AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
September 1, 2017
Barney Zwartz
The Catholic Church in Australia is fighting on three fronts – same-sex marriage, euthanasia and education funding – that will test its influence both inside and outside the church, with the people in the pews and the politicians and powerbrokers.
Legalised same-sex marriage seems inevitable, euthanasia is back on the legislative agenda in Victoria and NSW, and the federal government has calculated that it can get away with an attack on funding for Catholic schools.
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According to a senior lay leader who does not want to be named, sexual abuse scandals have so eroded the church’s moral authority that people have stopped listening. But this doesn’t apply on euthanasia, where the church has far more credibility because its wide, no-strings attached healthcare services – including being perhaps the largest palliative care provider in Australia – give it real authority.
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