Should I go into a monastery now I'm 74 and never have anything to say on TV or radio?
I got a call late one night last week from ' concerned of Werribee' . He'd just seen me on TV pontificating on Gordon Ramsey's coarse language - you know the Brit chef who swears a lot during his cooking show.
'A Current Affair' had rung earlier to tee up an interview. A South Australian church official had advised a ban on the Ramsey show. I didn't know about it. No matter. You don't have to know much but you have to settle on a quick ' grab' favourable to the cause, do no harm, do a little good.
I decided before the TV crew arrived, to make the point that coarse language is a matter of manners, not morals - in most cases, that is.
I used a Latin proverb to sum up the point - ' de gustibus non est disputandum' or ' in matters of taste, there's nothing to argue about'.
We all have likes and dislikes. You can't order someone to like this or that.
You don't have to use coarse language yourself or encourage it to be able to live with it.
The bloke who rang me said he was ashamed to be in the same church as me. ' You've exceeded your use by date. Retire or go to Tasmania!'
That shook me. Maybe he thought because there's ' devils' in Tasmania it must be Hell. Anyway just to share with you a day in the life of an inner urban parish priest.
People say ' Why do you do it?' Some are convinced I'm an egotist at best, a narcissist at worst. They say ' showing off', I say ' putting in'.
I like people to know that Catholicism is a broad church. Most disputes among Catholics are about matters of taste, not morals.
What the celebrant wears to Mass, how many bows to make before receiving communion, whether to talk among ourselves before the service begins or to observe a reverend silence to get in the mood - these are all recently revived matters of taste. There's no good or bad in them.
Church bosses may well, from their acknowledged elevated vantage point, advise us, rank and file, on disciplinary matters. That's part of their job. And they must alert the general membership to the clear and present public danger generated by the moral viruses of affluence, abortion, lousy prison and illegal migrant detention systems, just to name a few.
But even in these, indisputably serious, matters, there must be a new language, a better 'style' of discussion, so all members of this hard-fought-for pluralised society can share, with respect, different, even opposite views without risking social disharmony.
Church people should be actively engaged in building civil society, without fear or favour. We should put a substantial amount of regional and local church resources, including real estate and parish personnel, at the service of the neighbourhood.
Putting ourselves ' out there' would be a good practical way of saying sorry to the alleged tens of thousands of victims of abuse by catholic officials over seventy years. (This figure is quoted in the press 8/05/08. Would Australian Catholic HQ check that figure for us rank and filers? It's us who'll cop the flack up to the Pope's visit and afterwards!)
Like Daniel Grollo and his developers, local churches, synagogues and mosques could offset whatever socially toxic imprint they have left in a neighbourhood by providing goods and services for the local poor e.g. food distribution outlets, safe houses for abused women and children, 24/7 one stop ' shops' for troubled teenagers - all without ' convert to our religion' small print clauses.
The local synagogue, mosque or church could pilot such a breath-taking initiative until a cluster of like-minded partners got their act together.
I guess that what this parish and this foundation are doing as a coalition of the willing continuing a 150-year-old tradition of service to the poor, deserving and undeserving. Not ' showing off,' but ' putting in'