The Catholic Church can produce excellent public communication, such as its current election statement, 'Politics in Service of Peace', but it does so too rarely. That statement was, of course, commentary and advice for others rather than reflections about the inner workings of the church itself. That is where the blockage lies.
The church's Implementation Advisory Group (IAG), for instance, has been hard at work for many months now since its creation was announced in May 2018 by Archbishop Denis Hart and Sister Ruth Durick OSU, but you wouldn't know it for all the publicity it has been accorded by its masters, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) and Catholic Religious Australia.
The specific reasons for this lack of communication are unclear though they are deeply embedded in church culture. It may be a fearful official reaction to the earlier public role played by the Truth Justice and Healing Council in relation to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, though its splendid work was acknowledged when the IAG was set up. It may include tensions within ACBC about the priorities of the tasks set for the IAG. Or it may just be the lassitude and inertia that too often characterises church communications.
At the time of the IAG's creation its chairman Jack de Groot outlined the admirable intent of the group to 'offer advice on the development of the leadership and culture that is now required within the church and expected by the wider Australian society ... We need to build on the very good practices that church agencies have already put in place, and in doing so we will be assisted by the royal commission's recommendations on governance, transparency, accountability, consultation, and participation of lay man and women.'
One aspect of the IAG is its Governance Review Project Team, which met for the first time early in 2019. The project team's progress will be communicated shortly to the wider Catholic community, largely on the grounds of the principles laid out by de Groot, but in part because interaction with interested parties will improve the quality and usefulness of its recommendations. And there are many interested parties as shown by the 18,000 submissions to Plenary Council 2020 (PC 2020).
Why leave Catholics in the dark if progress is being made? Even if the ACBC and CRA wish to consider any reports which emerge from the IAG before releasing them to the general public, that is no reason for not communicating general progress reports and issues papers. If the IAG is to feed into the Plenary Council agenda-formation and the deliberations themselves in October 2020, then its work must be promptly released for wider consideration.
Transparency must be a central principle of church governance reform. Such openness must also apply to any governance reforms currently undertaken by individual dioceses. Details are sparse, but it is in the spirit of PC2020 that dioceses showcase any reforms underway so that its discussion will not just be about ideas and theories but actual models of improving practice.
"The church is notably reticent about sharing its financial situation at the parish and diocesan level with its own community, though individual bishops have the authority to do so."
New diocesan models can be added to those governance models which many church agencies in health, education, social services and aged care already exhibit. As Robert Fitzgerald, one of the royal commissioners, pointed out in 'Governing Out of Hope Not Fear', the diocesan church is not being asked to learn from the secular world, not that there is anything wrong with that, but from its other half in the form of church agencies.
One aspect of governance reform should be financial governance reform. The church is notably reticent about sharing its financial situation at the parish and diocesan level with its own community, though individual bishops have the authority to do so.
Dr Paul Nicoll of Canberra shows in his new paper 'Increasing Archdiocesan Accountability to Laity through Published Financial Statements and Annual Reports' that there are models to learn from both in other Christian denominations and in other parts of the Catholic world. He points to the Archdiocese of Washington, USA, which provides comprehensive information to its parishioners through audited financial information available on the archdiocesan website.
This is one good example of what should not wait for the Plenary Council. The PC2020 facilitation team currently provides a great deal of information through its Plenary Forum posts, though there is too much that remains unclear about how the council itself will operate. Those holding church authority should show the Catholic community that they have learnt the lessons offered by the royal commission by undertaking reforms as soon as possible and by telling us all about them in a spirit of transparency.
The governance review project plan can be found here.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University.
Main image: St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney (Apexphotos / Getty)