We live in strange days when a non-Christian feminist invokes a papal encyclical to warn of climate change. “The Pope doesn’t believe that warming will help anyone,” wrote Fairfax columnist and University of Technology Sydney journalism academic Jenna Price this week.
“He says — as do scientists, godly or otherwise — that global warming will drive the poor from their homes. It will cause starvation,” said Price. “Yet [Tony] Abbott thinks a gradual lift in global temperatures is a good idea.”
Abbott’s apostasy, in Price’s eyes, was that his views on climate change differ from those of Pope Francis. In addressing the Global Warming Foundation in London last week, Abbott decried what he saw as the fervour of climate change science. “What the “science is settled” brigade want,” he said, “is to close down investigation by equating questioning with superstition.”
Warning of the pervasive “post-Christian theology” of environmentalism, Abbott provided an analogy of “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”. He instead urged people to examine the benefits of higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, particularly in the agricultural context.
One would find it difficult to dispute that the discussion of climate change has about it the air of semi-religious, even a pagan, reverence. It is no small irony that some of its loudest proponents are the in-your-face atheists who label sceptics ‘deniers’, as if belief in climate change is an article of faith.
Abbott’s “behaviour”, declared Price piously as if she were addressing a congregation, “is not congruent with the values of an authentic Catholic. He aligns himself with the church but doesn’t uphold its teachings unless those values suit him, which made perfectly clear in his “daring to doubt” speech.”
As to what qualifications she possesses to pontificate on who does and does not constitute the “authentic Catholic” Price does not detail. The logical consequence of her argument — that only the doctrinaire Catholic is a true Catholic — is a curious one. She is also silent on the fact that church doctrine allows Catholics to dispute the papal opinions of an encyclical.
But more on that later. Ever since Abbott became prominent in politics, his opponents and critics have viewed his Catholicism pejoratively. “Tony Abbott has a problem because he will not give up the possibility of one day being able to do something about abortion,” said journalist David Marr in 2012. “As a devoted Catholic … at some point in the future, and it might be hundreds of years away, there will be a possibility to do something about abortion.”
Such threats were alarmist, as evidenced by the fact Abbott made no such move as Prime Minister. Yet even now the portrayal of Abbott as fundamentalist continues. “Catholicism shaped everything about Abbott’s life,” said Price. On what basis does she justify this? Even an undergraduate — let alone an academic — would not be permitted to make such a sweeping assertion unchecked, especially an unsourced one.
“What does it mean when you only pick the parts of your religion that suit you,” she asked rhetorically. “Let’s ask forever former prime minister Abbott how deep his commitment really runs.” That she resorted to the unnecessary “forever’ adjective was not only a cheap shot and puerile, but also indicative of her rancour.
But in her denunciation, Price missed the apparent flaws in her argument. How could Catholicism have shaped every aspect of Abbott’s life as she maintains if he is selective in applying its principles? Does she not recognise the irony of criticising Abbott for failing to abide by the dictates of the Vatican? It is rich that the same critics who accused Abbott of being a strident papist now cast him as a secular polemicist.
“The church matters desperately to Abbott when it comes to same-sex marriage — but not when it comes to climate change,” said Price. “He’s happy to be guided by the dead hand of the Bible but unwilling to follow the lead of Pope Francis, who leads his church.” Conveniently, Price neglected to mention that the Pope declared in 2014 that legalisation of same-sex marriage amounted to a “step backwards for humanity”.
Price also seems blind to another apparent contradiction in her argument. If a Catholic believes the Pope’s pronouncements on climate change but rejects his views on same-sex marriage, does he not fall outside the definition of, in her words, an “authentic Catholic”?
If so, she has a long list of indictments to draw up. She could begin with fellow feminist and Catholic Dr Anne Summers. “F*** you Francis,” tweeted Summers in September 2013 following the Pope’s appeal for Catholic doctors to refuse abortions (Fortunately this unseemly spat did have a happy ending — only a few months later Summers attended midnight mass at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, tweeting effusively about the experience).
What about Catholic and former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, who last year labelled the Pope “a fraud” for his refusal to allow female priests? What does it say of Price — the co-founder of the gender equity activist group ‘Destroy the Joint’ — if she is true to her belief that a genuine Catholic cannot be selective as to what encyclicals she follows?
“He’s even allowed his family to be torn asunder while he campaigns,” said Price. “His daughter Frances is taking the side of her aunt Christine Forster, Abbott’s sister and a same-sex marriage proponent.” Truly we live in terrible times when a father’s conservative views clash with those of his daughter and his sister.
As for the Abbott family members supposedly being “torn asunder”, Price offers no evidence other than their opposing stances on same-sex marriage. Presumably she missed last Monday’s announcement that Abbott was supporting Forster’s bid to move to the NSW Upper House. “I certainly think Christine has a hell of a lot to offer,” said Abbott. “I think she could make a bigger and better contribution if she was in the state parliament.” Does that sound like an irreconcilable rift?
“It occurs to me how much Abbott puts himself at the centre of any of these debates and cares naught about the opinions and values of others,” says Price. “That’s quite clear from the way he treats his sister, [and] his daughter …” It occurs to me that Price ignores evidence to the contrary.
“Tony … of all my immediate family members, was the most supportive,” said Forster in 2015 in reference to her coming out. “People raise their eyebrows when I say this but it is the honest truth.”
“Outwardly, and from the love he’s shown me — he certainly hasn’t made me feel as if I’m not welcome and I’m not loved,” said Forster’s partner Virginia Edwards. Neither of these remarks is detailed by Price.
What surely must take the prize for sheer effrontery is Price’s assertion that Abbott “put himself at the centre” of the debate. She would do well to re-read her previous columns. A reader could be forgiven for thinking she is in a contest in which a prize is awarded for the most mentions of first-person pronouns. Hardly any of her columns are without incessant and banal references to self. “Prime Minister, it’s your anniversary soon,” wrote Price in July 2014. “I’ll always remember the day you were elected because I was at my darling brother’s wedding.” Could these gratuitous and self-centred utterances get any worse?
Yes, they certainly could. “I danced naked down the hallway when my last child left home,” wrote Price last month. “It will improve my sex life,” she wrote last year about her exercise program. “I’ve still got a nostalgic box of tampons in my top drawer,” said Price in 2014. “It sits alongside the photo of my diseased uterus, which I also insisted on keeping.”
“It’s been used to provide pleasure for my partner and me,” wrote Price in 2012 on the subject of her vagina. “It has also provided safe passage for my children. I’ve certainly used it every single day of my life, so it gets a little grubby regularly and I take care to keep it nice. I’ve never needed to wax it (thank heavens, because I hear it hurts).” As bad as the pain of ripping out one’s hairs must be, one would think it preferable to reading this self-indulgent tosh. Spare a thought for Price’s journalism students.
Next time Price is of mind to accuse Abbott of not adhering to his principles, she might want to consider something she only wrote this year. “There is no longer a little switch in our brains that tells us we need to make judgments about what to share, so the “need to know” basis is finally debased.” Do tell.
“I wrote to a former student of mine begging her to keep details of her private life private and was told to mind my own business,” lamented Price. At least she could take solace in the adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Someone needs to devote less time to the issue of who constitutes the authentic Catholic and more to the question of what makes an authentic columnist.
Miners change tune on climate change
Peak mining industry body The Minerals Council of Australia has joined the fight on climate.
Easy to point the finger
Demanding we abandon coal for climate is akin to asking NZ to give up love affair with sheep.