Last week two events disclosed different faces of the Catholic Church. The first was the funeral for Monsignor John Murphy, who for most of his working life was concerned with immigration. The second was the Vatican appointment of Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett as Apostolic Administrator of the Brisbane Archdiocese. It follows the acceptance of Archbishop John Bathersby's resignation on the grounds of age.
I came to know Father Murphy when I was helping to establish small Catholic communities of recently arrived Cambodian and Laotian refugees.
Refugees were often seen as a problem either to be deplored or to be solved from above. John, who was Director of the Melbourne Catholic Immigration Office saw them as people, and trusted them to shape their own community life.
He always accepted their hospitality when invited, listened and encouraged them. His style can be seen in the photograph above. He stands comfortably at the right of the group, is part of it but not central to it and is clearly a representative of the wider church. He enjoys the occasion and encourages the families and the Vinnies who support them to be at home both in their Cambodian community and in the wider Australian church.
Anyone who approached John for help knew instinctively that he would not see their request as a problem but as a simple expression of human need.
I realised this when attending a celebration of the 25th anniversary of his ordination. I had cycled across to the church unprepared for the steady rain which fell during my ride. Arriving cold and dripping, I instinctively went to the presbytery to ask if I could borrow an old pair of John's trousers for the celebration. With John, that was what anyone would naturally do. So I was momentarily taken aback to find that the housekeeper saw me and my bedraggled state as a problem rather than as a person in need. But John soon arrived and I was fixed up.
A few years later I took over from him in visiting the Immigration Detention Centre. There I heard many stories of how he had visited former detainees and immigrants when they were sick, and had occasionally spent all night with dying patients.
When John later moved to Canberra as Director of the Australian Catholic Immigration Office, he continued to focus on people and not on problems. He supported people who applied for visas for family members. In a period when asylum seekers were treated with increased brutality, he worked for an effective church commitment to them.
The lives of people like John Murphy give some credibility to the claim of churches to expertise in humanity. His was the pastoral face of the church.
The administrative face of the Catholic Church was on display in the Vatican arrangements for the Brisbane church following Archbishop Bathersby's resignation. Their salient point was that they were unusual.
The ordinary canonical procedure when an Archbishop dies or retires is that the senior auxiliary bishop is responsible for the governance of the diocese. He must convoke a meeting of the Archdiocesan consultors who then elect an administrator until a new bishop is named. These procedures show a trust in the local church to manage its affairs as it prepares for a new Archbishop.
The Vatican appointment of a Bishop outside the diocese as apostolic administrator replaced the ordinary canonical process. To say this is simply to state a fact. It does not question the wisdom or legality of doing so, still less the appropriateness of the person appointed. But bypassing ordinary procedures has costs.
After a much-loved Archbishop steps down, many people, including priests, grieve his loss and are anxious about the future. It is a time when people are vulnerable. In such circumstances any breach of normal process, particularly through the appointment of someone from outside the local church, heightens anxiety and arouses suspicion that the local church is not trusted. People imagine that they are seen as problems, not as people.
That in turn makes it hard for the people to see the new administrator as a person, and not as a problem. The affective unity of the community and the effectiveness of the administrator are thus put under threat.
Under such circumstances the administrative face is seen to wear a scowl. That perception can always be overcome by magnanimity. But the test of administration is whether it encourages the pastoral face of the Church embodied so well in Father John Murphy.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.