On the face of it, the closure of Melbourne’s John Paul II Institute
does not seem especially earth-shaking news.
True, the institution has a
high international reputation for the quality of its teaching and its
academic research on bioethics and the family.
But it has only existed
since 2001, and it is not unique, globally speaking – there are 10 or so
other campuses around the world also affiliated with the John Paul II
Institute in Rome.
But when Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne announced last week that
the institute will close, it provoked an extraordinary reaction.
The
website of Australia’s Catholic Weekly, which broke the story, crashed
for the first time ever because so many people were following the story.
A Facebook campaign, “Save the John Paul II Institute”, quickly
acquired 1,200 members. Current and former students came forward to say
how much the institute meant to them, and to ask whether there was any
way to save it.
Archbishop Hart’s statement noted that there was an “increasing
financial burden placed on the Archdiocese of Melbourne”.
But sceptics
say that can’t be the only reason.
Melbourne is reputedly one of the
wealthiest dioceses in the world.
In 2011, it moved its operations to a
grand 1860s building in central Melbourne, which it bought for A$36
million (£23 million) – enough money to keep the JPII Institute going
for decades.
The archbishop also cited low student numbers (there are about 130
active students). But these have been growing since 2010.
And since the
institute has recently launched new courses – approved this summer by
Australia’s national accreditation committee – numbers would probably
have continued to rise.
Dioceses do have to make tough choices about spending. Some people
will always be disappointed.
Yet the closure of the institute needs a
bigger explanation. And there is an elephant in the room: the John Paul
II Institute has many enemies in Australia.
Its mission – to deepen understanding of the Catholic vision of the
family – is a distinctive one. According to one former student, the
institute’s supporters viewed it as “a shining light of Catholic
orthodoxy amidst a swamp of modernism in so much of the Catholic
educational structure”. That attachment to orthodoxy made it unpopular.
When the institute began in 2001, it had strong support from the
Melbourne hierarchy.
The archbishop at the time was George Pell; when he
was moved to Sydney later that year, it was widely felt that Catholic
intellectual life had moved with him.
In some ways the institute and
Melbourne archdiocese have been an awkward fit.
Also significant are recent changes at the original John Paul II
Institute in Rome. Pope Francis has appointed two new leaders:
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as grand chancellor, and Mgr Pierangelo
Sequeri as president.
Both are sympathetic to reforms of communion
discipline which would contradict John Paul II’s teaching – a teaching
which Cardinal Ratzinger once said “cannot be modified”.
One Vatican
official reportedly called the appointments a “diminishment” of the institute’s work.
Pope Francis has taken a keen interest in the John Paul II Institute.
To appoint Archbishop Paglia, he had to bypass the institute’s rules,
which state that the chancellor must be the vicar general of Rome.
Soon
after, the Pope intervened again: he cancelled a start-of-term address
by Cardinal Robert Sarah.
Instead, Francis himself made a speech, in
which he rebuked theologians who offer “a far too abstract and almost
artificial theological ideal of marriage”.
These are not the only signs that Francis is lukewarm about John
Paul’s legacy. When, during World Youth Day, Francis preached at the
Sanctuary of St John Paul II in Kraków, he made only a single glancing
reference to his predecessor.
The John Paul II Institute of Melbourne, then, has found itself
isolated under the current pontificate. That helps to explain why it has
fallen out of favour in Melbourne; it also suggests why there was such
an outpouring when it was closed.
Australian Catholics who have been
inspired by John Paul’s teachings – on marriage, family, the human
person and the moral law – have been alarmed by this blow to the
institute.
They are discussing possible solutions. The “Save the John Paul II
Institute” campaign is collecting testimonies from grateful students:
medical professionals who were helped to uphold the Church’s teachings,
trainee teachers whose passion for religious education was fired, and
lay people who gained the formation to live faithfully in secular
environments.
They hope the weight of testimony will move the archdiocese to change
its decision. Natasha Marsh, a current student, says: “Even if it moves
on, reassembles in some other form, it won’t be the Institute, and Melbourne Catholic life will lose one of its crowning jewels.”
But there is a possible second home for the institute.
Sydney’s
Archbishop, Anthony Fisher, is a Dominican and a bioethicist, and one of
the leading theological minds in the Australian Church.
He also helped
to found the institute.
It would make an interesting chapter in the old
Sydney-Melbourne rivalry if Archbishop Fisher now offered a rescue plan.