Return South

Looking at the thick clouds out of the airplane window, it looked like Antarctica... but I am happy to have returned to Tasmania, after "a little drive" – it turned out to be, not 2000 kilometres, but 2000 miles (a bit more than 3200 km according to the odometer) that I've motored around Queensland, from Daintree to Sunshine Coast; and to think the deepest inland I went was only Charters Towers (memo to self: not a town worth revisiting!). I think next July I'll do Adelaide to Darwin – on the train – and do Ayers Rock and all that (on a package tour).

It was jolly thoughtful of His Holiness to gift the Archdiocese of Hobart a new Archbishop at last: I have happy memories of a front-row seat at the Cathedral in Sydney for his episcopal consecration  some ten years ago (owing to a bizarre misunderstanding, as some friends and I had walked in in the company of an Eastern-rite Dominican priest, God rest him, we ended up directed to a spot just under the pulpit, in front of all the ecumenical representatives – the poor usher must've thought Fr was some sort of oriental potentate, and we his menials).

I recall the Cardinal's sermon, mocking the secular news reportage's horror at revealing that one of the two men to be consecrated bishop (Antony Fisher, O.P.) was staunchly anti-abortion – "I have news for them," he boomed, "they both are!" Please read Bishop Porteous' blog site to discover what a strong and true pastor he is and will be, being unafraid to speak out against the current nostrums and madnesses afflicting our miserable and naughty world. Now that Porteous is an Arch., I suppose Parramatta won't have Fisher too long; he'll be Archbishop of Melbourne or Sydney in due course, good man that he is.

Having been in Queensland, I am relieved to report that I survived Sunday Mass there; clearly the horror stories are somewhat exaggerated. Mass at Townsville Cathedral was quite devout, with servers in cassock and surplice, incense and everything (a pity the M.C. and thurifer stood talking together in a corner throughout the Eucharistic Prayer!); Mass at Noosa too was fairly reasonable, albeit with dreadful modern songs, but I'm sure the singers meant well.

Having been in Rudd's home state, I also must admit, most reluctantly, that he has worked a (morally dubious) triple miracle, having gotten rid of (1) Gillard, (2) the carbon tax and (3) the boats – what a supremely cynical move, given his odiously-repeated claims to saintliness, to send all the asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea, whether they be economic migrants or actual refugees; that'll win him the election, just as Tampa worked for Howard; he can unblushingly claim that, as they come from Third World countries, they'll fit in better in one!  How upset Abbott must be, to see the golden prize slip from his eager fingers... will Rudd call the election tomorrow? The longer he dithers, the greater the risk he'll lose after all, once the allure of his return to the prime ministership wears off and he slides in the polls again.

Now that I'm back, I can now settle into a new book (which arrived while I was up north) about the history of the Liturgy of the Presanctified in the Byzantine Rite, once I finish off my holiday reading about cosmology, dark matter and dark energy (those main constituents of our universe about which modern science admits it knows little to nothing); it was nice to see reference to the very international collaboration (PLANET) that I had had a minor role in during my time at university studying astronomy, thanks to my thesis supervisor – I haven't thought about gravitational microlensing for years.

Chasing the Sun

It's July, and the coldest time of year; so I'm taking my latest holidays in Queensland. As I don't like lazing about on beaches, nor mucking about in boats, I'll be flying up to Cairns, then driving by easy stages all the way to Noosa... about 2,000 km (including detours). I head off on Monday morning.

Since it has been snowing this weekend in central Tasmania, and given that I'm about to travel, I decided not to go to Hobart for the monthly Missa cantata, and instead attended Mass in my own parish last night.

Pray for me, as I travel in partibus...

Restore the Queensland Legislative Council

A landslide victory for Queensland's Liberal National Party!  Congratulations to them.  But O how lopsided the result: a mightily humiliating seven seats for Labor (their worst result ever I suppose), losing  government and 44 of their previous 51 seats, while the LNP has over eleven times as many, seventy-eight if the results in three remaining doubtful seats pan out as predicted.  Now, it cannot be good for democracy to have a governing party holding 78 out of 89 seats, with but a scattering of independent members and the few remaining Labor faithful: that's the sort of Parliament one expects to find in a one-party state.

Queensland went through something like this before, back in the days of the notoriously corrupt Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen (aided by a gerrymander).  When one party has gained an overwhelming advantage, the end results are not always beneficial at all.

What the answer?  Restore the House of Review!  For Queensland – alone among Australian States – has but a unicameral Parliament.  The old, appointed Legislative Council was abolished back in 1922; arguably, if it had been retained, but made an elected chamber (as was done in other States) it would have served as a valuable mechanism for moderating the one-party petty authoritarianism of previous Queensland governments ever since its abolition.  Elected tyrannies are still tyrannies.

The old Legislative Council, as is the usual practice, had about half as many members as the Lower House did; on that model, I suggest a chamber of 44 members, with the M.L.C.'s to be elected by some system of proportional representation (as done nowadays in W.A., S.A., Victoria and N.S.W. when choosing their own Legislative Councillors), whether in multimember electorates or "at large" as the Americans say.

Assuming, as a first estimate, that voting for such a hypothetical chamber had taken place at Saturday's General Election in Queensland, and the votes for each party roughly paralleled those cast for seats in the  Legislative Assembly, then the resultant Legislative Council would now have the following composition on a proportional basis:

22 LNP

12 Labor

  5 Katter's Australian Party

  3 Green

  2 Other*

(*in practice, these two remaining seats would probably be split between the LNP and Labor also)

Such a House of Review, with half its members not from the governing party, would be better able to keep an eye on the new Newman Government than the pitiful six Labor M.L.A.'s, two Katter creatures and two independents that will together constitute what passes for an Opposition (the latter groups, while technically on the cross-benches, will be jammed into a corner in the chamber with the remnant ALP).

While I am not so fond of the Greens myself, it seems only just that, as one in nine voters put them first on the ballot, they should have some representation in Parliament on behalf of those who like them.

An Upper House is a valuable check and balance, and one Queensland – now blessed with a new Premier and governing party – would do well to seriously consider restoring.

To Holiday in Partibus

Off to Queensland to-morrow: where the episcopal sees are in partibus infidelium, at least insofar as their occupants are concerned!

I'll have three days in Brisbane, then a day in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, before driving further inland, visiting Toowoomba for two days (though I daren't go to Mass there, for fear of what I might find), and then gratefully returning to Christian lands by crossing the border into New South Wales, first visiting Armidale (where I plan to catch Mass at the Cathedral on Sunday evening, so as to fulfil my obligation licitly and validly), next Coffs Harbour, and then Lismore, before a final night on the Gold Coast.

At least, as Cardinal Pell observed some years ago, given the current holders of the sees of Armidale and Lismore, "The northern frontier is secure".

Intercommunion in Queensland

While some Catholics now access the Traditional Rite unimpeded, and the Benedictine Reform proceeds, what with the newly retranslated Missal coming in and even Eastward facing celebrations occurring, in other corners of the Church abuses fester.

Years ago, I heard tell of the long-term plan of the Catholic episcopate and clergy in Queensland: to foster "Eucharistic sharing", or rather purported intercommunion between Catholics, Anglicans, Uniting Church persons and other Protestants.  At the time, I rejected this as unbelievable, but now – hearing that such may have occurred in Toowoomba – I am not so sure.

The project intended to solve the shortage of clergy by having Catholic Mass said in a given place only a few times a month, but to arrange with the local mainstream Protestants to do likewise, staggering the times so that all local Catholics, Anglicans and so forth would indiscriminately attend Catholic Mass on one or two Sundays (this being the only service for all groups), and on the other Sundays go to an Anglican Eucharist or even a Uniting Church Communion service.

I repeat, this idea seemed to me so outré that I refused to countenance such a scheme existing, but now I fear it may be true.

Recall the strangeness of Morris' notorious Advent pastoral letter in calling, not merely for having married clergy (which all know to be a disciplinary matter most unlikely to be changed) or women ordained (which the Church declares impossible), but for recognizing Anglican and Uniting Church holy orders?  To recognize Anglican orders would of course be impossible according to the decision of Leo XIII (which itself but reaffirmed the constant practice of the Church), and as the Uniting Church (derived from the amalgamation of Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians) has no threefold ministry, there is no chance of their orders being ruled valid by Rome.

However, given the mindset and the heterodox theological education of most clergy in Australia, they simply would not regard these in truth insuperable obstacles as serious issues.  Hence this madcap plan.

I am sure aCatholics would have little trouble with such intercommunion: indeed, if they will not join the Anglican Church despite their utter agreement with its ordination of women and allowance of divorce, remarriage, homosexual liaisons, contraception, abortion and so forth, what better than to be in full intercommunion with it?

Morris was simply so great a fool and so arrogant that he made public, in writing, what subtler and more knowing clergypersons preferred to discuss and work towards on the quiet.

I have myself seen, at the Catholic funeral of a friend of mine in country Victoria, a Mass celebrated in presence of the local Catholic bishop, the local Protestant clergy come up and receive communion!  This friend was no friend of them, nor a lover of the new rite (indeed, I arranged a Missa cantata of Requiem for his soul back in Melbourne as some sort of making up for this hideous abuse at his funeral), so I can see no pretext for this illicit intercommunion.

Illicit intercommunion for Protestants at Catholic services, and invalid intercommunion for Catholics at Protestant services: as I say, I thought this simply impossible to believe, but I have heard of cases of both.

In all this, there is no understanding nor acceptance of the Catholic practice of closed communion: only those in full communion with the Church may receive Communion at Catholic altars (with certain exceptions made by recent Canon Law, which do not extend to such abuses as mentioned above – as if a Catholic could validly, let alone licitly, receive Protestant communion: it would be bread-worship; or as if a Protestant, not believing Catholic doctrine about the Eucharist, could receive It).  Bizarrely, Lutherans understand this better than some Catholics!