Michael Kelly SJ. Phillip Hughes: reality bites
November 30, 2014
Seeing Australia from outside the island continent offers some very strange views from time to time. The outpouring of grief over the tragic accident that took the talented life of cricketer Phillip Hughes went global within a very short time.
The home of cricket England was profuse in the time devoted to this sad event. While he was in hospital, Phillip Hughes was part of hourly bulletins on the BBC. On the day Hughes was declared dead, the BBC gave a full quarter hour of coverage from England and Australia involving players, administrators, medical doctors, sports physicians and engineers who design helmets. And all in prime time.
The tragic accident and its sorrowful unfolding has flooded the Australian media and will remain so till his funeral.
As one who has more than my fare share to do with death and grief, I know the exquisite pain and numbing sense of loss suffered by those people pole axed by its occurring. Theres nothing to compare with the shock and dismay that comes with the unexpected death of someone full of promise.
But the intrusion into the intimacy of the experience by the worlds media and the reaction that it provokes in communities often only held together by the media they share has been on a scale not seen since the death of Princess Diana. Even Elton John got in on the act to dedicate a song to Hughes.
Meanwhile and at the same time, an Israeli umpire gets hit on the head in a freak accident while doing his job and it is barely reported. And the catalogue of the worlds atrocity stories are readily available but hardly get noticed.
Whats going on here? Yes some of it comes down to a world Australia where you dare not mention the D word death. Its where we are all headed but never the subject of any conversation and little thought or reflection.
Especially among young athletes, the prospect of physical failure cannot be countenanced and the sheer lack of familiarity with death in the sanitized, fitness and success focused world of professional sport means that any accommodation of its reality is something that is put in the too hard basket indefinitely.
But theres something else. Recently a senior figure in the Australian Rugby Union who played for the Wallabies when it was an amateur sport gave his account of why the Wallabies are doing so badly. Its not that they havent got the talent or theyre demoralized or they arent fit enough or have too many among them on the injury list.
My friend reckons its because theyre paid too much. Theyre paid so much and on such long contracts that they have to look after themselves or have their working life shortened. So, says my pal, they wont have a go.
Whether thats the explanation or something else is at the heart of the Wallabies woes is not my point. What the allegation points to is the hermetically sealed world professional athletes live in and its all focused on what Miss Piggy once neatly summarized: moi" (me).
So, when reality breaks and death intrudes, worlds shatter. But not just the world of those intimately involved with the deceased, as it does for all those who lose someone close and loved. A global community that is tied up with supporting that hermetically sealed world of professional sports breaks open.
People who had never met the deceased somehow feel a sense of tragic loss well beyond the sadness we should all feel at someone elses misfortune. Prime Ministers eulogize, commentators offer opinions, individuals put out bats and flowers.
Whats it saying about us? As a regular celebrant of funerals, I never tire of saying to a grieving family that the ceremony isnt for the deceased. Sadly, theyre gone. Its for the living, the ones left behind. What does the outpouring over Phillip Hughes say about the culture hes left behind?
As I said, Australia is becoming a stranger and stranger place to me.
Michael Kelly is an Australian Jesuit Priest, now based in Bangkok.

Michael Kelly
Father Michael Kelly is an Australian Jesuit who directed the Catholic Church’s news feature and commentary service, UCA News, 2008-2018. He is the publisher of the English editions of La Croix International and La Civilta Cattolica, the 170 year old Jesuit publication of the Italian Jesuits.