Pearls and Irritations

Cardinal George decided I was a potato. Yes, me and all the other talented committed women of the catholic church. My hope is that George Pell’s death spells the end of the misogyny, clericalism and conservatism within the Church and the fallen potatoes finally get a chance to lead a community with wisdom and kindness.

Cardinal George Pell’s funeral was held in Sydney on February the 2nd this year. Did you go? Did you watch the live stream? I did. It was a day of sad reflection for me.

With a push I could have almost received an invite. My provenance is solid, a Catholic education, and an Irish Catholic family that worked all their lives to support the church. Mum and Dad were always fund raising, cooking, and donating wheat and produce to build a local church.

I was proud to be a Catholic then, proud of my church, my family and a life that was controlled by the seasons, the farming cycle, and the liturgical calendar.

So where did it all go wrong. How did George and I reach such an impasse?

Firstly, George decided I was a potato. Yes, me and all the other talented committed women of the church. To quote John Wijngaards in his discussion about George Pell and women in the church.

He states, ‘Late Australian prelate had gone on record as saying, ‘might as well try to ordain a potato’.

Marilyn Hatton, another potato, a Catholic lay woman firmly believes the church will never survive without an overall acceptance of female leaders.
Pell led a church that alienated its women. I pray for reform.

Secondly over the years I morphed somehow from a potato to a watermelon or a combination of both.

To quote Neil Ormerod, a retired professor of theology formerly at the Australian Catholic University about Pell.

‘Really, he saw the emerging green movement as a new form of communism. He referred to them as watermelons – green on the outside but red on the inside. He saw it as neopagan.’

In the third instance as a funny looking Catholic watermelon/potato I found myself tragically broken with George’s stance on gender diversity. I have many family members who deviate from the traditional heterosexual definition and are incredible people.

George refused to give communion to the many gay Catholics and was openly dismissive of them.

Finally, there is the notion of falling from grace. Catholics believe that once we sin and break the commandments we have fallen from grace, only confession and repentance can get us back to a fully graceful state.

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s it seemed to me that the only people in the church who could fall were the single women and we were the focus of many a sermon and intensive talk about morality, virginity, and sex.

I can’t remember any of the young men I knew being very bothered about falling and in a most tragic irony the priest I was confessing my sins to was busy trying to have sex with children in our parish.

The behaviour of priests and more importantly the leadership of the Church has broken the hearts of millions of Catholics. Church leaders put their positions, their careers ahead of the destruction of children’s innocence. The deaths and mental illness of these victims will reverberate forever in parishes around the world. The sons of God murdered their own.

The 2012 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that George Pell was conscious of child sexual abuse as early as 1973.

To conclude I have a lot to thank the Catholic Church for, my education, my sense of family loyalty and a drive for social justice, but I didn’t fit in at St. Marys, Sydney.

My hope is that George Pell’s death spells the end of the misogyny, clericalism and conservatism within the Church and the fallen potatoes finally get a chance to lead a community with wisdom and kindness.

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