Comment: This entire piece is worth reading and spreading.....I cannot help but think US priests feel the same. Beyond the commentary-I highly recommend reading the full article.
Diane Dougherty http://www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/
With permission of the author, Terry Fewtrell, a Catholic layperson and retired former senior civil servant based in Canberra, we present this article he had published in The Canberra Times on 8th March 2011 as a Catholica editorial. In light of the recently released Wilkinson Report [LINK] and the review of a timely new book "Our Fathers: what Australian Catholic priests really think about their lives and their church" by Chris McGillion and John O'Carroll which we publish today [LINK], we believe Mr Fewtrell's article speaks for many of the mainstream baptised today who are extremely fed up at the way in which we have been let down by our current and recent bishops and by those who control the institutional agenda in Rome. Thanks to the foresight of previous generations of bishops, priests, religious women and men, as well as lay people the Church in Australia today is not in crisis in terms of the size, qualifications or the remuneration paid to its front-line workforce. Its physical infrastructure is in superb condition and the Church is financially strong and stable thanks to the massive flow of funds that ultimately come from tax paying lay Catholics and the recognition of the broader Australian population of the value of the Catholic Church as a provider of educational, health care, aged care and social welfare services to this nation. The only "crisis" today is a crisis of leadership in Rome and at the way in which the Australian episcopal leadership has been stacked by Rome by men who today are only interested in serving a tiny remnant minority totally unrepresentative of the broader Body of Christ. As Mr Fewtrell argues in this editorial it is an injustice that is today being inflicted on our ageing priests who have given a lifetime of service to the people of this nation by an episcopal leadership that has lost touch with reality and lost touch with the Holy Spirit after whom this Great South Land of the Holy Spirit was originally named. What Terry Fewtrell has to say deserves to have wide circulation in the Australian Catholic community and we urge readers of Catholica to print it out, or email the pdf version of this page which you will find HERE, and circulate it as widely as possible in your local communities.
http://www.catholica.com.au/editorial/035_edit_print.php
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