Archbishop Barry Hickey reflects on the ups and downs of life at the top
The former Bishop of Geraldton, Barry James Hickey, was installed as Archbishop of Perth in St Mary’s Cathedral on August 27, 1991.
The following day, he met with all the priests for a Holy Hour at Aquinas College, followed by lunch. The purpose of the Holy Hour was to signal to the priests and to himself that the call to lead as Archbishop was a spiritual one, not a managerial one.
Looking back over his time as Archbishop as he celebrated his golden jubilee as a priest and silver jubilee as a Bishop at the re-dedicated Cathedral on Sunday, he said the conflict between the two calls had been a source of tension ever since.
The management and administration of a large diocese were huge tasks and because of their nature they tended to dominate the time available. Not considering himself to have any particular skills or training in administration, he accepted an invitation to visit the Institute of Management and consider possible courses. Not seeing any particularly Christian objectives in any of the courses, he decided he was in the Temple of Baal and resisted further contact.
“I thought: What does it profit a man to be an excellent manager, yet suffer the loss of his soul?” he recalled.
“I decided to trust in God and run the diocese as I saw best, and have done so ever since.”
His first shock was the sheer volume of work that came his way, leaving no time to initiate anything or to ponder policies for the future.
“It took a long time to realise that one isn’t given that luxury,” he said. “You have to simply fit it in. Nothing has changed in that regard.”
Financial mess
Within weeks of taking up the job, he was told of the financial troubles the diocese was in and its millions of dollars of debt. To remedy the situation, all budgets were cut – except services for Aborigines and AIDS – some people lost their jobs, but only after they had found another one, accounts were consolidated and the debt to the bank was transferred to the Catholic Development Fund and paid off under a five year plan.
It was normal for parishes to be in debt, but unthinkable for a diocese to be in debt because it had to stabilise the parishes with its own financial security.
“An exciting book or film could be made about those days, with overtones of WA Inc and Rothwells thrown in, but now is not the time for it,” he said.
Liturgy problems
At the same time there were some worrying spiritual trends in the diocese. Experimentation in liturgy was common, with an increasing involvement of lay people, men and women, in the sacred ceremonies.
This was not only in Perth; it was worldwide. The Mass had given way to the liturgy, and grand and ancient as that name was, it was often mistaken for something man-made and therefore changeable.
It took some years before a deeper understanding of the Sacred Mysteries of the Mass led to Roman intervention and a more balanced view of how the Lord’s Supper, in its Novus Ordo form, should be properly celebrated with dignity and reverence. That has lasted.
“Gone are the Jazz Mass and the circle dancing, thanks be to God,” he said.
Aberrant attitudes
“For some reason there was a period when it was not “cool” to speak about vocations to the priesthood. It is very difficult to remember those days because they were so strange.
“A certain feminism had gained currency whereby Holy Orders and male ordinations were considered pre-Vatican II and a barrier to lay participation. The push for the ordination of women was strong in those days.
“Psychology had taught me at the university that the best way to extinguish a view was not to reinforce it, or, as we would say today, not give it oxygen. It disappeared from sight, probably underground. “A change of climate followed where vocations could be spoken of again in Catholic theological circles.
Priests and vocations
1994 was an eventful year in the resolution of difficulties in the diocese about promoting vocations to the priesthood. St Charles Seminary in Guildford was re-opened early in the year and the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary in Morley was opened later in the year. St Charles Seminary had been closed for 20 years, operating only as a discernment house for vocations, with students mainly going to St Francis Xavier Seminary in Adelaide. The worldwide drop in vocations in Western countries was not so severe here, and Perth had averaged 1.9 ordinations a year in the ten years from 1984 to 1993. The diocese had never been self-sufficient in priests and had relied heavily on Ireland, with some priests from other countries.
When it became clear there would be no more priests from Ireland because of its own crisis, the Archbishop initiated overseas contacts and before long was able to find good priests and some seminarians to opt for Perth. With the two seminaries operating, and both of them currently full, ordinations are numerous and have averaged 5.3 per year from 1994 onwards.
The Archbishop said that although there was no shortage of priests at present, it was important to promote local vocations in order to have a good balance between local and overseas priests.
“We are Catholics, which means we are a universal people, but it is also important that young men be called out of our own community to serve us as priests,” Archbishop Hickey said.
Religious education and evangelisation
“Considerable effort was put into producing excellent and faithful texts for use by teachers and catechists in schools and parishes.
“Any visitor to Perth would be delighted to see these texts. At the same time there had been a steady increase in the number of teachers willing and well-equipped to concentrate on teaching religious education in our schools.
“The real problem now was the faith of families whose children received instruction.
“Without backing from home, the best teachers and texts in the world would find the task almost impossible.
“This pointed to the need for evangelisation of Catholic families who had drifted away. Over the past years, in response to the late Pope John Paul II’s call for the New Evangelisation, every parish produced an evangelisation plan to help reach out to faraway Catholics and unbelievers.
“The efforts were impressive, but the truth is more needs to be done, probably best by neighbourhood prayer groups in touch with their immediate neighbours,” the Archbishop said.
In the effort to evangelise, the use of the media was critical. “My own small efforts to appear regularly on commercial television have resulted in huge exposure and recognition. While the comments have been pleasing, the masses are not yet crowding into the churches.
“However, a word of faith spoken into the marketplace is worth the effort. In our efforts to step up the work of evangelisation, I have great hopes for the embryonic Lumen Christi Centre for Evangelisation.”
The poor
The Church has always had concern for the poor; it is part of its divine mandate and is deeply embedded in the Catholic consciousness, the Archbishop said.
“I am pleased with the progress made in many areas of disadvantage by publicly funded professional agencies and by Church-funded volunteer agencies that work at street level, like Daydawn and Shopfront.
“The Church must give genuine witness to the value of every person, whatever their circumstances.
“The pro-life cause is based on the same belief in human dignity.
“Efforts to affect the political processes and legislation have unfortunately had little success. With more pro-life politicians we would get better results.
“At the level of the individual we have a number of excellent counselling phone services, drop in centres and a residential centre for women in distress over an unexpected child.
“There are signs that attitudes are changing on abortion and its real effects are beginning to be recognised, despite the propaganda to the contrary.”
The media
“The public face of the Church has often been marred by scandal and bad publicity.
“Personally, I can remember two painful episodes when the press was extremely negative and hostile to me, and one an on-going issue when the clergy were attacked.
“One was in 1993 when Paul Keating was elected Prime Minister. I had authorised a paper issued by the local Social Justice group. In my view, it was fair to both major parties and principled, but it was announced in a press release issued in Canberra that was entirely party political and pro-Labor. It incensed at least half of the Catholic people, who felt I had been politically partisan and that this could have influenced the outcome of the election.
“Explanations were pointless and virtually impossible because all that most of the public knew was what was in the press release, which I had not seen. I had to take it on the chin. It was painful, but a lesson was learned.
“The other was the more recent matter of Bethel.
“The community exploded with allegations of sexual misconduct and brain-washing. I was in the middle of the newspaper reports and did not come out of it well.
“It was claimed that I knew or should have known what was going on and had not acted. I knew a little, but not the extent of what was being claimed.
“Again, this was bad publicity which left its mark.
“The third matter was the revelations of abuse by brothers and priests of young people that surfaced around the world and here in Perth.
“While it is true that the numbers of abusers were few the damage to the Church’s reputation and to innocent brothers and priests was unavoidable. We were all held to account even when we had no knowledge of what went on in secret.
“Overall, the result has been positive. It has led to a purification of the Church, new procedures for selection, training and child protection policies, and better ways of handling complaints.
“Although nothing will stop the determined and cunning perpetrator, much is in place to protect the young.
Calls for change
“Strong movements around the world have been agitating for significant changes in Church teaching and practice, especially about sexual and gender matters, homosexuality, contraception, even abortion.
“Celibacy has been declared unnatural and even impossible and male-only ordination has been attacked. It is true that some matters, like celibacy, can be changed, but others cannot.
“It has been my view that a Bishop must uphold the Catholic teaching on these matters, but also believe them to be “good news” and not just burdens to be carried.
“The Church’s teaching on sexuality is good news in my view. Many of our new generation of young people have understood that and are unafraid to stand up for this vision among their peers.”
At home in Rome
“Having studied in Rome for four years at Propaganda Fide College, and having been ordained there, I have always had a soft spot for the Eternal City. My visits to Rome have been frequent, some while on holiday and some for Church reasons like the Ad Limina visits that all Bishops must make to the Holy Father every five years.
“One Ad Limina visit coincided with the Special Synod for Oceania in 1998. The late Pope John Paul II began territorial Synods of Bishops to gather them around him to discuss problems and challenges facing the Church in their region. Oceania included Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Pacific Islands and New Zealand.
“For two weeks we heard short speeches from one another and grouped together for deeper discussions. My interest was particularly keen because the Holy Father appointed me Relator, or the Manager of Business for the Synod.
“The discussions were varied and stimulating as they brought together the Bishops of the most isolated parts of the Pacific Ocean and the Bishops of Western Australia on the Indian Ocean. Some time after the Synod the Pope issued an exhortation called Ecclesia in Oceania, which has been a very useful reference text for Church initiatives over the past ten years.”
Homeless
“A major part of my extracurricular activities over the past ten years has been contact with homeless Aboriginal people. Most nights from four to ten people would sleep on my back and front verandas. I have learned an enormous amount from them and about them as I sought to befriend them. Most of them were young, early twenties, male and female.
“All of them came from very disturbed families. Not one grew up with their father at home. All were addicted in various degrees to sniffing. Most left school in Years 6 or 7. Two boys reached Year 8. I could only offer my friendship and respect and hope and pray for miracles.
Relationships
“In a sense, a very biblical sense, a priest is called to give priority to God’s work above family and friends. The celibate lifestyle is a symbol of this. It is not an easy thing to do. Family ties are the first and most enduring bonds we grow with. Yet Christ Himself had to make it clear that His own family could not restrict Him in His mission. But of course He maintained those links of affection with His mother and His relatives, some of whom became His disciples and apostles. So it must be for a priest or a Bishop. The call comes first, but the ties of love of family are not broken even if one is asked to work a long distance from home.
“In this context, I think of many priests who have come here from overseas and leave their families back in their homeland. This must be hard for them. Only the knowledge that the Lord has called them to work in His vineyard can comfort them. Then there are friends. One is expected to treat all people with love and respect and to be at their service, especially the poor and the lost sheep. Yet, humanly speaking, we need friends to whom we can reveal our inner feelings and thoughts. Pastorally, the task is to maintain wholesome and nourishing friendships while being available to all who need us. Jesus had close friends in Martha, Mary and Lazarus while following completely His Father’s will.
“For one called to celibacy, the natural desire for intimacy and family is a major challenge, not to be underestimated.
“Most priests have struggles in this area. It is only because the lifestyle to which we are called is a specially graced state that clerical celibacy is possible at all. With grace, it is a joy. Left to nature, alone it would be a constant struggle.
Clergy
“We know that ‘the Church’ is not just the clergy. It is the community of the baptised. At the same time there is no doubt that the priests and deacons have a divinely appointed special role in the Church, the priests to be an expression of Christ, Shepherd and Head and bearer of the divine mysteries, and Deacons to be an expression of Christ the Servant.
“The Bishop is to have a special relationship with the priests and deacons. Over the past 25 years I am aware that the governance and the spiritual care of the people could not have been done without the close cooperation of the priests in their parishes and special works.
“Probably because of this special place in the Church, the priests insist on their views being heard.
“To some extent this happens through the Council of Priests, whereas most of it occurs through personal contact. Not all priests will be or have been entirely happy with my mode of governance or my policies. This is to be expected because every priest is different and will have individual views.
“I hope, though, that they have not doubted my love for them nor my appreciation of the efforts they put in, even if I cannot always agree with their viewpoints or have failed to give them enough time.
Religious and lay
“Over the past 25 years, the Religious have gone through a painful time with the disappearance of their roles in education, healthcare and social welfare along with internal structural changes and their drop in vocations.
“They still remain powerful witnesses of the presence of a loving God among us and continue to contribute to the Mission of the Church in many ways. What lies in the future is hard to tell, but the charism of the consecrated life is too important for it ever to disappear. The Holy Spirit will continue to inspire young women and men to follow the path of consecration even if the active works are markedly different in the future.
“I have seen an enormous rise in lay participation in the past years. Perhaps the most significant development has been in education where the vast and rapidly growing Catholic education system is almost entirely run by lay people with a sense of vocation.
“We now have in our education system an army of highly educated people, knowledgeable too in their faith, that are a unique resource of talent, energy and ideas that the Church has never had before. I look back over 25 years as a Bishop and 50 years as a priest with gratitude to God. I know that my limitations have caused difficulties in the past, but I also know that they do not limit the work of the Holy Spirit, and because of this the credit for any spiritual growth must clearly be the action of God.
“For this reason, I reach this milestone with inner peace, asking forgiveness if I have caused harm to any person. I sincerely thank the many people who have offered me their congratulations on this milestone and all who have prayed for me over the years.
Last words
“I find it very gratifying to be able to use the restored Cathedral for the public celebration of my two jubilees, my 50 years as a priest and 25 years as a Bishop.
“This celebration was the last of a series of celebrations to mark the completion and restoration of the Cathedral. At last, we have a complete Cathedral for this and future generations.
The first Cathedral, of course, is still standing and is still used daily; that is the Pro-Cathedral of St John in Victoria Square. It was the first Catholic church in 1845 and became the first Cathedral in the Swan River Colony in 1846 with the consecration of Bishop John Brady.
“The first Cathedral on the new site was begun in 1863 when Bishop Salvado blessed the foundation stone and was completed by Fr Martin Griver, later Bishop Griver in 1865. It was eventually too small, so Archbishop Clune planned a completely new Cathedral, but because of the world depression only half was completed in 1930.
“Now, thanks to the brilliant architectural plan of Mr Peter Quinn, excellent builders and a team of artists, advisers, helpers and fundraisers it is now completed. The target of $33 million has nearly been reached over less than three years and, please God, will be achieved very soon.
“With deep gratitude to Almighty God and to thousands of committed people, it is my privilege to offer it to generations of the future for the worship of God.”