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Physician Chuck Bentz received a request to be the 'second opinion' for the assisted-suicide of a melanoma patient. Bentz objected and said there were better ways to address the needs of this patient, whom he had known for over a decade. Next he knew, his patient was dead.
Benedict uses large theoretical constructs to reflect on the condition of Western societies and the Church. This can simplify complex realities and provide a focus for reflection and conversation. But the weaknesses of this approach are revealed when he blames bad moral theory for sexual abuse by the clergy.
Everything Western nations do is analysed by the Muslim world in the light of 'conspiracy theories'. Fanatics present the French burqa ban as a reflection of anti Islamic sentiment. In fact millions of Muslim women in France and elsewhere do not cover their faces.
The media said the US Catholic Bishops' John Jay report blamed the 1960s sexual revolution for church sex abuse. More significantly, it implied that the roots of the sexual abuse crisis instead lie in the shallow Catholic culture of earlier decades.
At a gallery opening in Bali, the Australia-Indonesia relationship was compared to a rope with many strands, with art and culture the most resilient. In the audience were Australian lawyers who have supported members of the Bali Nine, and lawyers acting for Indonesian minors still held in long term detention in Australia without charge.
Anglican bishops are not appointed more democratically or transparently than Roman Catholic bishops, although there are better-known processes and lines of accountability. And they would have better legal redress should anyone try to get rid of them.
I have known Bill Morris as priest and bishop for 30 years. He is a good man — no flash academic but the most down to earth pastoral guy you could meet. His forced departure from Toowoomba has been some years in the coming. He is right to claim that he has been denied natural justice.
The treatment of Bishop Bill Morris risks further blurring the image of the Church. The story told of a good man who encouraged his church, who was resolute in dealing with sexual abuse, but was removed in an untransparent process, will confirm many in their distrust of the Church.
Modern societies rightly put much weight on transparency. Its absence is taken to discredit the institutions in which it is lacking. After the forced resignation of Bishop Morris it will be even harder for Catholics to win a hearing on issues that affect the public order.
We now know that, in the name of the US alliance, our Government attempted to scuttle the significance of the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions. Thus far the Greens are the only party to take the point, and the only party in full sympathy with the Vatican on this issue.
Bishop Bill Morris' announcement that he had tendered his early retirement under Roman pressure will arouse debate in and outside the Catholic Church. In these first days of controversy, it may be helpful first to reflect on the impact that the action has on the people most affected by it.
Jesuit Social Services recently set up a project in Alice Springs to resource the local parish and local Aborigines who want to take more control of their own lives. If we are to get our teeth into issues of acute injustice, we need to eyeball both the decision makers and those affected by those decisions.
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