Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Homilies 2003 > Article	Printable Version

Consecration of Fr Julian Porteous & Fr Anthony Fisher OP

St Mary's Cathedral
Lk 22. 24-30, 2 Cor. 4. 1-2.5-7, Jeremiah 1. 4-9

By + George Pell
ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY
3 September 2003

The ordination of a priest is always a happy occasion. Years of preparation and testing flower into the prospect of a life-time of service. The consecration of bishops produces different reasons for rejoicing. The friends and parishioners of the bishops-elect rejoice that their years of hard work have been recognised. They pray that the leadership of the Church is being entrusted to wise hands as the wheel of apostolic succession turns slowly and inevitably into the future.

I welcome Fathers Porteous and Fisher into the college of bishops, united around the successor of St. Peter, Pope John Paul II. They have both been at the head of life-giving institutions, the Good Shepherd Seminary and the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family. They are both Sydney men, baptised Catholic priests. Otherwise there are significant differences. One, a priest of Sydney archdiocese, refused the chance of further study after ordination to continue working in a parish and has been involved with the New Communities which have sprung up unbidden in the Church since Vatican Two. The other belongs to a medieval order of preachers, who has devoted much of his life to study and teaching. In different ways they have both struggled for years to make God’s light shine in the darkness; have preached Jesus Christ, not themselves, in season and out of season and shown themselves to be slaves for Christ’s sake as Paul recommended.

Six weeks ago when their appointments by the Holy Father were announced there was a flurry of local press comment, unusual even by contemporary standards, for its misunderstandings and misrepresentation.

One account announced them as new archbishops. Another account spoke of shock, worst nightmares and an atmosphere of tyranny; then worked up to a crescendo, where, almost breathless with dismay, it was announced that one of the appointees was opposed to contraception, abortion and euthanasia. Actually the situation is worse, because both bishops-elect hold these positions. In fact these truths express official Catholic teaching, taught by all bishops in communion with Rome and are not personal idiosyncrasies held only by Wahhabi Catholics.

We celebrate this ordination on the feast of St. Gregory the Great, Pope Gregory the First, who died in 604 A.D. From a rich senatorial family of Rome, possibly even the grandson of Pope Felix III (the clergy were then allowed to marry), Gregory entered the civil service and became prefect of Rome. They were evil and disturbed times. Even the centre of empire at Constantinople was embattled while Western Europe was regularly overrun by “barbarians” such as the Lombards. At the death of his father Gregory became a monk and turned the family home into a monastery. At different times he was one of the 7 deacons of Rome and Abbot of his monastery.

He then served as papal legate (apocrisarius) at the Imperial Court in Constantinople, before election to the See of Rome in 590.

In 591 he wrote his classic work on the duties of bishops “Liber Regulae Pastoralis”. His experiences entitled him to recommend that an office holder should have learnt the required virtues, such as humility, before he assumes office (part 1.c9). I am not sure how often this is achieved.

The work itself was soon translated into Greek by Anastasius the Patriarch of Antioch; the Roman missionary Augustine whom Gregory sent to convert England took it with him where three hundred years later Alfred the Great (+ 899), Kind of Wessex, who defeated the Danes, had it paraphrased into West Saxon, sending a copy to each bishop in his kingdom. In ninth century France Charlemagne the first Holy Roman Emperor ordered that each bishop receive a copy during his consecration ceremony.

Many images have been used over the years to bring together the personal inadequacies of all bishops on the one hand and the high sacramental dignity, the mightily important works of service bishops must perform on the other; to capture the competing imperatives in the first reading from Jeremiah; the duty to be a prophet to the nations, speaking God’s word and the realisation of personal inadequacy, inexperience and lack of eloquence. Cardinal Ratzinger quotes St. Augustine meditating on Psalm 72, and comparing his work as a rural bishop in Hippo to that of a beast of burden, an ox. (Milestones. Memoirs 1927-1977. pp154-6). The well known Cardinal Sin of Manila has often publicly compared himself to the donkey Our Lord rode on his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. St. Gregory thought that God leaves rulers imperfect so they will not inflate their own importance, not glory in their performances. He himself felt like a poor quality painter portraying a handsome man (part 4).

The Bishop aspires to be a conduit, an open channel for the light and grace of the Son of God to flow through his works of sacrament, word and service. He aims neither to distort, nor to hinder this building up of the Body of Christ.

Many Australians think of the Catholic Church as a source of many things: nearly everything in fact except genuine religion; worship, prayer and spiritual wisdom. For too many their instinct is to look elsewhere, e.g. to New Age trickery or Asia for such qualities.

Gregory was disconcertingly blunt about the bishop’s obligations here. A man who is caught up in the darkness of everyday life and blind to the light of contemplation should not be a bishop. A person who is not in good standing with God can make the situation worse through his intercession (part 1c 10-11) he claimed.

The Second Vatican Council describes the first duty of the good shepherd, bishop and priest, as teaching the good news of Jesus Christ.

Gregory understood this is no easy task and listed the characteristics of forty different types of person who had to be reached in different ways. He was a splendid psychologist.

Our task in this age of change, technology and advertising is to explain the apostolic tradition to an Australian society which yearns for the consolations of religion but is hesitant or hostile to restraint and sacrifice: to a society which still turns to the Church at times of tragedy and even at Christmas, but which is also partly tone-deaf to the call of the Spirit.

Bishops, priests and teachers also have to compete against an influential minority which either denies God’s existence or denies the need for God if He happens to exist. With this cast of mind there is no possibility of truth, much less of revelation; certainly no need for redemption.

For them, all communities, and especially institutions, are reduced to exercises in power politics. Teaching is propaganda to protect the power brokers. The Church is not seen as a means to eternal life; the sacraments are not seen as worship of the Transcendent One, not seen as channels of spiritual energy for the worshippers, but as superstitions at best, or at worst as cynical and pretentious pageants.

None of this is entirely new, but there are contemporary particularities. Christian confidence has been weakened by the spread of irreligion, the decline of regular worship and clerical scandals. Pope Gregory lived in a more confident Catholic age, despite its political turmoil. While he acknowledged that his listeners were like a harp which had to be played correctly (part III prologue) he also warned that the bishop would be assailed by a lust for pleasing people; by a desire to put a cushion under every elbow (part 2. c8). This was as objectionable to him as excessively rigid censures.

Cardinal Avery Dulles put the contemporary question very well. “In the face of dissent it might seem that the Magisterium should mute its voice. Does it not weaken its own authority when it teaches doctrines that many practising Catholics will predictably reject?”

His reply is uncompromising and encouraging to bishops. The Magisterium “would forfeit all credibility if it taught only what people wanted to hear. The first and indispensable task is to bear witness to the deposit of faith”. (America 178/21. 1998 p.16).

Pope Gregory believed that “the government of souls is the art of arts”. Isn’t it true that man’s thoughts, sinful or mistaken, are more hidden than the sores in our bowels, he wrote. He laments how often spiritually ignorant men profess to be physicians of the human heart. The idiom is not ours, and the language is self-confidently hierarchical. But all in all there is an important kernel of truth here. Even in the most healthy religious organisation leadership is not superfluous and incompetent leaders can cause damage more easily than good leaders can encourage growth.

Every leader needs a clear set of beliefs; to know the direction in which he is heading. So does the bishop. Without these a bishop cannot inspire hope, encourage prayer, service, personal and community initiatives. In this way the young especially, but also outsiders as well as regular parishioners will realise that the Church community is serious about its supernatural claims and hard at work. Something good is happening. Community confidence and a sense of identity are essential foundations for enduring personal conversion; a necessary protection for the flame of faith. May our new bishops be leaders in this mould.

I ask you tonight (and for once I feel this is a genuinely superfluous request) to pray for our new bishops, that they may be worthy successors of the apostles, true shepherds knowing and loving their priests and people, faithful stewards of those mysteries which carry us to judgement in eternity and, above all, bishops who practise the lesson outlined in the gospel text they have chosen tonight from St. Luke; that Christ Our Lord came among us as one who serves and we, all of us, are to do likewise.