www.peterellis.co.nz
: seeking justice for Peter Ellis : mail to: [email protected]
Accusations of Abuse in
Institutions
Index: Home Page Peter Ellis
Index: Accusations in Institutions
The Southland Times
September 14 2002
Keeping the faith
by Michael Fallow
The
Catholic Bishop of
So the Pope's man did wait, and on a more convenient day at the Southland end
of things, Fr Boyle sat down with him in
He was shocked to learn the nuncio had already been hard at work. Fr Boyle's
people back in the south wanted him to be a coadjutor, sharing the bishop's
duties, eventually to succeed him. Was he up for it? Fr Boyle excused himself
and went for a wee walk. It became a big walk, with lots of praying and lots of
sea-gazing. Was this a calling, rather than simply some people's idea? He felt
it. With much trepidation, he couldn't deny that he felt it. In that moment of
decision he turned to go back to tell the nuncio, who was just, um...erm...
Len Boyle, just moments after deciding to accept a key role of church
leadership, realised he had entirely lost his bearings.
As he cast around for the familiar building he chided himself: " What a stupid bloke to make a bishop." He could
tell nobody about his new position. It was all under seal, until the final
confirmation came back from
"He thought I was going to leave the priesthood." The announcement,
when it came, was broadcast in all the appropriate places, notably over the
speakers at the Riverton Races, another close fraternity of his.
Back at the St Mary's presbytery, his close friend Fr Joe Martin extended a
hand, and a cheery caution.
"It's going to cramp your style a bit." No it didn't. Not so you'd
notice, anyway. Before long, the 53-year-old was introducing his own methods,
not just getting to know all parts of his Otago-Southland diocese, but taking
the (for Catholicism) rare step of calling a synod.
This led to the formation of a diocese pastoral council, from which came an
education board and board of administration.
"It was a different style," he now reflects. "The bishop was
still the boss, but it was collaborative." As the priest
at St Mary's he had been involved in the integration of schools into the state
system. Now he faced the same task in
And a flinty matter it proved, particularly when St Edmunds, a misfit in the
new scheme of things, was closed.
"God bless the one who made this foolish decision," one parishioner
read from the pulpit, editorialising just a tad as she read out the prayers of
the faithful.
The bishop didn't much mind. "Fights did go on, justifiably. This affected
people's children, so of course they felt strongly." The occasional
reproach was little enough price to pay for an achievement he looks back on
with abiding satisfaction -- the diocese, though relatively small, has no fewer
than 28 catholic schools, meshed into the state system and able to serve their
communities well.
In the mid-1980s Bishop Boyle ordained the first married man in
Stricken with cancer, he had told the bishop he'd love to say mass again. He
missed it so deeply he felt his hands had been cut off.
Bishop Boyle prepared a case for ordination on compassionate grounds, and was
delighted when approval came back from
He wasted no time -- "Ordained him deacon one day, priest the next."
And a functioning priest George Arthur was, for the last 18 months of his life.
Bishop Boyle takes great heart from the strength of family tradition in the
church's southern community.
" They're from good stables," he says.
Indicators like the number of vocations suggest to him that the faith is
particularly strong in smaller, rural communities. Size and significance are not the same thing -- "That's why it's important
that we don't, in the church, go into business mode." And yet the churches
aren't overbrimming.
"It's western civilisation. The impact of television -- though there's
nothing intrinsically wrong with that -- of sport on Sunday and shops staying
open...these have all made inroads into the church. People are so pressured
against what used to be the day when the whole family was automatically drawn
to church." So congregations are smaller. "The good side of that is
that people who are there, are because they want to
be. I think we can build a new church on these people. A new
start. I do think we'll have a different sort of church in 20 years'
time." Not that he is advocating compromising into rampant populism.
"You've got to watch that you aren't phoney. The church has to be like
good parents -- there day and night. Some days you are celebrating like it's a
birthday party, but most of the time it's breakfast with Kornies
on the table." Constant and supportive, not reliant on
the spectacular.
That said, Bishop Boyle admits that Catholicism has been "sometimes too
reticent" and he points to the papal message for this millennium, for the
church to be more daring "and cast our nets out into the deep." The
Pope -- hasn't he become an issue? Bishop Boyle is stepping down because of ill
health. He's not dying or anything, but his 72-year-old body has been banged
around by a car crash, he has had back and hip operations, wears a hearing aid,
and the bottom line is he does not feel mobile enough to carry out the bishop's
job.
Is this not, then, a case of a bishop who knows when to quit and a Pope who
does not? Bishop Boyle knows that the Pope's evident physical frailty does not
cast a robust image to non-Catholics in particular. He would not be dismayed if
the Pope did step aside. "In a sense I would have great empathy with him
retiring. But it's his decision." And the bishop would not presume to say
that he knows better than the Pope, what would be the wiser decision.
Remember, he says, a few years ago, when John Paul teetered off an aircraft in
"Here was this frail old man, and yet he won through." At times
Bishop Boyle can be critical of the church hierarchy.
"I do think they close their eyes, in
He knows of only one case of abuse in the diocese during his two decades as
bishop, a publicised case in Gore.
"That one was faced up to." Bishop Boyle sent a heartfelt thank you
letter to one Catholic interviewed in light of such scandals, who was asked if
the abuse revelations had shaken her faith in the church.
"She said: the church accepted me with my warts, I accept the church with
its warts." Bishop Boyle will remain in office until his replacement is
identified and ready to take over. Then a new role as an emeritus bishop awaits, possibly helping those who go on retreat, seeking
spiritual guidance.
He will go forward with faith intact -- in his church, his people, and his God.
How does he feel about the argument that the Greens are the new religion, and
that the planet is returning, essentially, to the worship of nature? Nature was
created, he says.
Something an old Jesuit once told him comes to mind. He pulls off his watch.
"See this? No one made this watch. It just came together." People
would not believe that of so basic a thing as a timepiece. So how can they
believe it of all creation? Before he entered the priesthood, Len Boyle and his
brother bought a farm and worried about the mortgage, as you do.
He vividly remembers hiffing the freshly tailed lambs
over the fence, watching them mothering up again.
"And I knew that if they didn't mother up, we'd be goners. The bankers
would be in. And when you get a paddock ready for wheat, you do all the work,
but then you put the seed in and just abandon it.
"You can be full of yourself as a farmer, but really you're doing so
little of it yourself. It's all done for you, in a sense. That's the world
working. It's God working."