A prominent Australian political
commentator and advocate for social justice retweeted this picture. It hurt. It
hurt for several reasons. One is that in it there is a kernel of truth. The
Church can be bigoted. It can also be less than honest in the way it delivers
its message. Its culpability on the abuse of children and its response to the
possibility of restorative justice deserve the condemnation we are witnessing.
This picture also hurt because for a very
large number of people in the Church the accusation it contains is not true.
The image does not take account of those who provide companionship and support
to the elderly, who sit with those who have a terminal diagnosis, who journey
with the dying, praying for them and with them, comforting and caring for them,
who anoint them as they die, comfort and pray with their families, who attend
to the final ceremonials of their lives; who receive the marginalised in their
doorways, who listen to them, feed them, assist in the most pitiful parts of
their disordered lives, who receive their abuse when they are off their
medications or stoned or drunk and angry, when there is no more that can be
done for them or nothing left to provide; who comfort and encourage the refugee
and asylum seeker, who navigate the labyrinthine paths of immigration bureaucracy
for them because it is un-navigable , who advocate and plead for them, who find
pro bono medical and legal services for them because they have no money or Medicare
coverage and they may not work, who help them prepare for the refugee review
tribunal hearing, comforting their anxieties, who celebrate, occasionally, when
justice is served; who pray for the world, often alone, even when the world
does not understand them or want to know them, or reviles them; who are accused
of being paedophiles when they are not; of whom an often intolerably high
standard of forebearance and patience is demanded, even though they are only
normal human beings.
That hurts.
