They're still on about me on Catholica...

Imagine what it is like having a group of people you don't know engaging in an entire conversation about you in your hearing without including you in the conversation. It's a bit bizarre, but that's what's going on over on Catholica at the moment. I can't join the conversation because I am not a member of their little "members only" club. Of course, they are welcome to come over here and add a comment to this blog, or even email me on cumecclesia@yahoo.com.au, but I think it is a bit rich. Brian at least usually writes to me when he has something to say about me on his blog to give me right of reply. He hasn't done so on this occasion. I have relied on other readers of this blog to inform me of what is happening over there.

My favourite comment so far (pro-Schutz) comes from George Haydock who writes:

Whoah . . . let's not get carried away here.

David demonstrates plenty of his religious heritage in his blog - like honesty, betraying his feelings, evangelical fervour, a respect for reason. "Catholic" shouldn't mean being snide towards others who don't demonstrate the prevalent Romano-Celtic-Oz cultural traits, or looking down on others because of the friends they might appear to keep.

I have no wish to offend or judge anyone here. Like John Henry Newman, David has probably already learned in quids that the mob he defected to are just as good at punishing him as the mob he defected from.

Let him go with our blessings and good will.

Good on ya, George! And thanks too to Perry for speaking up against "Alan's" attack on my homiletical skills:

I admit to being easily impressed by a good sermon. Based solely on this sermon, I am impressed with this individual's incredibly good judgment. By that, I mean his jumping ship to Rome, where he can deliver such homilies with hardly any fear of being called to task for his poor preaching.

I have to say, Alan, that I’m not overly-impressed with your grasp of facts. David delivered the sermon as a Lutheran minister to a Lutheran congregation. Far from “jumping ship” to a church where he can deliver such homilies with no fear of being called to task, he has jumped ship to a church where he cannot deliver homilies at all. He had to give up priestly ministry in order to become a Catholic and, even if you do not agree with his theological perspectives and don’t like his preaching style, I think you should consider whether showing respect for someone’s honesty, integrity and willingness to make real sacrifices in order to follow his conscience is more important than combining clever but ultimately cheap sneers at David Schutz and the Catholic church.

But I am most surprised - and most offended - that Brian Coyne himself would stoop to this low comment:

Where I have a big problem is that David waltzes into the Catholic Church with his very conservative theology and ideology — and he is given a secure job because of the ideology he expresses. I can count many people who have been faithful Catholics since birth — some of them prominent members of Catholica but many elsewhere who are treated like shit, literally left to starve because they will not play the "yes, Sir, no, Sir, three bags full , Sir, game" that Catholicism has become. I do have a criticism of David in that I think he is a master of that game... I have deep, deep misgivings of David's suitability in the position he holds publicly in the institution. Is he there because of his "loyalty" and willingness to play what I dub "the Nerny, Nerny" game where everybody runs around trying to play this game that Catholics are "king of the castle" and everybody else on earth are heretics, sinners or "the inferior" or does he occupy the position on merit and his experience and qualifications. There is a stench in the Catholic Church in this country today of "jobs for the boys" — people who will not question. People who make archbishop's "look good" in the eyes of Rome and who couldn't give the slightest toss for the real spiritual and social welfare of the vast masses in a modern society like the one we have here in Australia.

I was NOT employed in my current post "because of the ideology [I] express". I was employed by the Commission (not the Archbishop) after due interview process because of my years of previous work in the ecumenical life in this state, in particular on the Victorian Council of Churches (of which I had been an executive member, a long term member of the Faith and Order Commission, and chaired the committee overseeing the revisioning process in the 2000). I obtained this (originally part time) position through interview process over a number of other candidates. I was employed because of my theological qualifications and experience. I was never offered employment as an incentive for conversion, and worked on part time jobs (including parish music director and a state school librarian) for some years before being fully employed by the Archdiocese. In fact, I had fully resigned all my roles in the Lutheran Church and without new employment right up until my final week in Lutheran ministry. The fact of the matter is that I do my job very very well, thank you very much, and have a proven track record of building strong and enduring relationships across the board in numerous communities of Christians and other religions here in Victoria. Only on very few occasions have I ever experienced any negative reaction to the way I approach interfaith and ecumenical relationships. Most people react positively to the fact that at least in me they are given the respect of being treated openly and honestly and always with good humour. May I ask, Cliffy and Brian, whether you think something like the Interfaith Youth Pilgrimage "just happened"? Believe me, Cliffy, you need more than "delicacy" to organise youth from nine different religious groups to act together in this way and come out of it smiling! Interfaith relations is not all tea and biscuits!

AS for Brian's insinuation that I am "subserviant" - I hardly know how to respond to such an amazingly insulting and ridiculous idea. Again Brian implies that I have not replied to his challenge to defend the dictum "Sentire cum ecclesia" because of some inability on my part. All that keeps me from responding immediately is that I wish to do justice to the topic (and the topic is a huge one) - but the task he has set me is not unlike trying to prove to a blind man that there is a mountain in front of him...

And am I alone in finding Brian's scatological language just a little bit demeaning of the conversation? Brian, however anyone else has treated you, I have have never treated you as a "door mat". Please do not treat me like a toilet.

As for Helen's comment:

I checked David's blog and it really does puzzle me why some people think that their every thought and movement is riveting news to the rest of the world

I don't force anyone to read it what I write. But you visited my site and read some of it, didn't you? Believe it or not, but there are many people out there who like to read conversion stories, mainly because they find the evidence of God working in the lives of others an encouragement that he might also work in theirs.