Curtailing Pell

Catholic Cardinal George Pell, speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, reminds us that he is very much concerned with the political direction of Australia.
More power to him, as George Pell, citizen. If more Australian citizens engaged in political discourse the quality of government would improve immensely.
But George wasn’t speaking as citizen Pell; he was addressing us a Cardinal Pell, head of the Catholic Church in Australia.
I have to say here, I actually agreed with some of his statements on national issues, despite his tendency to right wing views. Well, I agreed on his comments of restraint on Howard’s HR policies.From there we tend to move into the more familiar ground of the religious right, albeit with a bit more delicacy than most. He pushes for the teaching of intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution in schools. This is pretty close to a call for compulsory religious education in what has become a diverse, pluralist society. For religious we can read Christian, and for George that means Catholic.He criticised state school syllabuses for teaching films, magazines, advertisements and even road signs but abandoning great works of English literature, another familiar theme of the religious right. Perhaps the Catholic Church will subsidise putting ‘the great works’ on SMS text messaging.
The reality is the delivery media has changed forever George. Big books just don’t cut the mustard for most kids. That is no reason to suggest that fundamental values cannot still be conveyed through current or future media formats.

The Catholic Church in Australia and elsewhere is doubtless a powerful body, but it is tainted by its own failings and scandal. That aside, in a secular, democratic country, the church’s political stand is largely irrelevant.
The people, more or less, elect their own representatives, George. They are not appointed from on high and to a greater extent than the narrow church base, they represent the will and aspirations of the country.
More to the point, the Church has failed to give real moral leadership, to uphold its charter to uphold moral values. It is understandably difficult for Pell to separate George the citizen and George the Cardinal. So in effect he must always speak as the church.
So, before the Cardinal launches too far into the political swamp he would do well to put his own house in order!