How Australia’s Catholic establishment was ‘shafted’ by the pope and left out of the conclave

When Bishop Mykola Bychok was “elevated to the dignity of cardinal” by Pope Francis in December, the eyebrows of Australia’s plugged-in Catholics shot up in surprise. A 40-something Ukrainian bishop who’d only been in the country for three years had become the most senior Catholic official in Australia, and the youngest cardinal in the world.

Before Bychok’s elevation, only the Archbishop of Sydney – and once, many years ago, of Melbourne – had been given a red hat. Sydney’s conservative Archbishop Anthony Fisher was the heir apparent. But Bychok took Australia’s cardinal quota, despite being a newcomer to the country who could one day return to Ukraine.

The appointment even took his countrymen by surprise, given there are far more experienced bishops in Ukraine (some of whom had expressed disappointment in Francis after he exhorted young Russians to remember their country’s “great history”). Bychok found out only when he turned on his phone after dinner, and it lit up congratulatory messages.

Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher.Credit: James Brickwood.

Many in the church read Bychok’s appointment as a rebuff to Fisher. “It is a massive snub,” said one person closely involved in church politics, on the condition of anonymity to speak freely. “New Zealand has one. Tonga’s got one. Fiji’s got one. It was always assumed if you’re Archbishop of Sydney, you’ll get the cardinal’s hat.

“It’s partly a snub, and partly Francis saying, ‘We’re going to have all these unorthodox [cardinals], and people from the margins.’ ”

Another, referring to local bishops, said: “They have been shafted. Francis was appointing in the margins. But he was making a point that didn’t go down well with some of the Australian bishops.” One person with close ties to the church said, “it’s an expectation of the faithful that there should be an Australian cardinal”.

The upshot of the decision is that for the first time in almost 70 years, Australia will not have an establishment voice in the election of the next pope.

Bychok will represent Australia’s Catholics in good faith, but there’s a view that he doesn’t go to Rome with a strong understanding of the needs of the local church. “Had there been an Australian cardinal, they would be able to carry with them into the conclave a real sense of Australian Catholic identity,” one source close to the Catholic hierarchy said, on the condition of anonymity so they could speak freely.

“He’ll bring a particular discernment about Ukrainian issues, whereas what has been the role of the Australian Church, and what are its needs – he won’t have that background, where former Australians in the conclave certainly did.”

Smoke rising from the temporary chimney erected on the roof of the Sistine Chapel will signal to the world that the conclave has chosen a new pope.Credit: AP

The pope may seem a distant figure, but his decisions will have a significant impact on the Australian church and its schools. His greatest influence will come through his power to appoint church leaders; he approves the appointment of bishops and chooses the heads of the Vatican departments, known as dicasteries.

Given the Vatican’s lack of transparency, the influence of these dicasteries is hidden from most Australians – even Catholics – but it can be significant, especially when it comes to education.

Australian Catholic schools and universities are the pride of the global church. No other country gives them such generous public funding. Rome would like to have this replicated elsewhere, and therefore oversees it carefully, interceding where necessary.

Last year, a pro-life graduation speech at the Australian Catholic University sparked not only a walkout, but also a letter from Fisher to Rome’s education dicastery, saying he and his Melbourne counterpart would welcome a Vatican investigation into the affairs at ACU due to their shaken confidence in the leadership. Critics of ACU say the vice chancellor was summoned to Rome in November; university management said it was a routine meeting.

In 2021, disgruntled parishioners in the Parramatta Diocese complained to the Vatican about their bishop, Vincent Long – a refugee from Vietnam and a victim of clerical abuse himself (as an adult) – who was appointed to Parramatta by Pope Francis in 2016.

Parramatta Diocese is home to strong and diverse views about the church. There are hardline conservative Maronites, immigrant Catholics from south-east and south Asia and traditionalists who demand their mass in Latin, as well as progressive parishioners who urge the embrace of female, LGBTQ and divorced Catholics. At the best of times, there’s hot disagreement.

In 2021, a group of Parramatta Catholics petitioned the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to remove Long after Parramatta’s education office opposed a bill, put forward by then One Nation MP Mark Latham, to prohibit the promotion of gender fluidity in schools. Parramatta said the change would subject LGBTQ students to harassment, and be an unacceptable incursion into the schools’ professional judgment.

Credit: Matt Golding

The complainants were also concerned about Parramatta’s new religious education school curriculum, unveiled in mid-2020, which would teach students about different sexual identities, atheism and social media relationships.

The conservative-leaning Catholic Weekly quoted a parent as saying, “parents sending their children to a Catholic school send them because they want them to be catechised [instructed in the principles of religion], and I think those producing the curriculum lost sight a bit of that”.

Multiple sources said the Vatican did get involved, and discussed the issues with Long. The religious education curriculum was put on hold pending more work in mid-2021, and was eventually unveiled in August for implementation this year. It now has the imprimatur of the Vatican’s powerful Dicastery for Evangelisation.

The pope is also responsible for appointing bishops, after a three-step process involving local consultation, recommendations from the Australian papal nuncio – a kind of ambassador – and further investigation by the Dicastery for Bishops.

There will be no one from the Australian homegrown hierarchy involved in the selection of Pope Francis’s successor.Credit: AP

Three Australian bishops have handed in their resignation, as is required when they turn 75, and await news of their replacements. They include Brisbane’s Archbishop Mark Coleridge, who is the chief supporter of ACU’s management and in direct opposition to Fisher on the issue. His replacement with someone more sympathetic to Fisher’s view could have major implications for the direction of the national Catholic university.

Many in the local church are hoping that the new pope will return to the traditions of Francis’ predecessors, and give a cardinal’s hat to an Australian archbishop. Australia has had seven previous cardinals, including the archbishop of Sydney George Pell and archbishop of Melbourne James Knox.

The new pope’s approach will be revealed slowly, says Jack de Groot, the chief executive of the Catholic Schools Parramatta Diocese, a body that replaced the old Parramatta education office in 2023. One of his first acts may be to review the heads of the dicasteries, in the same way a new government might replace departmental secretaries. “He may just stick with the team Francis had, or he may change them,” he says. “The changes at the head of each department will be important.”

Popes and cardinals are often defined by whether they’re progressive or conservative, but Catholics of all stripes say there’ll be more to the conclave’s decision than that. They’ll be looking at the best person to lead the church not only from a religious perspective, but also from a pastoral, geopolitical and administrative one, particularly amid global uncertainty and concerns about Vatican finances and governance.

Many Catholics also argue that overlaying external culture war politics on the church is unhelpful. Catholic doctrine is well-defined; the differences arise over which elements to emphasise – whether fighting for the sanctity of life should mean prioritising opposition to abortion, for example, or providing shelter to the persecuted.

“There are influencers who see the role of pope as culture warrior, either on the reactionary or from the woke perspective,” says de Groot. “Reactionary and woke are not terms of Catholic teaching – they come from other spaces imposing themselves on this time of finding a new leader for the church.”

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