Dear Friends

“Here was a humble priest with a brain full of wonder and empathy and feeling and curiosity that had not been pulped by an intellectually impoverished clerical formation and canonical obligations of obedience to the magisterium that conduced to silence and even cowardice. He was courageously prepared to train its guns on the no-go area, the dysfunctional, patriarchal inner workings and structures of the Catholic Church, not in order to further damage the Church but to limit the damage, to heal it and to liberate the divine grace long dammed up by ignorance, and a smug narrow mindedness that must surely still make Jesus weep.”

So writes Dr Mary McAleese, President of the Irish Republic 1997-2014, about Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in the introduction to his posthumously published book, Towards the End of My Days: Theological and Spiritual Reflection. Geoff Robinson was a true prophet within the Australian Catholic Church. As such, he suffered as all prophets do. He was seen as outspoken, dangerous, a risk to the status quo. However, despite his natural reserve, he was ready to speak out on principle. His intellect, conscience and compassion couldn’t be contained.

This book, written during his illness and finalised only after his death by friend, Seamus O’Grady, is the culmination of Geoff’s scholarship, reflection, prayer and life experience with the faithful. Nothing is “off limits”. These reflections cover the entire spectrum of Church life, structure, leadership, liturgy, teachings, history, spirituality and theology.

When it comes to the Church’s attitude to women he states: “There is an overwhelming conviction that in all of this the Catholic Church is dragging along in the rear, reluctantly making small changes years after the rest of humanity has moved on. The Church is still one of the most male dominated institutions in the entire world”.

He points out the Church’s continuing hypocrisy: “There is the fact that the Church lectures civil society on the important social justice principle that all people must have a real voice in their own governance, but this principle does not apply anywhere in the Church – not the Parish, nor the diocese, nor the universal Church”.

His criticism of the Sunday Liturgy is direct: it “consists of too many thousands of words and intellectual ideas poured over a largely passive congregation…”

He suggests that many Catholics would “see the Church as heavy on authority, but light on persuasion, imagination and inspiration” and pleads that it work at recapturing imagination and creativity. He then offers a prediction: “If the Church keeps insisting on the old ideas and old formulas, the effects of losing the battle for the imagination will be catastrophic”.

He advocates for a reform of papal power, changes to the Curia, an alternative way of electing the “Bishop of Rome”, simplifying clerical dress: the mitre, a relic of the imperial age ‘would be the first to go’.

Much of the book is given over to the Second Vatican Council. He writes with insight, clarity and a deep understanding of the political undercurrents. He explains the background that led to it, exalts Pope John XXIII (“one of the greatest Popes of all time”) for his wisdom in convening it, outlines the conflicts that led to compromise documents and tells of attempts to minimise its influence. He bemoans the clawing back of Vatican II innovations between the years 1965 and 2013; the major agents being Cardinals of the Roman Curia “aided in no small way by Pope John Paul II”. However, his overall assessment is laudatory. He speaks in favour of its “pastoral tone” and its use of “equality and humility words” that focused on change. “It gave us a glimpse of what the Church could be, and for the last sixty years it is this vision that inspired my life and my priesthood”.

The challenges continue throughout the book. Writing about the power and wealth of the Church he asks, “What would the gentle teacher of Galilee make of all this? How uneasy and out of place would he feel if he walked through the Vatican Palace today”? He follows this with another equally clear image: “Is not the Church like a man who is grossly overweight and must carry that weight with him wherever he goes”?

He asserts that within the Church “the hierarchy of holiness is still marginalised by the hierarchy of authority”.

He paints a poignant picture of God’s relationship with our world and our human destiny: “Science tells us that the world began with a big bang; faith tells me that this big bang was an explosion of God’s love…The final goal of God’s plan is that the human race should continue to grow…until it in some manner returns the world to the love from which it came”. And this theology leads him to agree with Johannes Metz: who wrote that God is primarily concerned with the world, not with the Church as different from the world. For him, the Church exists for the sake of the world and is at the service of the world. It needs to embrace not reject the world. Condemnation is useless unless it is combined with love and positive offerings. “Churchianity” must be rejected. The dualism between church and world, sacred and secular is unhelpful to the mission of Christ’s people.

Much of what Bishop Geoff writes and much of his thinking was shaped by the issue that brought him to prominence: sexual abuse within the Church. His condemnation of the Church’s attitudes to power, sex and control which he believes led to this tragic pandemic, resonated with many others. Yet it was he, a Bishop, who called it out.

We are on the cusp of the second assembly of the Plenary Council. Many Members are worried about the motions that have been developed. They wonder if they are bold and creative enough. They wonder if they are addressing the real issues confronting the Church. What would Geoff say to them? Possibly he would choose this sentence from his book in reply: “It will only be possible to believe in real change when structural changes (changes in the structure and laws of the Church) have been made, making true juridical reality out of collegiality and the sensus fidei”

Maybe Bishop Geoff Robinson’s Towards the End of My Days: Theological and Spiritual Reflection should be a compulsory primer for Plenary Members.

Br Peter Carroll FMS,

President, Catholic Religious Australia