Weekend Wrap for 23 April 2023

Martin Ingle: I was taught sex before marriage is a sin. I’m still dealing with the fallout.
"My experience aligns with what we know about sexuality and mental illness. We know, for instance, that attempts to suppress sexual thoughts only increase them. We know that where there’s abstinence-only sex education there are actually higher rates of teen pregnancy. That’s aside from the immeasurable long-term psychological harm of these lessons. They were drummed into me, and my body still knows the beat. The Presbyterian Church’s statement last week is many things: out-of-touch with reality, weirdly invasive, sexually dysfunctional, and impossible to enforce. How on Earth would they intend to keep tabs on whether a teen is sexually active? How do they hope to prevent teens from having sex? Probably the single most infuriating thing about this is the sheer gall of organisations who have for decades been responsible for the systemic sexual abuse of children, still proclaiming authority and control over a child’s growing sexuality." (17 Apr 2023)
Read more at The Age

Daniel Cash: I’m Melbourne Grammar’s school captain and I’m gay. The Presbyterian Church would have me sacked.
"The Presbyterian Church of Australia has declared its right to refuse school leadership opportunities to students based on sexuality or premarital sexual activity. This comes in response to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of discrimination laws. The Church has reasoned that, in the case of discriminating against students based on sexual preference, gay students 'would not be able to give appropriate Christian leadership in a Christian school which requires modelling Christian living'. I write this as captain of Melbourne Grammar School. I write this as someone who is gay, a fact about myself which I cannot change. I also write this as someone confused – surely 'modelling Christian living' is not well exemplified in the practice of exclusion or discrimination?" (18 Apr 2023)
Read more at The Age

Kerrie O'Brien: Maverick, irreverent priest had staunch commitment to helping those in need.
"The trouble, at least for the church, was that one of their best-known priests helped all people, marrying gay couples and divorced people whose former marriages had not been annulled. [Father Bob] Maguire backed many others not afforded recognition by the church and conducted funerals for people who had fallen foul of the law, including a handful of Melbourne’s gangland figures such as convicted drug trafficker and alleged gunman Victor Peirce in 2004. Maguire’s approach was that these people too warranted ministering. He also supported the idea of female priests. This brought him great accolades from the community – his work was often seen as the embodiment of Christian values – but set him on a path of conflict with his employer. Over the years, there were significant clashes with church hierarchy, and George Pell in particular, whom Maguire accused of wanting to remove him to enforce his highly conservative view of Catholicism." (19 Apr 2023)
Read more at The Age

Hamish Macdonald: The first Scots College kid who tried to shame me turned out to be gay himself.
"Sydney’s Scots College lays claim to supporting “every boy at every stage of development to become a confident, well-grounded young man of integrity, who will, in turn, reinvent his world”. It is therefore both surprising and disappointing to see the school tying itself in knots trying to explain and justify the Presbyterian Church’s faith-based stance which unquestionably amounts to discrimination against some of its own students. The Presbyterian Church and the school broadly say they are acting in the best interests of children, but I don’t see much evidence that either has consulted or learnt from the experiences of those who are going through – or have been through – this institution and are gay. I write this now to give some perspective as to what it is like to be developing inside an institution where these discriminatory views and cultures prevail." (20 Apr 2023)
Read more at The Age

Van Badham: Catholics like me grieve for Father Bob and for his larrikin, radical faith.
"Whatever theatrics he may have engaged to entertain his audience, Father Bob was a ruthlessly honest man. His criticism of Catholic church hierarchy, of church hypocrisy and of the infamous Archbishop George Pell cost him institutional support and eventually even his parish. It’s in deference to the spirit of Father Bob’s honesty that I’ll admit here, I look at the dominant public character of modern Australian Catholicism that’s now without him and see no shred of the battler faith I was raised into. This remnant institutional Catholicism concerns itself with the defence of elite private schooling, advancing the practice of bigotry and prayer services for protectors of the abominable. No wonder Catholics like me are more likely to tie a solidarity ribbon to a fence of a church than go to Mass in one." (20 Apr 2023)
Read more at The Guardian

Simone Fox Koob, Amelia Adams and Laura Sparkes: Seeing witches: The cult-like church and the crash that rocked Victoria.
"When truckie Mohinder Singh allegedly complained he was seeing witches and shouldn’t drive, his boss prayed with him then sent him out on the road. Four police officers died. ... A joint investigation between The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes can now reveal that Simiona Tuteru, also known as Simon, the trucking boss who prayed with his employee, was a dedicated senior leader and former pastor in a small but devout Pentecostal church which former members have compared to a cult. The investigation into The Potter’s House Christian Fellowship has revealed a disturbing picture. Operating across suburban Australia and with roots in the US, former members say the church has an unhealthy level of control over the lives of its followers." (22 Apr 2023)
Read more at The Age