The demise of the ABC

I'm a bit slow off the mark, but yesterday Stephen Crittenden began his Religion Report programme with a devastating revelation. Of course it hasn't been reproduced on the ABC's website. But you can read it below or listen here;

This week a new line-up of Radio National programmes for 2009 was announced. The Religion Report is being decommissioned along with the Media Report, the Sports Factor, the Ark, Perspective, In Conversation, Street Stories and Radio Eye. These programmes are all going in order to make room for, to quote "more inter-disciplinary work" on the network. The 8.30 time slot is being remodelled to give it, quote "a more consumer focus".

The decision to axe one of this network's distinctive and important programmes has been approved by the director of ABC Radio, Sue Howard and it will condemn Radio National to even greater irrelevance. The ABC's specialist units have been under attack for years but the decapitation of the flagship programme of the Religion Department effectively spells the death of religion at the ABC.

That such a decision has been taken in an era when religion vies with economics as a determinate of everything that's going on in the world almost beggars belief. But you have to remember that just a couple of years ago, they axed the Environment Programme.

The ABC Religion Report has always been fearless and I don't have to tell you that it has put many powerful noses out of joint. This is a signal to the churches that the ABC has decided to vacate the field.

If you care about this programme and what it represents may I suggest that you might consider writing to the ABC or the Managing Director, Mark Scott.


So who exactly is Radio National now planning to service? It isn't anyone with an interest in religion, sport, media or the arts. It must be our friends that listen to commercial talk-back radio who not only have a consumer focus, but also manage to blend news, opinion and consuming so that you don't even know the difference.

What a disgrace.

Speaking in tongues and American evangelism

My head is so full of religion right now, so I apologise if it has been a bit of an overdose.

I just wanted to, however, draw your attention to a fantastic interview by Stephen Crittenden on Radio National's The Religion Report.

If you had any doubts whatsoever about the influence of the neo-conservative elements of Catholicism that was in Sydney last week, you need not go any further than this;


Camille : I'm from Brisbane, and I've just come here to be challenged by World Youth Day I suppose, yeah. I'm part of the Edmund Rice network, and we have an international justice gathering for young people within our network, from obviously across the globe, and then it led into World Youth Day.

Stephen Crittenden: This is in the week before World Youth Day?

Camille : Yes, that's right, yes.

Stephen Crittenden: So how have you found it?

Camille : It's been quite cross-cultural, quite challenging in many ways. Very different to the justice talk that we were engaged in at Mulgoa, so -

Stephen Crittenden: How so?

Camille : Well I think we were kind of looking at how Edmund Rice, who is the founder of the Christian Brothers, and how his charism was very much about social justice, and the same with the actions of Jesus I suppose. Very much about the social justice standing of the oppressed and marginalised in solidarity and I haven't heard much of that here at World Youth Day.

Stephen Crittenden: What have you heard much of?

Camille : Well there's been a lot of testifying and stuff that I would associate with Pentecostal religions and evangelicalism and that sort of thing, that is quite foreign to me back in my home church in my own diocese.

Stephen Crittenden: In Brisbane. Is this mainly American Catholic kids, or where are the testifiers coming from? All over?

Camille : Yes. Surprisingly they're in the catechesis sessions that we've been having. They get up and they tell a story about how they found the Holy Spirit in their lives, or the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they were in times of trouble before that, or someone handed them a Bible or something like that, and they've been infused with the Holy Spirit and they've surrounded themselves with others that are also infused with the Holy Spirit and now their life is great and marvelous. It's kind of something that you would see, that I would usually see when I flick on the TV on a weekend at 7 o'clock in the morning when there's nothing else on. The sort of American TV programs, that's what I associate that experience with.

Stephen Crittenden: How have you found the catechesis sessions?

Camille : In our catechesis sessions? Yeah - you're very much being talked at, rather than talked to and engaged, and it's also very much the official line of the church. When there is Question Time, when questions of how to engage in social justice, and how does the Holy Spirit move in terms of social justice and Jesus' working in justice, or Jesus in oppressed and marginalised people, they're very much vague and they don't really know how to tackle those answers, kind of like they weren't expecting -

Stephen Crittenden: Kids to be interested in those things? What are kids interested in talking about at these sessions?

Camille : Well there's been questions about you know, speaking in tongues, and what's the official line about that, and how do you know that you're touched by the Holy Spirit, and it's kind of like, Well you just know. If you're doing the right things, and if you read the Bible, you should know that you're being touched by the Holy Spirit. Other people like within my own delegation haven't gone to any catechesis sessions or went to one and haven't been back since. There are things out there in the program, it's just that with the organisation of the way it's gone, we were meant to get a program in every part of it, that didn't happen so being able to find those elements of the church that are talking about the things that you are interested in, is very hard when there's limited resources.

Stephen Crittenden: What about the big events. Are you going to go to Stations of the Cross? Have you got close to the Pope yet? Is that why you came? Did you come to see Benny?

Camille : Yes, I think I did. I mean there's an element of curiosity and celebrity there. I went to the opening mass and I went to the Pope's arrival yesterday and was about 100 or so metres away from him.

Stephen Crittenden: And as a young Australian Catholic, what does Pope Benedict mean to you?

Camille : Oh, he's the head of the church, so yes. In terms of admiration, I mean what he was saying in his address yesterday, he talked about social justice and he talked about advocacy for women's issues.

Stephen Crittenden: It was very wide-ranging, wasn't it?

Camille : Yes. I think actually I was more inspired by what he had said than what I heard - definitely- in the catechesis sessions. I think there might be a disconnect with what the Pope was saying and what's coming through in catechesis.

Stephen Crittenden: Thank you very much for talking to us.

Camille : No worries, thank you.


For more WYD fun, go to the program website.

WYD wash-up: NSW put on a great party (even if it snubbed most)

As first published in Crikey.


It’s amazing what the NSW State Government can do when it puts its mind to it.

For a week they set up road closures and bus lanes in the heart of the city that created an urban-wonderland for pedestrians and cyclists.

The much maligned rail network was suddenly on time, efficient and quick.

Live music events filled venues from the harbour to the Domain, public debates and discussions were held in halls and a major theatrical event was staged to an audience of thousands creating the ultimate spirit of festival.

The sheer infrastructure of World Youth Day surpassed even APEC and must have made those that run major sporting, cultural and arts events in Sydney weep with envy.

The Greens have alleged that in total the NSW State Government provided at least $108.5 million which included substantial costs in police, public transport, emergency services and road works. This is in addition to half the $41 million costs to the Australian Jockey Club for the use of Randwick Racecourse as a temporary place of worship and as a camping site and does not include the $22 million that the Commonwealth threw in.

Just imagine what type of event could be staged in Sydney for close to $150 million that was for all citizens. The possibilities are endless. Sports fields could host major carnivals. Regional theatres and public halls could be given a breath of new life. It could be a week long event that would reach from the very east to the very west.

It was a model of commitment and a fantastic orchestration of infrastructure. But the problem always will be that World Youth Day was an exclusive event controlled through the compulsory registration of participants. It has left a sour taste in the mouths of those not involved with this particular strand of religion.


Unlike the Olympics or the Sydney Festival, the people of Sydney found themselves catering to a very specific cross-section of society. I can only imagine how the Protestant factions of the Christian Church felt over the last seven days.

There’s something to be said for the tolerance of people who live in Sydney. For those that lived in the inner city, taking the swarming masses of pilgrims in their stride, a secret code emerged. Faced with the youth group chants on your way to get milk or bread, you would come across a local non-participant and give each other that look of understanding that said, "Don’t worry, it will all be over soon."

For the victims of child s-x abuse they saw a real opportunity to engage with the Church, the Vatican and the Pilgrims. The Foster family was on the minds of everyone, not to mention that taxi drivers who listen all day to talk-back radio. But in the end, it was a closed shop. The Foster family didn’t get what they wanted and neither did victims of child abuse.

Others were more freely engaged. A protest of one thousand people gathered in the gay heart of Oxford Street to voice their concerns about the Catholic Church and their dominant political and social policies. Lesbians and gays joined with socially liberal Christians, atheists, disaffected Catholics and representatives from Broken Rites.

They made it clear during all of their speeches that they weren’t anti-Catholic but rather they demanded tolerance and acceptance. Even when a stray group of young American pilgrims found themselves in the middle of the protest they were greeted with smiles and good humour.

And it was smiles and good humour that really summed up the week. I found myself on the final day of World Youth Day sitting on a pub balcony watching the thousands of pilgrims returning. Sitting with a few locals we waved and cheered them for no particular reason.

The local drunk kept yelling at those carrying banners and flags asking where they were from. This was always followed by a cheer. We waved goodbye and found ourselves exactly the same as when the arrived. Nothing has changed and it is such a shame that after all that money, after all those people and all that effort, most of us -- the Foster family -- weren’t included.

World Youth Day - A photographic essay

And so, St Mary's Cathedral became the centre of Sydney for a week ...

For believers and non-believers

And for those with a guilty conscience and a need to confess

For a week they walked the patient streets of Sydney

The usual suspects ...

Even Papua New Guineans...

They greeted nuns

They read the bible

But meanwhile in Taylor Square ...

Sydney wasn't going to disappoint

Other types of the converted had another point to make

With an entirely different view

And the media lapped it up



But they also lapped up the Vigil action

Who's the light of the world now, huh?!

He has some pretty good ideas

Next time it will be in Madrid

So farewell young pilgrims

We'll be right where you left us

WYD: Sydney converted, it's time to rein-in Spain

This has absolutely nothing to do with the arts but I am posting it anyway as I am covering World Youth Day for Crikey.

This is as it was first published today.


On Sunday Pope Benedict will announce that Madrid will be the World Youth Day host city for the next event in 2011. The focus will then shift from Cardinal George Pell and Sydney, as the Catholic world focuses its attention to another battleground in the fight to resurrect a dying religion's popularity. Spain is, for the Vatican, the last bastion.

Not only is Spain experiencing the usual drop in Catholic adherence, but the country now has a socialist government within a society that is very liberal. Abortion, divorce and gay marriage are all legal, so the Church must make some inroads to reverse these trends.

Leading the charge will be some of the most right-wing and conservative elements of the Church. The elite Opus Dei with their stranglehold on power in the Vatican will of course be there but not far behind are the newer and more youthful right-wing organisations. And they are all here in Sydney.

From the outside, this big youth day event appears to be a religion united, but nothing could be further from the truth. Such is the rift between the right-wing and more liberal elements of the Catholic Church many within are busting at the seams to come out and say what they think.

To understand the politics of what is happening domestically, it is vital to understand that Pell isn’t particularly popular among your rank-and-file Catholics and this whole World Youth Day event is less about the Pope, and more about our local Cardinal boosting his career opportunities in the Vatican and impressing the people that matter.

With the Pope by his side, he can hurl a few two-fingered salutes to the liberal members of the congregation. Aside from Opus Dei, one of the organisations prominent in youth day events is a big contingent of neocatecumenals, an extremely conservative organisation that emerged out of Spain and has spread to more than 105 countries and more than 860 parishes worldwide. I understand that 40,000 neocatecumenal pilgrims have descended on Australia, 3000 from Spain.

For a moment, forget about all the Guy Sebastian, hippy type guitar events, this World Youth Day is largely influenced by restorationist Vatican I theology. Out with new fangled liberal views on environmental concerns, the role of women in the Church, contraceptives and gays and in with Opus Dei, Eucharistic Adoration, aggressive evangelism, relics of stigmatics and a host of rites that haven’t been seen in Australia since the introduction of Vatican II.

Cardinal Pell will be presiding over a meeting of the neocatecumenals on Monday and has asked them to make the Gospel spread around Australia and provide some spiritual help for a country that has some “very serious problems”.

For the left of the Church these associations are having some very practical and alarming consequences. Stephen Crittenden reported in last week's episode of the ABC’s Religion Report, that in one instance “the Jesuits have been ordered to withdraw their plan to host a forum with the gay Catholic group Acceptance and PFlag, the organisation for parents and friends of young gays and lesbians”.

All this will very pleasing for the Opus Dei members in the Vatican.

As soon as the Pope arrived, Pell swiftly transported him to Australia’s Opus Dei headquarters. Pell is one of its 500 or so members in Australia. Opus Dei isn’t particularly popular here and is at odds with many.

"There is a great dissatisfaction with the Restorationist spirituality, which is also devoid of any commitment to social justice," Fr Confeggi, a parish priest in the outer Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt, told The Sydney Morning Herald.

Many of the kids flying in from all over the world would be unaware of this theological undercurrent. Nevertheless, they will be the ones taking part in these baroque rituals that will not necessarily take them closer to God, but will move them toward the Opus Dei view of the Church.

At one stage, George Pell even wanted to get the Catholic conservative and sometime racist Mel Gibson to direct the WYD Stations of the Cross ritual. It never happened, but we are getting close to the type of doctrines exposed on the youth walking around Sydney with their red back packs.

And none of this even comes close to the worries within the Church over the cost. It's costing the Church an estimated $150 million on top of the $86 million that NSW taxpayers are throwing in. The left of the Church might have other ideas for where they would rather spend that money. Let's see how they go in Madrid in three years time.