Why is it not OK for ACU to embrace its Catholic identity?

Joe de Bruyn was to be honoured by ACU for his service to the Catholic Church and Australian workers. Instead, he was humiliated when students and staff walked out during his address.

What does one do when one sees a plane being flown into the side of a mountain? Some watch and tut-tut. Others wring their hands and sigh.

Still others might go so far as to describe any action to save the situation as a “stunt”. And yet save it we must.

The Australian Catholic University is that aircraft – and you’ll have worked out who the pilot is, and who blindly keeps him there, by the end of this piece.

All of us who are seriously invested in ACU are stunned by the latest in a series of sorry news items coming out of the university.

This week’s punch to the guts is the shutting down of its public policy think tank, the PM Glynn Institute. It was named in honour of Patrick McMahon Glynn KC (1855-1931), one of the founders of the Commonwealth of Australia, no less. He was a key contributor to our nation’s Constitution.

As the import of this latest decision sinks in (that is, the erasure of an important Catholic intellectual oasis), we are asking ourselves some grim questions. How did we allow the largest Catholic university in Australia – and one of the leading Catholic universities in the world – to fall apart on our watch?

And how did we allow the man who was running it to be reappointed as its vice-chancellor?

Throughout the Catholic world, questions are understandably being asked about what is going on at ACU. The fact is: there is a serious lack of good governance at ACU. Everyone can see the problems – but no one is prepared to call time. Nor wrest back the controls.

Slovenian-born sociologist Zlatko Skrbis was first appointed vice-chancellor in January 2021. On December 5, 2024, the ACU senate voted to reappoint him. Nice enough bloke – so why might Catholics regard this as problematic?

Professor Zlatko Skrbis, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University. Picture: Supplied

Skrbis has implemented a strategic plan, Vision 2033, that proclaims “our Catholic faith, identity, and culture are central to who we are as a university”. But in reality, does Vision 2033 pay anything more than lip service to Catholic faith, identity and culture?

This masthead revealed earlier this year that only weeks after appointing her, then removing her, as dean of the ACU law school, Kate Galloway was given more than $1m in severance and damages. Not only that, she was then given a new role at the university. Alarm bells had sounded when it was realised she had published opinions about abortion law reform that were fundamentally at odds with Catholic doctrine.

The vice-chancellor refused to answer questions about why she was appointed, given her published opinions about abortion.

He refused to explain who decided to pay her out with a vast sum. He refused to explain whether the money came from the commonwealth government or the patrimony of the church. Everyday parishioners who donate into the plate might be keen to know.

But worse than that, no one from the chancellor down seemed to think answers were required.

More recently, ACU awarded unionist Joe de Bruyn an honorary doctorate in recognition of his services to the Catholic Church and Australian workers.

He was invited to deliver the Occasional Address at the ceremony to mark this bestowment, at an ACU students’ graduation ceremony on an ACU campus in Victoria on October 21.

His speech of thanksgiving thoughtfully articulated certain precepts of orthodox Catholic doctrine he had specifically and relevantly supported. Drawing upon decades of experience in various roles, he offered valuable ideas for how newly minted Catholic graduates might best meet challenges that might arise in their careers.

There was a walkout during his address. Instead of being honoured for his service to the church, De Bruyn was set up to be humiliated. And a golden opportunity for ACU to teach students what respect for different viewpoints looks like was lost. Instead of apologising to their special guest of honour and chastising the rude staff and students, this Catholic university provided counselling for staff who heard the speech, and offered to refund the fees students had paid to attend the graduation if they felt they had had an unsatisfactory experience.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher believes the ACU has betrayed its Catholic identity. Picture: Nikki Short

This led Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher to ask: “Will the university now provide a squad of counsellors every time a countercultural Catholic view is expressed by someone at the university?”

This was contained in a six-page letter Fisher wrote to the university in which he resigned as chair of ACU’s committee of identity, outlining the reasons he thought the university had betrayed its Catholic identity. Not only that, one might well ask also: Why was ACU by its actions sabotaging even the most basic purposes of a university?

As Oxford academic and later cardinal John Newman so aptly and enduringly observed in 1873: “The perfection of the intellect, the enlargement and illumination of the mind, is the real and only aim of a university.” No mention of coddling there.

“Do not say,” Newman noted, “the people must be educated, when, after all, you only mean amused, refreshed, soothed, put into good spirits and good humour, or kept from vicious excesses.” Are students encouraged to have their conceptual sensibilities stretched at this tertiary institution – or not? Are manners also infra dig now?

On December 3, I was one of a number of Catholic lawyers who signed an open letter to ACU’s senate. We provided an opinion prepared by a canon lawyer. The university is part of the Catholic Church and, as such, is subject to the canon law that governs the church.

We drew attention to the legal advice that either an independent investigation into the circumstances identified by Fisher was required or else a process to remove the university’s Catholic status could begin. None of us wanted to see ACU cease to be Catholic, so we hoped sense would prevail and there would be a pause in serious decision-making, including in relation to the reappointment of the vice-chancellor.

How did it get to the situation that the senate reappointed the very same vice-chancellor who presided over this potential loss of Catholic status? How is it no one in the leadership thought there was a problem?

With an executive headed by Skrbis, the ACU senate, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Martin Daubney KC, and ACU corporation (board of trustees) chaired by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, nobody in that illustrious trio picked up that anything was awry?

How could they plausibly think this was “business as usual” for a Catholic university? It would be redemptive for at least one of the protagonists to acknowledge the foul-up and stand up, even belatedly, for the Catholic faith. It would bring great relief to many who are watching this in quiet bewilderment.

This is not a culture war. It is nonsense for anyone to suggest the vice-chancellor has simply been caught in a culture war.

During his tenure there have been a number of problems that have undermined ACU’s Catholic identity. What is worse, none of its governance structures have made him accountable. Instead, they have rewarded him for presiding over the possible loss of ACU’s Catholic identity.

It is a tragedy for all who love their Catholic faith, who treasure the principles that are part of its timeless and incalculable richness, who support the church in every way possible – and who spurn being “fashionable” at the expense of the truth of its teachings.

On December 11, ACU announced it had appointed a new “identity adviser”. Although all naturally wish Father Gerald Gleeson the best, a patch-it person in a newly created part-time role may find it hard to fix a deeper governance problem.

In short, the pilot of ACU is showing a dangerous inability to fly a complex aircraft safely. The plane is at risk. All the passengers are at risk.

Many people, aghast, are watching the tragedy play out, with their hands over their mouths. Yet the equivalent of an aviation safety authority has just reappointed that same pilot, with hopes that a gentle word at his elbow might help. Really?

It is hard to speak up at times like this. The church is like a family. Nobody wants to hurt anybody’s feelings. But sometimes, certain things need to be said.

An independent investigation could help, before it is too late. ACU, are you going to show you deserve your title? The time to show it is now.

Sophie York is a barrister and law lecturer. This piece is written in a personal capacity, and not representing any organisation.