AUSTRALIA
Crux
Christopher WhiteJuly 16, 2016
CRUX CONTRIBUTOR
[Editor’s Note: Part one of Crux contributor Christopher White’s interview with Archbishop Anthony Fisher appeared on Friday, July 15. This is the second part of their conversation.]
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – This past Christmas, Archbishop Anthony Fisher – barely a year into his new post as Archbishop of Sydney in Australia – contracted Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease, resulting in temporary paralysis.
After four months of rehabilitation, he’s back at work-both catching up on past projects, but also plowing ahead to new ones.
Arguably one of the sharpest minds of the Church’s hierarchy (not to mention one of the youngest), he’s currenty at work on a forthcoming volume on bioethics. (Full disclosure: I am working with Fisher as a research assistant on the volume). And while medical ethics has been a significant part of his educational training, his thinking on these issues has been given a newly personal dimension due to his recent illness.
As he settles back into his demanding schedule, I sat down with Fisher to discuss his hopes and the challenges ahead for the Australian Church.
Among other things, Fisher said the popularity of Pope Francis is enticing many people who’ve been distant from the Church to give it another look, and that he doesn’t want future generations to look back and say, “What an opportunity you missed!”
White: Australia’s Royal Commission is looking into institutional responses to sexual abuse. How do you think the Church will fare in comparison to other institutions?
Fisher: I think the Catholic Church will probably be the most criticized of all institutions in our country in this matter. I’m not sure whether history will judge that we have been the worst offender, but we’re certainly the first to have been forced to face this head on and we are deeply ashamed and humiliated by what has been revealed by the behavior of some of our clergy and religious and by the failures of some of our Church leaders.
I think the fact that the spotlight has been turned first on us has forced us to try to deal with the fallout for victims, helping them in every way that we can to help them achieve justice and some measure of healing. We’re the first to have to look at what sort of systems we can put in place for the discernment of vocations and the support of people in the priesthood and religious life and Church workers in the future, and putting much better child protection protocols in place right across our institutions.
In all sorts of ways, we’ve had to face this first, which means we have not had templates from anywhere else to guide us. We’ve made mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes. I hope that that experience will mean that others can learn from us as they face the same sort of questions, and that if we’ve been through the humiliation of this first, we might come through the other end a better Church.
It may be a humbled and ashamed Church in many ways, but I hope a more compassionate and more respectful Church-a Church where people will really feel safe having their children and young people involved with into the future.
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