New book explores Catholic social teaching as a framework for Australian policy making
A new book, Shadow of the Cross, by former Australian Catholic University (ACU) vice chancellor Emeritus Professor Greg Craven AO has been launched at an online event featuring a panel discussion with Archbishop of Melbourne Peter A Comensoli and former Prime Ministers' Tony Abbott AC and Kevin Rudd AC.
The panel, moderated by National Catholic education executive director Jacinta Collins, explored the themes raised in the book on the past influence of Catholic social teaching on Australian politics and policy making, and whether it could be used to offer a vision for how Australian political debate might be done better.
Throughout the evening the two former leaders discussed concrete examples of worker wages, education, and climate change, both offering their differences of opinion on how specific policies might or might not be able to reflect Christian values.
Tony Abbott spoke forcefully about the toxic political climate that has developed in recent years.
"I don’t like the tendency which has crept into so much of our public life to be too judgemental about people with whom you disagree. People aren’t necessarily bad people just because they don’t share our views on particular issues."
The role of the Church in Mr Abbott’s view is to form the character of people who go into public life whilst leaving the details of policies themselves to those actually in public life.
Mr Rudd spoke about the Gospel as both spiritual and social. "If you’re a person of Christian faith, and therefore you are animated by the Gospels, then it’s very difficult and improper to adopt a form of cafeteria Christianity," he said.
"It is simply the Great Commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbour as yourself. For me it has always been an inseparable question … [The former] cannot be clinically separated from your responsibilities to your fellow human beings."
When asked how the principles of Catholic Social Teaching could provide a vision for society, Archbishop Comensoli reminded the audience that the language of politics is deeply embedded in the Christian language.
"We believe in a king, a kingdom, the reign of justice and the living out of the commandments in ways that are about the good and the flourishing of the people."
He said the Church and the realm of faith can too be easily seen as a "spiritual personal reality" detached from the rest of society.
"But that is not the case. And the social teaching of the Church in this regard gives voice to that in a particular way. It is faith in action in the world."
Responding to the discussion, Professor Craven said his essay was designed to get people to think about what kinds of principles and values should frame and influence Australian policy.
"I think what it [values] can do is not tell you what to think, but how to think. And I think a lot of the examples we talked about tonight illustrate that."
He said that education, for instance, "has been the greatest work of the Catholic Church in this country, and probably the greatest work of government in this country. It's shifted entire tranches of people to levels of participation in society that they would never otherwise have had."
Copies of Shadow of the Cross by Greg Craven are available to purchase from Connor Court Publishing.
Parts of this article are extracted from an article first published on the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne's website