Welcome to the coddling of the Australian mind

Earlier this week, the Australian Catholic University managed to turn every word in its name into an oxymoron. It’s Australian, but neither its staff nor its students believe in a “fair go”. It’s officially Catholic, but students walked out on an eminent speaker who opposed abortion. It’s a university, nominally, but it’s clearly not committed to free speech and reasoned argument.

Here's what happened. ACU invited Joe de Bruyn, a veteran trade unionist and formerly one of the most powerful figures in the Australian Labor Party, to speak at a graduation ceremony at ACU’s Melbourne campus. He would also receive an honorary doctorate. He deserved it. de Bruyn knows more about Catholic social teaching than the average bishop and has fearlessly defended traditional Catholic teaching on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage for decades.  

In his speech to education and arts, law and commerce graduates, he said: “Today, over 80,000 unborn children are killed by abortion in Australia each year worldwide – the estimated number is 42 million each year. Abortion is the single biggest killer of human beings in the world, greater than the human toll of World War II. It is a tragedy that must be ended.”

He also said that marriage between a man and a woman was “instituted by God at the origin of humanity in the Garden of Eden” and that “every society on Earth at all times” was built on marriage between a man and a woman.

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The students and their guests were outraged. Many of them walked out. They later told the media that de Bruyn’s speech was “hateful”, “vitriolic”, “shameful”, and “disgusting”.

Astonishingly, ACU agreed. The vice-chancellor, Professor Zlatko Skrbis, quickly sent out an email apologising for the distress caused by Mr de Buryn’s remarks. He offered offended students counselling services and mental health support. He also promised to refund the $165 graduation fee because “the content of this speech did not meet the standards that we strive for”.

This is a colossal failure on three levels.

A failure of civility. It’s no surprise nowadays to learn that Catholic students at nominally Catholic universities do not accept traditional Catholic teaching. It’s their loss. But they ought to be polite enough to heed opposing opinions. de Bruyn did not attack anyone personally; he stated facts which have been voiced in the public square for decades.

Consider a very different moment – Greta Thunberg’s “how dare you” speech to  the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019. She was livid with rage and personally insulting. "You are failing us … The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”

And how did her audience respond to this slap in the face? They applauded. Why? Amongst other reasons, they were grown-ups.

A failure of education. Education, arts, law and commerce students are smart people. Didn’t they know that Australian Catholic University is a Catholic institution? Its website states clearly that “As a Catholic university, we are stewards of our Catholic tradition and our unique Australian heritage. Our mission defines who we are.”

Presumably these students have heard of Pope Francis. He respects LGBT people but has adamantly refused to endorse same-sex marriage. He has described abortion as murder, “like hiring a hitman”. How could these students not be aware? It’s like going to McDonald’s in the belief that it’s a vegan eatery.

Catholic universities exist to teach Catholic values, as part of a respectful dialogue with the secular world. ACU has obviously failed miserably.

A failure of governance. A university requires a vice-chancellor with a backbone. What ACU has is a jellyfish. From its website we learn that “As a Catholic University, ACU offers a dialogue between faith and reason.” There’s a dearth of both.

In their 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argued that US campus are blighted with “safetyism”. Universities swaddle their students in cotton wool so that they cannot be challenged by unfamiliar and disagreeable ideas. This intellectual and moral illness is obviously endemic at ACU. And the blame must lie squarely at the feet of its administrators.

According to its X/Twitter page, ACU also stand for “Accepting, Curious, Unstoppable”. Its students ­ – many of them at least – are neither accepting nor curious. What is unstoppable is the defensive drivel gushing from staff and students over this shameful episode.

When Alexander Solzhenitsyn – one of the most courageous men of the 20th century, a brilliant novelist, a Nobel Prize winner – gave a commencement speech at Harvard University in 1978, he declared that “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today.”

How did the students react?

They booed him. Those moral pygmies booed Alexander Solzhenitsyn. For the rest of their lives, they lived with the shame of having booed a moral giant.

Joe de Bruyn is in good company.   


Your thoughts on Catholic education today? 


Michael Cook is editor of Mercator.

Image credit: Australian Catholic University, Melbourne campus / ACU website


 

Showing 10 reactions

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  • Maryse Usher
    commented 2024-10-30 09:24:52 +1100
    Peter Sammons, thank you for the ray of hope shining in your comment. The majority of Mass-goers in many parishes are Asian. The young women who attend a Catholic monthly recollection are nearly all Asian and African. The great majority of our hospital and aged care facilities (caring professions) are Asian and African. These young people are from pro-family and traditionally moral cultures, although the American Banned Parenthood Inc. and its squillionaire anti-natalist cronies are doing their best to corrupt them, mandating sterilisation for aid. Our migrants will save us if we don’t corrupt them first.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-10-30 08:39:46 +1100
    Peter Sammons

    I often hear the phrase “cultural Marxism” bandied about.

    What does it mean?

    Does it have anything to do with that bearded old Jew you all love to hate?

    Do you even know that Karl Marx was quite conservative in social matters?

    Do you have any understanding of the cultural and political environment in which he was writing?

    Do you have any understanding of the conditions in which most people worked during the industrial revolution. (Hint: I doubt you’d last ten minutes in an 1850s style factory or even 10 seconds in an English coal mine ca 1930)
  • Peter Sammons
    commented 2024-10-30 03:43:11 +1100
    Agree. Young people’s minds are ‘coddled’ if not addled.
    Essentially Western ‘universities’ are now Cultural Marxist organs. Sadly they are turning out ‘graduates’ that may not survive well in the real world. No matter. They are being out-bred by migrant communities that do not by and large, share their woke mores!
  • Maryse Usher
    commented 2024-10-30 00:07:13 +1100
    Thank you, Michael. I commend you for your restraint. I am outraged and ashamed of this cowardly behaviour by ACU staff and administrators. They should all be sacked. Joe de Bruyn, you are my hero. God bless you for your courage and for throwing ice water over these pathetic, wallowing frogs. No wonder the radtrads have contempt for Catholic hierarchy – no guts, no spine, no muscle.
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-10-28 15:58:36 +1100
    Emberson Fedders

    “Walking out was the audience’s participation in free speech.”

    Don’t you understand?

    When somebody extols the virtues of free speech he or she means “my side’s speech.”

    When the other side exercises it’s right to free speech it’s being bigoted or disrespectful or childish or whatever.

    You really are naive.
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2024-10-28 12:33:26 +1100
    Walking out was the audience’s participation in free speech.

    Offering counseling is a bit weak, though.
  • Gerard Flood
    commented 2024-10-28 11:15:24 +1100
    Well done, Michael Cook. While the local Ordinary, Archbishop Comensoli, has responded in the weakest terms possible, which hierachs publicly accept apex responsibility for their ACU debacle? Abortion is contemned by the UN’s 1948 “universal” human rights benchmark, the UDHR ], founded as global Civil Society’s response to the NAZI ideology, laws and their application as vast Crimes Against Humanity, and abortion is proscribed by the UDHR 1959 derivative Rights of the Child which specifies normative mandated state protection for all life including ‘before … birth’, also supported by universal ethics and the Natural Law. Pro-aborts and pro-“choicers” unavoidably repudiate the most basic right. [ “Human Rights and the Unborn Child” – Rita Joseph, 2009.]
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2024-10-26 15:07:54 +1100
    LOL

    First, full disclosure. Many years ago, so long ago that most of those students had not yet been born, I had an altercation about pay with ACU. It wasn’t a large amount and, in the end, I wrote it off to experience. However I don’t have the warm and fuzzies about ACU. Schadenfreude may be a despicable emotion but it is often an enjoyable one. :)

    With that out of the way

    “a vice-chancellor with a backbone??”

    Do you also believe in unicorns, leprechauns and fairies at the bottom of your garden? You’re likely to find them before you find that mythical creature, a “vice-chancellor with a backbone”

    “He [the vice-chancellor] offered offended students counselling services and mental health support.”

    Seriously? They need counselling after hearing a speech they don’t like? How can I cash in on this scam? I’ll counsel you. Two words: Toughen up

    According to the “Academic Ranking of World Universities” aka “Shanghai Rankings”, ACU is amongst the lowest ranking universities in Australia. I mean it’s even below Murdoch University! Globally it’s in the 601-700 out of a thousand category. The students are probably wasting their time and money.

    They claim to be among the top 10 Catholic Universities.

    They don’t seem to offer offer engineering, medicine or science. It’s not clear to me whether their law school offers an actual law degree – i.e. a degree that enables you to become a lawyer.

    Never mind the “Catholic” part in their name, I’m not sure they’re an actual “university” in any meaningful sense of the word.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2024-10-26 10:36:56 +1100
    Walking out on hateful bigots is something to be applauded, not whined about.
  • Michael Cook
    published this page in The Latest 2024-10-25 22:36:43 +1100