspectivized outlook in the secular arena that embraces cultural inclusivity but ironically again, and everso strangely, this seems to exclude the cultural ethoses inherent in traditional faith-based cultures or institutions. For example, there is much talk in the news and in civil society generally of the need to be culturally sensitive or competent when it comes to ensuring that the participation of Aboriginal Australia is fully integrated into the public life of this country. And yes, by all means, I get why we need this. This is imperative to being true to the building of social cohesion between different peoples. That said, cultural sensitivity and competency needs to be shown across the great diversity of depth and breadth that exists nation-wide so long as it comes from a spirit of good-will in every instance, so long as it honours only those values of tradition and faith which are universally beneficent, meaning that they do the most good for all whom they impact, and this needs to include the unborn as well as the recognition of the inalienable contribution of elders past and present to the positive re-creation of good-will values in our society at large.
And so that’s how it needs to be exacted at a societal level. Back to our intra-Church relations in this area. Well, this is where a huge refurbishment is needed to come from within at the behest of this huge shake-up. It’s not happening for nothing you know! It’s happening precisely because God is permitting it to happen yes, on one level, but on another more intricate level, He is making certain things happen so as to propel the Church to harken once more and listen ever more closely to His guidence instead of “yes sir”-ing & “no sir”-ing to the fickle whims and fancies of the secular speakers and spruikers, movers and shakers.
If you have come across a strange looking term recently called restorationism and wondered if it could be good or bad – just think of what the word restore actually means? Personally, I do not think the idea of restoring the interior life of the Church is a bad thing. Actually, if anything, it is something which right now she needs most. A deep, saturation in a contemplative Dark Night, as St John of the Cross would put it. This can only do much good and no harm. Because while as Pope Francis is keen to say that progress is inevitable, we must, as the people of God be careful not to be pulled willy-nilly this way and that along with the undercurrents of progress. There is some progress which is good but other kinds of progress which are not so good and can even be bad. The key, as Pope Francis also points out, to distinguishing the good from the bad here, is discernment. And for each and every person, the way to developing a keen eye and ear for healthy discernment is spending quality time interiorly conversing with the Lord. Without this, we remain stuck on an autopilot of daily activities and preoccupations, and while some are good and necessary, a great many are made up of distractions and useless filler which immerses us exclusively in the Spirit-less life of worldly measures for this and that.
More often than not the latter breadth of activities and preoccupations that I labelled devoid of the Spirit are those which take our attention so that we become brazenly critical about another’s performance thereby using that to puff ourselves up to the point we end up skyting about our own abilities, successes, and strengths to others at the expense of the morale of that one/s we compared ourselves unfairly to as being a “cut above them” because we scored better marks than them on a school examination or assignment or received a work promotion in place of this other one because we were quicker than they or some other egotistical statistic we love to cite to impress our family members or friends. The autopiloted secular life comprises many such traps. I know them only too well as I have been down that road before. But sadly, way too many are stuck in this way of life which they do not realize is both spiritually unhealthy for them personally but also adds to the collective secularization of intra-Church life if not kept in check. Hence it is needful here to talk about this and be frank about the fact that the singer-songwriter Paul Kelly made no mistake when he says in the lyrics to one of his most popularly loved ditties From Little Things Big Things Grow. And we can see the implications of these words in both their positive and negative senses. This catch-cry alerts us to the need to be hopeful when our small yet numerous efforts at fostering positive change in an area seem to be stalling and not making any sure progress and yet at one and the same time, it beckons us to be precautionary about certain things in our own interpersonal ways of relating that we may habitually overlook as significant faultlines because if these remain unheeded, such faultlines can become serious fissures in the quality of our spiritual growth and that of the collective integrity of Church life since each single contribution to something adds up to a cumulative result.
The lesson here is the need for constant interior self-examination. This is imperative and vastly different from the erroneous self-loathing of overscrupulosity, although one may need to unwittingly traverse that path to learn by experience to know the difference between these two very different and conflicting modes of looking at one’s life. I know also that for my own personal journey God thought it necessary I travel through that way – to expiate my tendency to be overscrupulous in some areas was a must for me to grow into a more balanced perception of how I respond and ought to respond to life’s various scenarios with its myriad of challenges and choices.
So you may be asking right now, what has interior self-examination got to do with the take-over of Calvary hospital by Canberra’s state government? Actually, insofar as the interior life of the Church is concerned, it has a great deal to do with why this take-over was able to happen. You see, the issues of personal witness and accountability are incredibly influential in the public domain, more than what meets the eye. Where there is a serious lack of accountability within the interior and moral life of a person, the repercussions this has on the collective life of the groups and organizations that person engages with is enormously deletarious irrespective of whether the person is aware of it or cares about it for that matter. And the same thing, only this time on an inversely proportionate scale, goes for someone who is diligent in regards to their moral, spiritual, (and stemming from this), interrelational accountability in their personal life. That is why when we see the results the clerical abuse crisis has wrought, we know that a great deal of this has been caused by a significant lack of not only protocols and centres of arbitration operative within the Church in order for clergy to be accountable and reportable to but a careless and in some grave instances, a callous oversight of personal spiritual rigour on the part of the clerics involved in these despicable crimes. And that is precisely why all pastors ought to have compulsory ongoing spiritual formation and inclusive with this needs to be the mandatory acquisition of both professional psychological and counselling training which sees them equipped interiorly and pragmatically for the vital work of their apostolic and missional endeavours.
Lastly to the overhaul needed in the Catholic health care system. Yes! A restoration of the former pattern of religious involvement in this area is ardently needed. The work is way too important to be left to the incompetency of the world. While no doubt, there are positive contributors to the wellbeing of the Catholic health system from outside the Church, she cannot afford to neglect her duty of safeguarding the charism of the hospitallers within the realm of her sacred tradition. And as for the laity involved in such work, like their clerical and religious brothers and sisters, they need to have ongoing faith formation as part of their work in the health care system. It’s no good them merely obtaining a degree from an institution that’s nominally Catholic and that’s all there is to their qualification insofar as the spiritual calibre of this qualification is concerned. Of course the quality of the pragmatic skillsets that these people need to deliver the types of critical care necessary is imperative. But alongside and concomittant with these vital skillsets are spiritual tools of enrichment and sustenance, tools which will help them personally grow into the wellsprings of faith-life witness they are supposed to be, and not only for themselves and their families and friends but of utmost importance in light of their charism and work, for the sake of the patients whom they encounter in their daily routines and the miscellaneous others with whom they engage in the nitty gritty of their vocational life.
Keywords: Cultural Competency, Ecumenism, Sacred Tradition, Politically Correct, restorationism, discernment, Paul Kelly, Hospitallers
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