Conversation: People ‘often look for God in wrong places’ - Cardinal Clancy, retired Archbishop of Sydney

Sydney
7 July 2002

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Conversation: People ‘often look for God in wrong places’ - Cardinal Clancy, retired Archbishop of Sydney

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Conversation: People ‘often look for God in wrong places’ - Cardinal Clancy, retired Archbishop of Sydney

By Kathleen Carmody

Life is hard for Christians today, according to Cardinal Edward Bede Clancy (pictured).

“We don’t live any longer in what might be called a Christian society,” he says. “Theoretically we claim to be a Christian country, but in practice it’s more secular than it is Christian.

“And whereas once we were swimming with the tide, we’re swimming against it now. That’s what makes it more difficult, more challenging.

“Right here and now, if we were just to look at it in the context of the past five or 10 years, I think many would say that we’re losing the battle.

“Nonetheless, I am filled with hope and optimism.”

Cardinal Clancy, who was archbishop of Sydney from 1983 to 2001, says secularism is largely to blame for the decline.

“I think that secularism has seeped into the lives of most people,” he says.

“We’ve all been touched by it in some way or another.

“Secularism … would tell you that there’s no God, that there’s no heaven, that the only grace is money and the only heaven is pleasure, and what you see is what you get in this life – there’s no life hereafter.

“All that has started to take hold – and it exercises its influence in very subtle ways, particularly through the media. That is probably the main reason, I think, why so many people have become indifferent to religion.

“It’s a very subtle influence but a fairly damaging one.”

But despite this insidious influence, the Cardinal believes more and more people are searching for the divine in their lives.

“I think that there is a great hunger for truth or direction, or ideals, or principles,” he says. “People are looking for God. They’re looking for truth, they’re looking for direction; this is true.”

But they so often look in the wrong places, he says.

“St Thomas Aquinas, that great man of faith, theologian, philosopher, pointed out that when God created us, He created within us a longing for perfect happiness, and total self-fulfilment.

“And that’s true; whatever we do, we’re looking for that, even though we look in the wrong places. People on drugs or whatever, they’re looking for happiness, they’re looking for self-fulfilment, satisfaction, they’re looking for God.

“Then, on a different plane, all of these people who have joined one or other of the religions are looking for God, they’re looking for truth. So the search is there; the hunger, the yearning is there.

“And I think a number of those people who have strayed away from the practise of the faith, and have dabbled in other things, will and do find their way back again.”

In response to this yearning, the Cardinal has written a small book, Come Back! The Church Loves You, which was released last week.

It takes its title from the invitation by Pope John Paul II during his 1988 visit to Australia – “Come back! The Church opens her arms to you, the Church loves you!” – and the book is directed at lapsed Catholics who want to return to the Church, but feel intimidated or lacking in knowledge.

It would also be helpful to non-Catholics thinking of joining the faith or converting from another denomination.

The idea for the book came about the time Cardinal Clancy retired early last year

“I was helping a relative of mine find her way back to the practice of the faith,” he says.

“And it became clear to me – well, confirmed what I already perceived – that a lot of people who went through their schooling in the ’60s and ’70s, those years of confusion, anger, and rebellion, never really did get or accept a systematic presentation of their faith. Now years later the anger is gone and they would be inclined to come back to the practise of their faith (but) they find themselves lacking confidence because they’re not really sure what the Church teaches and expects and claims.”

It occurred to him that these people needed a bit of help.

“That was the object of the book, to help those people whom the Pope invited to come back to take the first step towards doing so,” said Cardinal Clancy.

“So this little book is very simple, and yet I think fairly substantial, an introduction to Catholic teaching; short, deliberately so, because I think the people to whom it is addressed would perhaps hesitate to tackle a big volume, but would be ready to read something that could be read cover to cover in an hour.”

The book covers such topics as the mystery that is God; the history of our salvation; God’s revelation, including the mystery of the Trinity and the incarnations; faith and the Church; the Church and the Holy Spirit; the sacraments, and finally, it asks the question: “Why are we members of the Church?”

Cardinal Clancy stresses that the book deliberately avoids addressing the problems and difficulties and the controversies that have plagued the Church over the past 30 or 40 years.

“I think that for a lot of people it may simply serve to confuse the issue more,” he said. “A lot of these questions are worth discussing but unless they’re discussed in the context of a clear understanding of what the Church teaches, discussion can be fairly fruitless; aimless.”

He nominates intercommunion, divorce and remarriage as examples. A lot has been written and spoken about these issues by “people who don’t understand what the Church is saying, what the Church teaches, what its doctrine is”, he says.

“Any of those sorts of controversy can only be fruitful and constructive and positive if those engaged in them know what the Church’s teachings are... a lot of argument and disputation goes on without that clear understanding.”

Cardinal Clancy modestly describes his book as a “small contribution”, but one he hopes will strike a chord here and there.

So what does he see as the future for the Church?

“I think one has to see this in the light of 2000 years of history,” he says. “And that’s what lots of people fail to do; they just look at it in the here and now.

“Over 2000 years the Church has gone much closer to demise that it is in the present time. You’d have written it off once or twice, but it has always come back stronger than ever.

“If you look at it in the context of 2000 years of history, you can look forward with hope and reassurance to the future. The pattern was set by Christ himself when he died on Calvary and rose on the third day.

“Every Calvary is followed by a resurrection. And while it’s difficult going at the present time, I have no doubt that there are golden days ahead; that there’ll be a renewal of the Church and of faith.”