June 5, 2011

The influence of a "militant minority" conservative Catholics, dubbed the "temple police," is experiencing a resurgence in the Australian church, said a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Father Hal Ranger, an associate pastor at St Patrick's Cathedral in Toowoomba, Queensland, said most of the diocese was still hurt by the loss of their bishop, William Morris – whose early retirement was blamed on the often-anonymous upholders of orthodoxy.

‘'It's pretty much what the Scribes and Pharisees were doing to Jesus,'‘ he said. ‘'They were saying ‘here is the law book ... you have just cured a person on the Sabbath day, and the book says you shouldn't.'"

In the Sydney suburb of Newtown, three or four times this year, groups of up to 50 Catholics have gathered to pray outside St Joseph's parish during its gay-friendly Mass.

Sometimes they stop worshippers as they leave the service, demanding to know if they took Communion. If confronted by the parish priest, Father Peter Maher, they recite the rosary. On other occasions, one or two enter the church mid-service, and watch from the back.

Not all complaints make it to the Vatican, the Herald report said. When St Joseph's began sponsoring a school in Pakistan, it was reported to ASIO.

But Richard Stokes, the parishioner most often associated with the term ‘'temple police',' told the Herald they were ‘'a figment of the imagination of those priests who may consider that they are a target, for whatever reason'.'

A Victorian-based newsletter, Into the Deep, for ‘'orthodox Catholics who have grown tired of seeing the church we love being abused and neglected by those within it, and have begun to speak out,'‘ details the successes, frustrations and observations of others such as Mr Stokes.

Such as this about some colourful banners in a regional NSW cathedral: "Either there's a new rainbow liturgical season that I haven't heard of yet, or there's a strong ‘gay pride' thing happening in Bathurst diocese.'‘

The editor of Into the Deep, Janet Kingman, used the analogy of reporting a teacher who instructs students in incorrect spelling and grammar, deeming it unimportant. "The real question is, how can a teacher be teaching the wrong stuff? And how can the principal tolerate it, or encourage it?"

But Father Maher said he could justify St Joseph's liturgy to any bishop, though there was no way to engage with the anonymous people standing outside who thought ministering to gay and lesbian Catholics was sacrilegious. "That is obviously horrendously incorrect, but who corrects them?"

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