Bishop Morris's book "Benedict, Me and the Cardinals Three", published by ATF Press, is banned from sale in Catholic bookshops in Toowoomba and Brisbane.

It is only available on request in Sydney's and Adelaide's Catholic bookshops. It will not appear on bookshelves at these outlets.

Bishop Morris was asked by Pope Benedict to resign in 2009, but negotiated early retirement in 2011.

The book, which was to have been launched on June 17 in Toowoomba, has appendices of the correspondence between Bishop Morris and the Pope.

Bishop Morris could not attend the Toowoomba launch because of illness, but this has been rescheduled and five further launches are planned in Australia.

The day after the launch, the ATF Press's Hilary Regan delivered copies that the Toowoomba Catholic bookshop had ordered.

But an hour later he was told by a diocesan official that Toowoomba's Bishop Robert McGuckin did not wish the book to be sold there.

So it will now be sold from another outlet in Toowoomba.

Two weeks ago, Adelaide's Archbishop Philip Wilson wrote to parishes in his archdiocese stating that publicity about a local launch did not have his permission or authority.

Adelaide's Catholic bookshop will stock the book, but will not display it on bookshelves.

In the book, Bishop Wilson slams a lack of transparency in how Vatican officials dealt with him.

He said he was not allowed to see the accusations levelled against him.

Bishop Morris explains that a conservative pressure group in his diocese had a disproportionate influence in the Vatican, based on selective information, which fatally compromised his role as bishop.

He said three influential cardinals, Francis Arinze, Giovanni Battista Re and William Levada, believed things about him that were not true.

Bishop Morris said he fell foul of a culture of centralised power in the Vatican and was seen as a troublemaker.

Another recently launched ATF Press publication, "Potiphar's Wife: The Vatican's Secret and Child Sexual Abuse", is also not on bookshelves in the Sydney Catholic bookshop, but is available if requested.

Sources

• ATF Press
• ABC Radio
• Toowoomba Chronicle
• Image: Toowoomba Chronicle

Commenting on Morris' letter in which he accuses the Vatican of a "lack of care for the truth," Nuzzi's Vatileaks book has the Holy Father writing, "Obviously there was a misunderstanding, created, it seems to me, by my insufficient knowledge of the English language."

"In our meeting, I tried to convince him that his resignation was desirable, and I thought he expressed his willingness to renounce his functions as bishop of Toowoomba."

"From his letter, I see this was a misunderstanding," Benedict writes. "I acknowledge that, but I must say decisively that this isn't a case of 'a lack of care for the truth.'"

This revelation is one of many by NCR journalist, John Allen in his 1 June column where he examines Gianluigi Nuzzi's Vatileaks book "His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI".

Allen also recalls from among Benedict's notes, Morris' objection to the way the Vatican handling his case.

Benedict concludes, "there's no doubt of his very good pastoral intentions," but "the diocesan bishop must be, above all, a teacher of the faith, since the faith is the foundation of pastoral activity."

Benedict then tells Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect for the Congregation for Bishops, to recommend that Morris accept "free renunciation of his actual ministry, in favor of a ministry more consistent with his gifts," and asks Re to "assure him of my prayers."

Morris was removed from office in 2011 for comments he made in a 2006 letter to parishioners in which he raised the prospect of the Church considering the ordination of married men, and women to help counter a looming shortfall in priests, and for some sacramental irregularities in his diocese.

Morris has consistently said he has been consistently deliberately misrepresented.

Sources

• NCR
• CathNews
• Image: Warwick Daily News

"Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, major decisions must be made," Daly writes in his new book A Troubled See, Memoirs of a Derry Bishop.

Daly, who as a priest, and waving just a white handkerchief, protected the wounded from the British Army's bullets on 'Bloody Sunday', is still a respected figure in Ireland, says he is worried about the decreasing number of seminarians and that many good priests are leaving the priesthood, in major part due to the requirement of living a celibate life.

Priesthood forces men to choose between God and family, Daily said and many good men, well qualified candidates for priesthood find the celibacy rule a personal sacrifice that goes too far.

Daily said he found it heart-breaking that during his time as a bishop so many priests and seminarians left the ministry because they found a celibate life too difficult to live.

He is also concerned about the number of ageing clergy, who are at a time of their life that they should be retired.

"There will always be a place in the church for a celibate priesthood, but there should also be a place for a married priesthood in the church," Daly wrote.

"I think priests should have the freedom to marry if they wish. It may create a whole new set of problems but I think it's something that should be considered," he says.

At 77, Daly is now retired, and the Catholic Church in Ireland was quick to point out that Daly was talking in a private capacity.

Recently Bill Morris, Bishop of Toowoomba, Australia was forced to retire early, in part for comments he made about priestly celibacy that were misrepresented by a disaffected group in the diocese.

Celibacy has been a requirement for Catholic priests since the 11th century.

Married Anglican priests have long been welcome to join the Catholic Church priests, and Pope Benedict XVI recently established the Ordinariate, a legal structure inside the Catholic Church to welcome many hundreds of Anglican priests who want to be Catholic but maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion.

Sources

• Wikipedia
• The Guardian
• BBC
• Image: Wikipedia

The congregation overflowed from the cathedral into outside marquee where the service was broadcast live.

Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell labelled protesters as a "predictable chorus" and a "minority."

However spokesperson for the group, Fr Ray Crowley denies both these labels.

"We want to show the Vatican that it needs to have a process that includes transparency in its actions. We can't afford, as a Local Church, to be losing people of Bishop Morris's calibre and standing," Fr Crowley said.

"We know that Bishop Morris has huge support across the community and we are incensed that there seems to have been such a lack of natural justice in the process that led to his taking early retirement."

"We are urging people to take part in a petition that can found at a special website we have set up for Bishop Morris at www.bishopbillstory.com.au and we urge people to add their names to it by July 24.

"The majority of people in our Diocese are distraught that the Vatican has not provided Bishop Morris with natural justice and that he has had to leave his post as a result. This is a real issue for every other Diocese in Australia and we urge people to get involved."

Former chair of the Diocesan Pastoral Council, Mr John Elish said, "When a bishop get dismissed, a lot of Catholics and the general community think there must be more (to the dismissal) than they're saying."

"We've set up this website and I think anyone who visits it won't be able to draw any conclusion other than the lack of natural justice."

Bishop Morris was 'sacked' following a 'visit' by Vatican appointed Charles Chaput. Chaput has recently been promoted as archbishop of the embattled Philadelphia diocese.

Fr Crowley said the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has agreed to receive the petition on August 2.

Sources

• Toowooma Chronicle
• Westender
• Image: Warwick Daily News

Few American bishops relish public debate more than the 66-year-old Chaput, whose background is in the Capuchins, and who's widely regarded as an intellectual leader of the "evangelical" movement in Catholicism. He's fiercely loyal to church teaching and tradition, and passionate about taking the Catholic message to the street.

By naming him to Philadelphia, the pontiff — who is, of course, no stranger to controversy himself — effectively has handed the fiery Chaput a bigger cultural megaphone.

Benedict has also signaled confidence in Chaput's personal integrity and administrative chops. In Philadelphia, Chaput faces the turmoil created by last February's Grand Jury report, which found that 37 priests facing credible accusations of abuse remained in ministry.

In conjunction with the appointment, Chaput sat down for an extended, and exclusive, interview with NCR. He put no limits on the topics to be covered, which included his move to Philadelphia, his overall leadership style and vision, and his views of the sexual abuse crisis. The lone condition was that the interview not be published until the appointment became official.

In part, the picture that emerges is already familiar. Chaput wants to lead the church back "to a clear embrace of the Gospel, without compromise." He tackles the Latin Mass, the visitation of American nuns, health care, communion bans for pro-choice politicians, and gay marriage — in each case, staking out what most would regard as strongly conservative positions.

Yet there are also surprises.

For one thing, Chaput is positive about the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, saying that the right Catholic response to a distinction between the moderate, social justice emphasis of Bernardin, and the more evangelical ethos under John Paul II, is "both/and."

"If we don't love the poor, and do all we can to improve their lot, we're going to go to Hell," Chaput says, in typically blunt fashion.

Chaput actually bristles at the label "conservative," insisting that he's faithful to church teaching, but strives to be "creative and contemporary" in applying it.

On the sex abuse front, Chaput insists that priests and bishops who break the law need to face the music. He openly calls for serious reflection about new accountability measures for bishops, implying that bishops who do their jobs have no reason to fear scrutiny.

The following is a transcript of the interview with Chaput, which took place at his residence in Denver.

Read the interview with Archbishop Charles Chaput, the Toowoomba 'visitor' who got the Philadelphia job

Source

• Image: STL Today

The veteran cardinal, a one-time contender for the papacy, says there's "no fundamental theological obstacle" to the ordination of women as priests in the Catholic Church.

Rather, he suggested, it has never been done from the time of Jesus, and while it will happen, it won't be in our time.

Now is not the time to raise the question, he opined.

"There's a fundamental equality among all the members of the church," the cardinal said. "The problem lies in a strong tradition, which comes from Jesus and from the fact that the churches of the Reformation conceded the priesthood to women."

Policarpo's claim that there is no theological bar to women priests would seem to be at odds with various recent Vatican declarations.

When the Church of England allowed women priests, John Paul II "seemed to settle the matter," with Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, one of the shortest documents of his pontificate; however Polycarpo said, "the matter cannot be resolved like this."

More recently, Pope Benedict, in a letter informing Australian Bishop William Morris of the Toowoomba diocese that he had been removed from office, referred to the teaching on women priests as "infallible," and that he was dismissed in part for raising the question of women's ordination in a pastoral letter.

Policarpo, 75, a former dean of the theology faculty at the Portugese Catholic University, has been the Patriarch of Lisbon since 1998. Although reaching the usual retirement age for bishops, Benedict XVI recently confirmed him in office for another two years.

Sources

• La Stampa
• NCR Online
• ucanews.com
• Image: Interview with Cardinal Policarpo (PDF in Portugese)

The recent, unfortunate forced early retirement of Bishop Morris of Toowoomba has caused significant disquiet, not just in Australia, but throughout the Catholic world says Gerald Arbuckle.

Even the Australian Bishops' Conference, while reaffirming their loyalty to the Pope as the head of the College of Bishops, nonetheless has publicly and very wisely stated that they will later this year "have the opportunity to share with the Holy Father…[their] questions and concerns with an eye to the future." Bishop Morris' human and priestly qualities have never been in question.

Why are people concerned? Simply because the process has lacked transparency and due process.

The Archbishop Chaput from Denver, USA, officially visited the diocese and wrote a report for Rome. This report finally led to the forced retirement. But the problem is: Bishop Morris has not seen this secret report so he has been unable to defend himself. This is contrary to natural justice.

Unfortunately, many theologians have been censured, even condemned, over the years by Rome, and secrecy has also without justification interfered with the process. It has been customary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to assess theological orthodoxy in this way: the Congregation is prosecutor, judge, and jury; the person being investigated is not told of the inquiry until stage thirteen (of eighteen stages; the defendant is unable to choose his/her defender or even know his/her identity, nor is there access to material relating to the allegations against the accused; no publicity is permitted concerning the proceedings and there is no right of appeal.

There are times when secrecy is essential, for example to protect the welfare of a person or group, but it must not be habitually used as a cloak for anything any organization does or wants to keep from the public gaze. And, as we see in secular affairs also, the habit of secrecy often leads to a very unpleasant quality, namely the justification of infringing laws and human rights "for the sake of the common good." Secrets give power of control over others, even more so when those who cultivate them are accountable to no public group. We have but to recall how secrecy was used in the Inquisition to intimidate victims. The use of secrecy to intimidate continues.

The Church is not above the Gospel. It is imperative that we respect human rights everywhere, first and foremost within the Church itself, otherwise it contradicts what it is trying to preach. Was it not the Bishops' Synod of 1971 that said: "While the Church is bound to give witness to justice, she recognizes that anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes. Hence we must undertake an examination of the modes of acting …within the Church itself."

It is time to cease using secrecy in ecclesiastical matters in ways that infringe the rights of members of the Church.

___________________

Gerald A. Arbuckle, sm is the author of Refounding the Church: Dissent for Leadership (1993). His most recent book is: Culture, Inculturation, and Theologians: A Postmodern Critique (2010).

Image: St Vincent de Paul Society

According to the Catholic News Agency, the document also confirms that the Vatican removed Morris for abuses in the celebration of the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and for advocating women's ordination to the priesthood.

The document, "Summary History of Bishop Morris' dispute with the Roman dicasteries" was prepared by two priests loyal to Bishop Morris, Peter Schultz, the diocese's judicial vicar, and Peter Dorfield, former vicar general of the diocese. The two are part of an eight-member body of priests who make up the bishop's "college of consultors," and who are protesting at Morris' removal. The document also outlines the history of the case.

While friction between Morris and the Vatican became evident soon after he was installed in the Toowoomba diocese in 1993, Professor of Public Policy at ACU, Frank Brennan SJ, suggests the turning point in the Morris-Vatican relationship was a report of US bishop Charles Chaput who conducted a formal visitation of the diocese on behalf of the Vatican.

And while after Chaput's visit, all but three priests of the diocese wrote to Rome in support of Morris' pastoral leadership and so too did all the Pastoral Leaders and all members of the Diocesan Pastoral Council, Chaput's report has never been released.

Brennan is of the view that because not even Morris has seen the report, he has been denied his right to natural justice.

Morris would like the report published. "Yes, I would like it published because I think my people deserve the right to - you know, if Archbishop Chaput, who wandered around the diocese for three-and-a-half days ... and then made a judgment on the diocese, I think the people have a right to see what judgments he made in his report."

Chaput told independent news source, National Catholic Reporter (NCR), that to protect all parties involved the report, like all apostolic visitation reports, would remain confidential.

Morris thinks his forced retirement is intended to "send a message to the bishops of the world: the fact that if you ask questions, if you're in people's faces long enough, if you're kind of a nuisance around the place, well look what happened to Bill Morris."

Catholic Church needs good leaders

Barney Zwartz, religion writer for The Age, says he has spent considerable energy over the years defending the Catholic Church from some of the extremes of vitriol it attracts, but believes the Church's worst enemy is its own leadership.

"It wasn't abuse that sparked the Vatican's ire and (relatively) swift action against Bishop Morris", he said. "There are predatory rapists in clerical collars in Australia who have not been forced to resign".

Brennan says, "This is a tragedy for anyone committed to the Church except for those like the chap who wrote on my Facebook: "The guy was a cowboy, not a shepherd". It's that sort of chap who probably started it all with complaints to Rome, behind closed doors. We need more shepherds in the light and fewer cowboys in the dark. Morris was a good shepherd even to those who acted as cowboys".

Meanwhile, the Australian Bishops' Conference have come out in support of the Pope's decision over Bishop Morris and affirmed the "unique role" of the Pope as head of the College of Bishops.

Sources

• CNA
• NCR
• America Magazine
• Catholic Culture
• The Age
• The Australian
• Image: ABC

Many find the idea of politics existing in the Church distasteful, but the Church, divine in foundation, is also a human institution and in any human institution politics are an essential element; not only necessary but desirable. Understanding the politics helps with the understanding of Bishop Morris's resignation. This piece by Noel Debien who is the producer of ABC's Sunday Night's radio program describes the long back-story.

Debinien says that at a meeting between the Roman Curia and some of the senior Bishops of Australia in December 1998, a document known as the Statement of Conclusions was presented. It has to do with the perceived characteristics of Australian Catholics that had became crystalised in the minds of key Vatican figures. "The document was aimed at all of the Bishops of Australia and their dioceses - and was quite confronting, to say the least". "The (then) Cardinal Ratzinger had been influential in the preparation of the document, as were Sydney's Cardinal Edward Clancy and Brisbane's Bishop Michael Putney, both of whom were on the committee that produced the Statement.

"The presentation of the Statement made it clear that its conclusions had been reached long before their own particular Ad Limina dialogues had begun in Rome. It also became clear that the views of only some bishops and other voices had influenced the Pope's advisers in the lead up to the bishops' dialogue." Morris had become Bishop of Toowoomba in 1993, six years before the crisis brought about by the Statement of Conclusions. He had been present at the 1998 curial meeting at which the Statement was presented, though he was not a signatory.

Of Australians, the Statement said things like:

In making the announcement, Morris says he has been targeted over comments he made five years ago, comments that have been deliberately misrepresented.

In a 2006 letter to parishioners Bishop Morris raised the prospect of the Church considering the ordination of married men and women to help counter a looming shortfall in priests.

The letter has been "misread and I believe deliberately misinterpreted by a small group (which has) found my leadership and the direction of the diocese not to their liking".

Following up the complaint, the Vatican began an investigation which included an apostolic visitation and ongoing discussions with the Vatican-based congregations for Bishops, Divine Worship and Doctrine of the Faith and even the Pope.

"Appalling" is how ousted priest, Fr Peter Kennedy described the situation.

"Bishop Morris is a man of an amazing amount of compassion … people generally in the diocese know the compassion of this man and the goodness of this man," Fr Kennedy said.

However Kennedy is not surprised by the Vatican's decision.

"It was John Paul II who said the actual ordination of women could never be discussed even and it was interesting to hear he was beatified yesterday," he said.

"The absolute authority of the Vatican that is held over bishops - you've got to remember that bishops, when they become bishops, promise obedience of mind and will to the Holy Father."

Catholics in the Toowoomba diocese say they are in shock after their bishop was forced to quit after the dispute with the Pope.

"There is a whole range of reactions - some people are just shocked and saddened, some people were in tears, some people were extremely angry," Fr Dorfield said.

"Some people were just shaking their heads - just simply couldn't comprehend how a man who was so well regarded in our diocese, prayerful and pastoral, could be considered as not suitable to be the Bishop."

The chair of the diocese and pastoral council in Toowoomba, John Elich, says Bishop Morris has done an extraordinary job.

"Bishop Bill Morris has been poorly and unfairly treated and secondly, I guess disappointed on behalf of the church that a decision could be made with no forms of natural justice whatsoever - no access even to a report that was prepared," Elich said.

Bishop Morris had been among a handful of Queensland bishops considered to contain the frontrunners for the role of archbishop of the Brisbane Archdiocese, to be vacated later this year by the retirement of Archbishop John Bathersby.

A vigil mass will be held outside the Bishop Morris's house in Toowoomba tomorrow.

Sources

• Courier Mail
• ABC
• ABC News