GREENS leader Christine Milne has launched a scathing attack on the Catholic Church, accusing it of being more concerned about cash for its schools than about social justice and of falling short on environmental issues. The criticisms provoked a stinging rebuke from the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, who suggested the Greens were anti-Christian and Senator Milne was part of a "bizarre green bandwagon".
Senator Milne, a self-described extremely lapsed Catholic with a long history with the church through childhood, school and university, told The Weekend Australian its leadership was failing on key social issues.
"I have a real frustration at the Catholic Church's failure to engage with some of the real big social justice issues in Australia - the current asylum-seeker debate for example," she said.
"You have the Catholic Education Office sending letters home to parents in Melbourne about Catholic school funding, but nothing about the social justice of the current political debate on homelessness (or) on asylum-seekers. This comes down to the fundamentals of what characterise Catholic education and it is not just about levels of funding. And yet from George Pell that's all you hear. You don't hear engagement on the big social justice issues of the day."
Senator Milne also accused Cardinal Pell and Catholic bishops of watering down Catholic Earth Care Australia, a body she helped the church set up from 2002 to 2004.
"The idea was to set up a movement within the Catholic Church to get people thinking about stewardship of the environment and protection of the planet and also because the Pope had called for environmental conversion," Senator Milne said.
"It is not something one hears from Cardinal Pell, but (Pope John Paul II was) saying this was now an imperative of Catholics to realise there was this responsibility to protect the planet. So it was really to give effect to that."
She was disappointed the church had since "backed off" from Catholic Earth Care Australia.
"They disbanded the (advisory) group we had," Senator Milne said. "I think they were a bit daunted by the power of environmentalism, in spite of John Paul II's call for ecological conversion. I think it's out of the experience of most of them. It particularly spoke to the Catholic ethos of social justice and environmental protection and so it could have been a very powerful movement in the church. I think they didn't know what to make of that."
Cardinal Pell rejected the criticisms and launched his own strongly worded attack on the Greens and Senator Milne.
"I am loath to help Christine Milne avoid limelight-deprivation," Cardinal Pell told The Weekend Australian. "However, she is not well placed to be lecturing Catholic schools on anything, given the bitter hostility of the Greens to Christians, to Catholic teaching, and all church schools. I can well imagine she does not welcome any examination of the Greens policy on the funding of non-government schools. It is particularly regrettable that she parades her Catholic background, which she has comprehensively rejected, despite her efforts to co-opt Pope John Paul II to her bizarre green bandwagon."
Cardinal Pell said the church, unlike the Greens, was involved in delivering practical help for both the homeless and refugees.
"Catholic agencies and groups do marvellous work with the homeless and with refugees," he said. "Can the senator name any Green group or agency which works regularly to help the homeless?"
Senator Milne was raised a Catholic, attended a Catholic boarding school and was voted president of a Hobart Catholic university boarding college. She said she had not been a practising Catholic for some time.