THE Church needs to be flexible, and with the Spirit this can be achieved, says Maltese-born Charles Gauci, known to many as the outback bishop.
The Bishop of Darwin, Gauci has brought four decades of pastoral wisdom to the Australian Plenary Council assembly in Sydney this week, sharing his experience as a Church leader covering the vast northern diocese that is two-and-a-half times the size of France.
As one of the Council’s 277 members, it is his strong view that the Church doesn’t belong to the priests and bishops.
And when setting up the structures of the Church, including parish councils, diocesan pastoral councils and leadership teams “all things have to have the flexibility of not being rigid”.
It makes sense to bishops and church workers in every state where dioceses are huge and diverse. Tourists passing through idyllic, sometimes harsh landscapes often don’t often see the struggles of people who live there.
“In the Territory where I am, in remote areas, [Church structures] need to be adapted to the reality,” Bishop Gauci said, outside the assembly.
“As a bishop I should not be a lone ranger, just doing my own thing, I’m part of the Australian Church and I need to be in communion with the Australian Church.
“The Spirit of it is good, but let’s not get hung up on the details and spell it out how it should be in every place.”
Bishop Gauci spoke to the Plenary Council during a day of reflecting on four parts of the Motions and Amendments document on Day 4, as members were assisted by input from the theological advisors to the Council.
For Bishop Gauci, his appointment as bishop in 2018, might have seemed a lot like a foreign assignment after 41 years as a priest in Adelaide, including his work in outlying cluster parishes.
Now he has seen parts of Australia’s north that many of us may never visit.
Long distance travels have taken him from the tropical Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, to the former mission of Santa Teresa, in the red centre, south-east of Alice Springs – there’s been time for him to reflect on the diversity of landscapes, people and priests that make up the Northern Territory.
The Church mission in rural and remote parts of Australia, is challenging for a small number of priests covering vast areas and where daily struggles can seem far different from those in the cities and suburbs.
His conclusion is that the vast Northern Territory is “not his fiefdom – “it doesn’t belong to me it belongs to Jesus”.
“So, I need to be myself – listening, learning, having basic directives that the Australian Church sees as important to follow, but how we unfold that, and what it means, that obviously needs to be adapted,” he said.
And the role of women in the outback?
“To me, men and women are equals. The scripture says so. Most of our Aboriginal leaders are women. We need both, and we’ll be poorer if we don’t,” he said.
Bishop Gauci said he’s bringing more women into leadership as part of his project of turning Church “maintenance” into “mission”.
“I’m just about to appoint a director of evangelisation because on my own I’ve got so many things pulling me and I need someone to work alongside me closely,” he said.
During a 2019 interview with The Catholic Leader, Bishop Gauci spoke about Church mission, at a time when Rome was preparing to host the Synod of the Amazon.
He explained there are many parallels between that remote region of South America and his own Northern Territory.
“The Synod of the Amazon is looking at the reality of the Amazon and dealing with the challenges facing the Church in the Amazon,” he said.
“For me, we have to also be looking at the challenges facing the Northern Territory.
“Of course, we want to be in communion, faithfulness to the universal Church but to also recognise that within the Church we have to react to the realities as they are, not as we wish them or think they should be.
“We have to start where we are at – to see, to judge, and to act.”
