We've heard it all before but love of power rules

August 31, 2026

Frankly, I would skip any public display of contrition be it for sex abuse of children and vulnerable adults or the current scandal in NSW schools mismanagement and, I would add, the failure to endorse the Yes vote for the Voice to Parliament to what should be a much longer list. Words and symbolic gestures are merely falsely pious theatre until the clerical structure of the Catholic Church has been dismantled and replaced. We’ve heard it all before, even from a couple of recent popes. Popes, the ones who really do have power to enforce change, still only speak words that are ignored. If the decrees of the Second Vatican Council had been properly enacted, the Church would be very different today. But those who championed that were frozen out. Vatican II priests are retiring and dying. Bishop Vincent Long in Parramatta is a beacon of hope but no doubt will retire and die too without seeing that hope fulfilled. Archbishop Coleridge recognises loss of power. But not people from the pews? Either way, he and his cohort in the ACBC are not looking in any mirrors to see where all that is bad in the Catholic Church actually lies.