Politics and the Church

Cardinal George Pell is the Archbishop of Sydney and Australia's most senior Catholic clergyman. Back in 1993 when he was Bishop Pell, we will never forget the picture on the news of him showing support for a priest, one of Australia's worst sexual offenders, Father Risdale as he walked with him to court.

Archbishop Pell writes a column in the Sunday Telegraph and this week he spoke about the upcoming Federal Election and the political party - the Greens. He headed his column with "The Greens are Anti-Christian". In answer to the qustion of how people should vote in the coming election, this is his reply.

First of all they should look at the policies and personal views of the individual candidates. Good and wise people are needed in the major political parties. Many, including myself, are concerned about the environment and so my second point was to urge my listeners to examine the policies of the Greens on their website and judge for themselves how thoroughly anti-Christian they are.

In 1996 the Green leader Bob Brown co-authored short book, The Greens, with the notorious philosopher Peter Singer (now at Princeton University) who rejects the unique status of humans and supports infanticide as well as abortion and euthanasia. They claimed humans are simply another smarter animal so that humans and animals are on the same or similar levels depending on the level of consciousness. This Green ethic is designed to replace Judaeo-Christianity. Some Greens have taken this anti-Christian line further by claiming that no religious argument should be permitted in public debate. Not surprisingly they are often consistent on this issue, welcoming Christian support for refugees, but denying that any type of religious reasoning should be allowed on other matters.

One wing of the Greens are like watermelons, green outside and red inside. A number were Stalinists, supporting Soviet oppression. A few years ago they even tried unsuccessfully to use the privileges committee of the NSW Legislative Council to silence religious voices in public debate.

The Greens are opposed to religious schools and would destroy the rights of those schools to hire staff and control enrolments. Funding for non-government schools would be returned to the levels of 2003-04. Already in Canberra, Green pressure was one factor in the attacks on Calvary Hospital because they were not providing abortions.

Then he goes on to talk about how the Greens would allow same-sex marriage and gay couples to adopt children. He ends his message with "The Greens are sweet camouflaged poison".

Is Arthbishop Pell telling his flock how to vote? Yes he is and I'm guessing that Catholics all over the country will probably adhere to his advice.