John Herron has been a very public Catholic all his life, as an Australian senator for 11 years, as a Howard government Aboriginal affairs minister, and as the ambassador to Ireland and the Holy See, according to the Canberra Times. .
“We’re a secular society in Australia, we’re very materialistic, and I think we’ve lost something in all of that,” he says. It’s time for some spirituality.”
Herron, who has 11 children, had some insightful and amusing words for the Pope recently:
As a World Youth Day Ambassador, he advised the Pope there were five types of Catholics in Australia, There were relapsing Catholics, who returned to the faith when stressed; and nominal Catholics, the tick-the-census-box types. There were anti-Catholic Catholics, baptised but who hate Catholicism (“There are a lot of them around,” the Pope told Herron), and smorgasbord Catholics, who take bits they like and leave those they don’t (the Pope called them “cafe Catholics”).
And then, Herron told the Pope, there are practising Catholics. “Like you and me.”
Kind of cheeky, huh?
July 16, 2008 at 9:56 pm
It’s the Holy Father’s responses that get me! Ha!
Any chance of a transcript?
God Bless,
Ryan
July 16, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Herron sounds like a great guy. I’m glad to be in group #5, with some pretty darn good company.
July 17, 2008 at 2:05 am
Cheeky isn’t quite it, how about “a brass pair” ?
“Like us” indeed.
Great stuff.
Deb
therosemarytree.blogspot.com
July 17, 2008 at 6:21 pm
One of my good Catholic Australian friends once said that Australians are just Canadians on anti-depressants. He says that all of our religious partisanship here would make no sense there since the society is so highly secularized that you are just happy to find someone else who believes in God. (Have you hugged a Jehovah’s Witness lately?)