The abortion speech, the student walkout – and the Catholic civil war

High-profile conservative Catholic lawyers have warned the Australian Catholic University it faces losing its religious designation if it fails to defend the faith as church leaders split with university bosses in the fallout from an anti-abortion speech on campus.

The warning follows a furious, six-page letter to ACU from Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, who raised concerns about the ambivalence of the university’s commitment to its Catholic identity.

Joe de Bruyn was invited to give a speech for the Australian Catholic University after receiving an honorary doctorate.

The nine lawyers, including former NSW Coalition attorney general Greg Smith and former state Coalition finance minister Damien Tudehope, wrote to the ACU’s Senate on Tuesday saying their review of church law had made recommendations for the preservation of “the future Catholic identity of ACU”.

One was for an independent investigation – potentially from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education – into university leadership. The other was for Australian bishops to reconsider allowing the ACU to use the title Catholic in its name.

“The Catholic community in Australia cannot ignore the ongoing crisis that decisions taken by the senior executive of ACU have caused for its Catholic identity,” the letter, written by members of the influential Catholic lawyers’ group, the St Thomas More Society, said.

Simmering tensions over how an institution funded by taxpayers but overseen by the church should handle conflicts between church ideology and secular beliefs boiled over in October after a speech by former trade union heavyweight Joe de Bruyn at an ACU graduation in Melbourne.

While accepting an honorary doctorate – for which he was nominated by Fisher – de Bruyn said abortion was the single biggest killer of human beings in the world, and a “tragedy that must be ended”. Catholic doctrine teaches life is sacred from the point of conception.

The speech prompted a mass walkout by staff and students. The university expressed regret for distress caused to the community, refunded the students’ graduation fees and offered counselling. It defended de Bruyn’s right to express his personal beliefs, but said the content of the speech did not meet its standards for student safety and inclusivity.

It’s not the first time an attempt to honour de Bruyn has caused controversy. An ACTU tribute was pulled in 2015, partly because delegates said they’d turn their backs on him due to their opposition of his stance on gay marriage.

The response sent shockwaves through the church and exposed tensions between progressives, who back vice chancellor Professor Zlatko Skrbis, and conservatives.

In his mid-November letter, Fisher said a walkout was poor form at any university. “But for staff and students to walk out from a Catholic [sic] graduation ceremony because the speaker was articulating Catholic moral positions strikes me as especially perverse,” he said.

An ACU spokeswoman said Skrbis and Chancellor Martin Daubney had not been copied in on the letter. She said the ACU was answerable to a “complex environment” of stakeholders, including church, government and community, who often had competing interests.

“Everything we do at ACU is aligned with our Catholic mission – the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human person and the common good ... ACU must continue to be an institution where common ground can be found.”

The lawyers’ letter comes before a meeting of the ACU Senate on Thursday, when it will decide whether to renew Skrbis’ contract.

The ACU is overseen by a board of bishops but its per-student funding comes from government. It must compete against secular universities for a dwindling number of domestic students in a world in which fewer young people than ever subscribe to church teaching.

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