Archbishop of Sydney

Red Mass 2007

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Jer 31:31-4; Cor 3:1-6; Jn 14:15-21

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
29/1/2007

By coincidence as I was preparing this sermon I read a speech Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in Syria probably delivered in July 336, in the new city of Constantinople, to commemorate thirty years of rule by the Roman Emperor Constantine; he who stopped the persecutions and granted toleration to the Christians in 313 after nearly three hundred years of intermittent, but increasingly vicious persecutions.  Eusebius himself had been jailed in the persecution of Diocletian.

What surprised me was that Eusebius began this tribute by describing the one true God and the role of the Word or Reason of God (Logos), who is Jesus Christ.  He follows this theme throughout, comparing God as Ruler of the cosmos with the Emperor ruling his Empire.  Eusebius was not a democrat or republican because just as there was one God so there should be one ruler!

The comparison is flattering of course for the emperor, but the Godly attributes and activities required of him are strict and demanding, very different from the antics of the ancient gods and the cruelty and hedonism of many earlier emperors.

Today we do not instinctively start with God and then systematically spell out the consequences for daily life of the Judaeo-Christian understanding of God.  But if we are logical Christians, we do have a particular approach to history and life.  There does exist a Judaeo-Christian (and therefore monotheist) cast of mind, which follows from our understanding of God.

The God we follow is usefully delineated in today’s readings.

God is personal; indeed He is more than a person, not merely because we speak of the three Persons of the Trinity, but because God is infinitely more capable of those activities which define a person, separating persons from animals and blind physical forces.  The Creator God is rational and reasonable, who knows, and decides, and who loves.  So the psalmist speaks of God as kind and merciful, full of compassion and love, who forgives our sins and redeems us from the grave.

God loves his children, refuses to let them become orphans and sets up a covenant, a special relationship with a group he constitutes as especially His own.  The Greek and Roman Gods of mythology had no interest in human behaviour, but the one true God is involved in our lives and keen that we follow his ways, that we love one another in community.

The Spirit of the Living God writes in our hearts, producing life and love, which needs to be focused, channelled and protected by laws and commandments.  The link is quite explicit in today’s passage from John’s gospel because the Spirit of Truth insists that if we love as we should, we must keep the commandments.

In other words the traditional Christian understanding is that there is a natural moral law for human activities to be discerned by reason which maximises human flourishing when it is followed.  Oddly this is often rejected today by many of the same people who are most insistent that we respect the laws of physical nature, often paying such laws an exaggerated and even superstitious reverence in their ecological prognostications on the future.  But that is another story.

Therefore an important divide today is between those who work to discern the moral truths in created reality i.e. moral realist, often theists and those who believe that our higher form of animal life is to be shaped and improved in any ways the majority or the more powerful forces in society see fit.  This explains why there is no consensus on the foundations of human rights, why human rights arguments are used both to destroy and defend human life.  So too there are very different notions of conscience at work, even in the Christian communities and different concepts of the person; as individual members of different collectives or individuals with sovereign powers, possessing a sphere of autonomy, where the aspirations for personal happiness compete with, and often prevail over the rights of others.  Struggles over the definition of the family are an example of these different contending forces.

In 2004 Professor Yves Lequette gave a provocative and pessimistic lecture at the Sorbonne celebrating the Bicentenary of the French Civil Code.  Quoting Henri Battifol he claimed that “menageries will never make a society”, because “there can no be viable society in a meeting of egos”.

He grimly predicted that society will become more and more like a procession of loners worshipping only two values, money and hedonism, profit and pleasure.  “Without sufficiently robust family or political ties” he warned again that society will become “a site of unending confrontation between rival desires”.

I believe similar forces are at work here in Australia.  For me the questions are rather how far we are down this track and what can be done to explain and defend the traditional bases of community life, to defend the consequences of Judaeo-Christian monotheism.

Lawyers have an extremely powerful position in Australia and not merely because of your different roles in administering justice.  Lawyers also contribute mightily to public debate and the forming of public opinion; in the framing of laws and in ensuring that a proper separation of powers continues.  Lawyers are also prominent in every level of government.  Your vocation is crucially important.

If we believe in God as Creator, Lawgiver and Covenant Maker (and his Son as our Redeemer) this has important consequences for public life.  I ask you to ponder these consequences, defend and develop them, not because they are religious truths but because they are rational, useful for persons and beneficial for society.

The Spirit of the Living God will always continue to give life to individuals and societies, when the Spirit can be found, identified and sometimes codified and protected.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.