This is not the first time Sister Joan Chittister has called out Australia's Catholic hierarchy. She was recently embroiled in a censorship row with Melbourne's Archbishop.

Now she is renewing calls for women's ordination and for laypeople to be given more power over parishes.

Chittister's challenging call comes at a time when the nation's bishops are under pressure to overhaul the church after years of sex scandals and internal unrest.

Reforms such as these were meant to be thrashed out at this year's Plenary Council, which is scheduled to take place in October.

Said to be the most significant conference Australian Catholic bishops have held in 80 years, the working documents prepared for the event suggest some of the more contentious issues on the agenda may not get a full hearing - if they are discussed at all.

"Everyone knows that the church in Australia needs a major overhaul of its governance, culture and structures, but instead of setting out a clear, concise and coherent blueprint for reform, this document is a ground plan for inertia," says Catholics for Renewal president Peter Wilkinson.

"It is very disappointing."

Chittister says she shares concerns that suppressing Catholic reform "by the bishops" would impede much-needed improvements.

The upshot will be that ever more people will abandon their parishes.

"There are one of two ways that this can end. The bishops can embrace the concerns and the need for resolution or they continue to ignore the laity - at which point the church will some day wake up in the morning and find out that the church is in fact gone," she says.

Speaking to an audience of 3000 this month, she added: "Catholicism must grow up, beyond the parochial to the global, beyond one system and one tradition to a broader way of looking at life ... Why not married priests, women priests, or women cardinals?"

Chittister's appearance in Australia comes at a critical moment for the church ahead of the upcoming Plenary Council.

Expectations were high in the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, which found the hierarchical nature of the church, coupled with its lack of governance, had created "a culture of deferential obedience" in which the protection of paedophile priests was left unchallenged.

Whether the Church actually has a will to change is something Catholic Australia has yet to find out. It is reportedly concerned that change is not on the agenda.

Their fears were compounded in March when a working document prepared for the Plenary Council did not give enough credence to critical issues that members have been seeking to address.

Peter Johnstone, who is the head of the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform, is urging Australia's bishops to use the Plenary Council to genuinely tackle the "existential crisis" the church faces.

Source

• Brisbane Times
• Image: Vimeo

Comensoli, the Archbishop of Melbourne, initially sought to say the rescinding of an invitation to Sister Joan Chittister, a US author, feminist and advocate of church reform, was a misunderstanding.

He suggested Joan had been sounded out for her availability for the 2020 National Catholic Education Conference in Melbourne, but that no formal invitation had been made.

In fact, correspondence between the Ballarat Catholic Education Office deputy director John Meneely and Joan's office shows on 29 April they agreed to Joan presenting a 60-minute speech at the conference, covering the topic 'Listen to what the spirit is saying'.

A fee of $11,700 had also been negotiated, along with business-class airfares and hotel accommodation.

"I am very saddened to say that while our organising committee strongly supported the inclusion of Sr Joan as a speaker at the conference, the Archbishop of Melbourne has failed to endorse her inclusion," Meneely says.

He is now seeking explanation for Comensoli's reasons for excluding Joan.

The Archdiocese issued a statement last Friday evening.

Acknowledging Comensoli was advised in May of "a proposal for Sister Joan Chittister to speak at the National Catholic Education Commission Conference", the statement continued:

"When the conference was raised with him, Archbishop Comensoli requested that more names aligned to the themes of a national Catholic education conference be considered.

"The conference is a national conference with an organising committee drawn from leaders in Catholic education that is engaged in dialogue as part of the planning with a range of stakeholders including Catholic education leaders, church representatives and bishops.

"Archbishop Comensoli has neither invited Sister Joan or revoked any invitation that may have been issued to her."

However, suspicions the archdiocese was seeking to suppress the views of a nun who had repeatedly called for the empowerment of women and laypeople in the church is fuelling anger among those already upset by Joan's exclusion.

Others are contrasting Joan's treatment to the support Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher recently gave to former rugby star Israel Folau's right to free speech.

"One hopes that the freedoms advocated for Folau be also extended to Joan Chittister," Sister Patty Fawkner, the Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan wrote in an online article last week.

"This would certainly help us move towards an adult Church."

Source

• The Sydney Morning herald
• The Age
• Image: MSN.com

The email says the Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, had not endorsed 83-year old Sister Joan Chittister's invitation.

No reason was given, Chittister says.

However, Jim Miles, who is helping organise the National Catholic Education Commission's annual conference where Chittister had expected to speak in September 2020, says the dispute about her attendance at the conference is a result of a communications failure.

No one, including Chittister, had yet been formally invited to address the gathering, he says.

Nonetheless, Chittister and her supporters are reported as believing the real reason for her exclusion is that the church leaders don't like her ideas — especially her call to empower women and laypeople — so they plan to suppress them.

"It is pathetic. These teachers for the next generation of thinkers are being denied the right to pursue ideas," Chittister says.

"I see it as a lot bigger than one conference ... I see it as an attitude of mind that is dangerous to the church."

"Comensoli has made a serious mistake," says Gail Grossman Freyne, a family therapist, author and friend of Chittister's in Melbourne.

"This ban will in no way hinder Sister Joan in pursuing her apostolate. In fact, it will only increase the number of people in Melbourne, in all of Australia, who will come to hear her speak and buy her books.

"What kind of threat is this 83-year-old Benedictine who has spent her life preaching the gospel?"

The Archdiocese of Melbourne did not respond to requests for comment.

Source

• Sydney Morning Herald
• SBS News
• Image: WPSU