Reception to welcome the new Bishop of Parramatta, Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP, and to acknowledge the long-serving contribution of Most Rev Kevin Manning, Bishop Emeritus, Granville Town Hall, 2 July 2010.
Bishop Anthony Fisher’s Address to Civic Leaders:
I am very grateful for this kind civic reception on the occasion of my installation as the third Bishop of Parramatta. In fact, I have been at it now for more than three months, and my staff have recently exchanged my L-plates for Ps.
People have been most welcoming and gracious. Many of you have accompanied me from the day my appointment was announced, supported me at my installation in March, and been by collaborators ever since. In turn, I undertake to pray for you and work with you as best I can for the good of the people of Western Sydney in the years ahead.
I am also grateful that you are honouring my predecessor, Bishop Kevin Manning. History will remember him as one of the great leaders and ‘characters’ of area. He led this Diocese through a period of rapid growth, so that it is now the fifth biggest in this country – bigger than several archdioceses.
He raised up the new St Patrick’s Cathedral from the ashes of its predecessor. He welcomed to the Diocese Pope Benedict XVI, the World Youth Day Cross & Icon, and the young people of the world in 2008.
He built bridges to other faiths, especially the Muslim community in Western Sydney. He campaigned for justice for workers, Aborigines, refugees, women and families.
He built up and diversified the body of clergy, religious and lay ministers in the Diocese. For 12 years he was the Good Shepherd of Western Sydney. We pray for a happy (semi) retirement for him.
Recently, I have been reading a book by Tom Holland about the world around the year 1,000 ad. The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West (New York: Anchor Books, 2008) opens with a description of the fateful meeting between Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor Henry IV, which inaugurated the clearer separation of Church and state in the West.
It goes on to describe an age of caliphs and Viking raiders, of knights and their castles, bishops and their cathedrals, feudal vendettas, kidnappings, tumult and slaughter. It was one of the most significant departure points in history, as Western Europe emerged as a distinctive culture and expansionist power.
And at the heart of this, Holland argues, was the disappointment of millennial hopes and the settling of a new relationship between ecclesial and civil authority that gave Christendom its particular energy and focus.
There are many views of the proper relationship between civil government and its various departments, and various faiths and their agencies, as well as unions, NGOs and other associations. Secularism, laïcité or the separation of Church and state has many forms. What was essentially a millennial Christian contribution to our civilisation has mutated in various ways and places.
Increasingly, in West Europe, for instance, as in the communist East of old, the tendency is to say with respect to Church and state that ne’er the twain shall meet. Governments and courts increasingly exclude churches (and some other NGOs) from decision-making and service delivery.
Dogmatic secularists would ban Christmas decorations from public places, church bells from their towers, crucifixes from schools or nurses, veils from women’s faces, and so on.
Some seek to eliminate any residual religious values from public law and policy, for example with respect to marriage, the protection of human life, justice for workers, newcomers and the poor.
Some want believers to renounce their most deeply held beliefs, stay silent about them in the public square, or else adopt a kind of dual personality, saving their faith for church or home, and adopting someone else’s values when they are ‘out in public’.
No matter that religious believers are the majority of our community and democracies are supposed to take majorities seriously. No matter that freedom of religious belief and expression is a fundamental human right and democracies are supposed to take rights seriously.
Religion is thought by some to be so violent, intolerant or benighted that they would be horrified at civic officials interfacing with Church leaders even in a cordial way such as today’s reception.
If there are countries in which state or culture-imposed atheism is dominant, there are others in which religion seeks to dictate terms to government and society, including to people who do not share that faith, and to control every aspect of life.
While on Tom Holland’s view it was Christendom that insisted on a proper distinction between the spheres of God and Cæsar, Pope and emperor, Church and state, the fact is that there have been plenty of individual Christian leaders down through the centuries, as well as other believers, who have sought to blur those lines for their own interests.
Some countries, such as the US, seem to be a strange mixture of these two extremes, with lots of public religious rhetoric as if religion was more or less compulsory and lots of bans on things like prayers and cribs in public spaces as if irreligion was.
Here in Australia we have a unique take on these things: we distinguish between Church and state, and recognise that each has its own sphere of activity, while both seek to collaborate for the common good. That was demonstrated at World Youth Day.
It was the biggest youth event in the history of our country and it brought together the biggest crowds in the history of the Pacific. Many of them lived, learnt and celebrated those joy-filled days right here in the Parramatta area. It was an extraordinary time for our city and country, for young people and for an old pope.
We did Australia proud. One of things that made me proudest was the way every sector of our community cooperated in the planning and delivery. Not Catholics only, not Christians only, not the private or the non-profit sector only, but everyone. That said something very powerful to our world which many of our visitors commented upon. It demonstrated a model of the relationship between Church and state, and between people of various religions and none, which can teach the world something very important.
In Australia we like to ‘live and let live’, to co-exist and cooperate with our neighbours, to give them ‘a fair go’, to honour diversity and seek our common ground. And that means bishops and mayors can both claim Parramatta as their own, as can people of all sorts of backgrounds and beliefs.
It means we are willing to work together for the common good, for justice for the most disadvantaged, for freedom of religion and other proper liberties, for a recognition of our country’s constitutive values and traditions, and for a better Western Sydney in a better world. I am grateful to you all for today’s reception which I take as a pledge of our willingness to cooperate long into the future.