Archbishop of Sydney

Remarks to the Premier’s Reception for Cardinal Pell

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
8 December 2003

Mr Premier, Chief Justice, Your Eminence, Bishops, Students from Catholic Schools, friends all.
It is a signal honour to be appointed a cardinal of the Catholic Church and I am deeply grateful for the public reception you offer to me as Premier to mark this occasion. Sydney-siders are used to having a cardinal as Catholic archbishop, and this is as it should be given the unique place of Sydney in the Australian story and the Catholic story in Australia.
Catholic journalists and theologians today sometimes speak of the importance of inculturation, of ensuring that Catholic faith and practice belong integrally within the local society and culture. This does not seem to me to be too difficult, occurring almost by osmosis over the generations. Certainly it has been largely achieved here in Australia, where the Catholic community is one prominent strand, sometimes rough and knotty, in an increasingly colourful tapestry.
Catholics now belong to the mainstream, occasionally even accused of belonging to "the establishment". The fact that every Australian now feels free to criticise us, especially those critics with little or no expertise or even interest in religion, is a sure sign that we belong, are part of the Aussie family; entitled to a fair go, but also entitled to take "our share of stick".
However it does not seem to me to be too remarkable that Catholic life is expressed differently in Australia and the Philippines, in Rome or Poland or Brazil.
Much more striking are the claims that the core teachings of Christ, expressed in the apostolic tradition, have been preserved substantially intact over 2000 years and that the Catholic Church remains one and united as well as universal, open to all.
The Pope as successor of St. Peter is integral to this and the cardinals, from the Latin word cardo for hinge, as advisers to the Holy Father and officials of the Church of Rome also are significant agents for unity in the Catholic communion. Since 1179 the cardinals have elected the popes.
We believe as Catholics that the papacy was instituted by Christ. Some dispute this, but the Papacy remains a vital historical force, of immense practical and symbolic importance, and the College of Cardinals is intimately linked to the successor of Peter, to this institution.
However my appointment as cardinal also acknowledges the contribution of Catholics to Australia. Catholics, and indeed all Christians, must continue to be one of the streams of living water nourishing the expanses of the Australian heartland. I commit myself once again to continue working to maintain and deepen our public service.
I believe that the Judaeo-Christian tradition will continue to make a unique contribution to democratic life in Australia.
In this I follow the brilliant Frenchman of about a couple of hundred years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote so perceptively of the French Revolution and democracy in North America.
De Tocqueville believed that the premises of secularism do not sustain democracy but undermine it, encouraging a lowering of personal taste and public standards, as well as materialism and moral relativism. The end of this would be, he claimed, a new soft despotism, imprisonment by a thousand silken threads.
Against this the Judaeo-Christian tradition offers a belief in the inherent dignity of each person, made in God's likeness; a belief in the equality of all humans in God's sight, whatever their natural inequalities; and a belief in the centrality of liberty in the purposes of the one true God for the cosmos.
Our religion should strengthen and correct morals and manners, not so much by its contributions to law making, as by its influence on the family and in the home, where stable morals and good order remain the basis of civilized life.
Moral clarity is a great gain, especially in times of crisis, and the Jewish-Christian concepts of God and especially human nature are indispensable helps to daily living.
Faith also goes beyond a morality of mere reason by introducing the motion of immortality, life after death, whose quality will be decided by a personal and undeceivable Judge.
Not everyone can accept the premises, the truth claims, which underlie these benefits, but 80% of Australians believe in God and 68% say they are Christians.
De Tocqueville wrote that the apparently opposed tendencies of the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom do not harm one another but "work in harmony and seem to lend mutual support." "Religion regards civil liberty as a noble exercise of men's faculties..."
On the other hand "Freedom sees religion as the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its rights".
Mr Premier, as a loyal if occasionally vocal Australian, I wish you and your government well as you work for the benefit of all in New South Wales; I acknowledge the vital contribution of all our politicians on both sides, of all our leaders in the many branches of civic life and I thank you again for the honour you have paid me and my Church this evening.