TUI MOTU PUBLICATION of the YEAR Interislands 2016 CELEBRATING 20 YEARS 1997–2017

Australasian Religious Press Association TUI MOTU PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR InterIslands 2016 CELEBRATING 20 YEARS 1997–2017 The Common Good JANE HIGGINS explores dialogue as a way of achieving the common good MIKE RIDDELL asks if we have the will to commit to the common good Independent Catholic Magazine SIMON RANDALL reflects on what he learned in local politics Issue 214 April 2017 $7 PLUS: PETER MATHESON introduces Erasmus CONTENTS FEATURES EDITORIAL Committing to the Common Good . 4 Easter and the Jane Higgins The Geese are Getting Fat . 6 Common Good Mike Riddell A Calling to the Common Good . 8 siMon Randall Beneficial to Me and Those Around . 10 he days, now negotiating their portion of light with BRidget tauMoepeau night, are cooler and shorter than last month. They The Common Good: Muslim Understanding move us indoors earlier and surprise us with that and Practice . .12 T crisp smell of early frost. Soon we’ll welcome the Easter naJiBullaH lafRaie fire, already anticipated in the gold streaking the trees Story of a Little Soul . .14 along the pathways. Joy Cowley As we journey through Lent and Holy Week we relive Erasmus: Iconic Figure with Star Allure . 18 the stations of the cross in the passion story accentuated peteR MatHeson by the suffering in our world. We can arrive at Calvary Mission in the Wake of the Reformation . .20 heavy-hearted and exhausted. Yet it’s through punctuations JoHn RoxBoRogH of courage, like the women standing at the foot of Jesus’ COMMENT cross, mothers protesting their disappeared children, parents Editorial . 2 protecting their families in war zones, emergency services Deeply Shameful and a Matter of Huge Regret . 3 rushing to sites of terrorism, families relocating from rising ann gilRoy seas and children with imprisoned parents supporting one another, that we’re energised towards solidarity, re- COLUMNS furnished with hope in the common good and invited to Constructive Conversations About Politics . 26 recommit in discipleship. The Easter fire is our symbol of the louise CaRR-neil potential for good that our participating with Christ in God’s Calling the Media to Account . 27 mission can realise around us. JaCk deRwin This month we’ve focused the Easter light on the social Crosscurrents . 30 justice principle of the common good — of putting our JiM elliston energy into what is good for all, rather than seeking solely Looking Out and In . 32 self-interest or siphoning resources into a privileged group’s kaaRen MatHias desire. Sieger Köder’s cover painting encourages us to SCRIPTURE imagine a neighbourhood and world where we all belong, are nourished and contribute. It is the kind of Eucharistic An Ecological Reading of Matthew’s Gospel . 22 elaine wainwRigHt celebration that Mike Riddell recommends in which we’re conscious of the community good rather than being Journeying to Emmaus . 24 absorbed in the crowd uncritical of where we are going — katHleen RusHton like geese being farmed for pâté. Joy Cowley gifts us with REFLECTION an imaginative story of a soul meeting Suzanne Aubert — Poem: As Fledglings Dare . 16 showing two different attitudes towards a good life. MaRia CoRdis RiCHey This is just a taste of the feast that is our Easter 214th REVIEWS issue. We thank all our contributors whose reflection, scholarship, spirituality, commitment and artistry has Book and Film Reviews . 28 combined in producing this magazine. LETTERS And there’s a bonus. As a celebration of our 20th year Letters to the Editor . 31 of Tui Motu publishing we are offering a month of daily emails, each containing a gem of inspiration mined from back copies of the magazine. If you and your friends would Cover painting: Das Mahl (The Meal) like to have the Tui Motu Easter Inspiration arriving in your by Seiger Köder. From MISEREROR inbox, sign up on the Tui Motu website or send us an email Lenten veil “Hoffnung den and we’ll sign you up. The Inspirations will begin Aus Gegrerentzen” © MVG on 24th April. Medienproduktion, 1996. As is our custom our last word is our blessing. TuiMotuInterIslands Tuimotumag Website: www.tuimotu.org 2 Tui Motu InterIslands Issue 214 April 2017 DEEPLY SHAMEFUL AND A MATTER OF HUGE REGRET by Ann Gilroy he Australian Royal Commission safeguard children. clinging to its own security.” into Institutional Responses to Francis O’Sullivan, CEO of the Many who went before the TChild Sexual Abuse will present Truth, Justice and Healing Council Commission said that for cultural its final report to the Australian coordinating the Catholic Church’s change it is essential to include women Government in December 2017. It has response to the Royal Commission, in Church governance. spent four years “investigating how summed up the “why” from the Bishop Vincent Long said: “As institutions like schools, churches, evidence: “The most significant a bishop, I need to lead the way in sports clubs and government issues include compulsory celibacy, promoting the Church as acommunio , a organisations have responded to clericalism, inadequate training and discipleship of equals, that emphasises allegations and instances of child formation, denial and secrecy and, very relationships rather than power.” sexual abuse”. During this time the significantly, the Church’s culture. Much Professor Neil Ormerod told the commissioners have heard thousands of the dysfunction, crime and cover-up Commission that he thought that one of stories from men and women of child sexual abuse in the Church, in of the reasons the Archdiocese of whose lives have been blighted by one way or another, can be linked back Adelaide had a low number of child perpetrators of sexual abuse who had to one or more of these issues.” abuse claims (compared to other the responsibility of caring for them The Church leaders described the Dioceses) was because from the 1980s as children. regulations and processes, in individual Archbishop Leonard Faulkner, instead of The Commission has had its final Congregations and Dioceses as well having an auxiliary bishop, introduced hearing of the Catholic Church’s as together as Church, to safeguard a pastoral team of four, including two implication in child sexual abuse. children and for the accountability women, to work with him. The 2017 Films such as Oranges and Sunshine for those preparing for and engaged Catholic Directory suggests that is and Spotlight have published the in ministry with people. As Francis continuing with four Chancellors, three stories of wretchedness, cover- Sullivan said: “Over the past two of them women. ups and the fractured lives in this decades and certainly over the past Professor Ormerod also said matter, so there is no need to say four years the way the Church engages that “effective pastoral supervision more. The revelations have shocked, with children, is unrecognisable from [of priests and others engaged in angered and saddened the Catholic the 1950s, 60s and 70s.” ministry], in line with other professions community especially as the majority Following the Royal Commission who work with emotionally distressed have positive experiences of good it is expected that the work will people, was an effective way to priests and religious in their lives. We continue in light of new research and mitigate abuse happening.” join with the sorrow, shame and huge recommendations. Regular supervision and spiritual regret expressed by the contemporary “The institutional culture of the direction is a requirement of the Bishops, Leaders of Religious Church is where the real change Bishops’ protocol Integrity in Ministry. Congregations and Catholic people. is needed,” Francis Sullivan said, Bishop Vincent Long spoke of When the Commissioners acknowledging that culture is so hard the efforts made in his diocese questioned the Bishops and the Leaders to move. “I hear in the voice of many to enculturate overseas trained of Religious Congregations about the people in the Church, further abroad priests. With the significant number findings published in the February and which I share — it is the struggle to now working in Australia and New 2017 Analysis of Claims of Child Sexual see concerted, consistent real change Zealand parishes it is essential that Abuse Made with Respect to Catholic in the heart of the Church, from Rome they receive in-depth and on-going Church Institutions in Australia (available to parishes in the most remote parts of theological and cultural preparation on the Royal Commission website) it the world. for ministry here and understand the was obvious they were also looking “The Catholic community [is} calling for place of supervision. at current practice. As well as asking a Church that resembles what the Pope Our Church leaders now need how and why some Church members has called for — a Church which is bruised, the combined wisdom of the whole in ministry, particularly in the 1960s hurting and dirty because it has been out Catholic community and in prayer and 70s, became perpetrators of abuse, on the streets, rather than a Church which and humility commit together to deep they also asked what is in place now to is unhealthy from being confined and from cultural changes in the Church. ■ Tui Motu InterIslands Issue 214 April 2017 3 Committing to the Common Good JANE HIGGINS suggests that we will make better decisions for the common good when we engage in dialogue. ommon good, common ground, commonweal. safeguard one’s privacy, and rightful freedom, including in “Common” from the Latincommunis , meaning “public, matters of religion. Cshared by all, many” is a challenging, even a troubling word in our world these days, where the prevailing culture Broaden Our Horizons is preoccupied with building walls, closing borders and Perhaps this seems utopian. But Pope Francis in speaking of holding tight to what is “mine”. And yet, Church documents the common good in Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel, are infused with the encourages us not to word.

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