The mass walkout of ACU faculty and students from Joe de Bruyn’s address upon receiving his honorary doctorate, and the complete failure of ACU leadership to back de Bruyn, is quite possibly the most ironic story of the year.
Unfortunately, the media reports around de Bruyn’s address characterised it as an inappropriate, self-indulgent rant about issues of life and human sexuality that had little relevance to a graduation ceremony.
But this is not the case.
The text of de Bruyn’s speech is printed in full in this week’s edition of the Catholic Weekly, so you can decide for yourself if it was appropriate for graduands.
Contrary to how it was portrayed, de Bruyn’s speech was not just a rehashing of the Catholic position on contentious issues. Rather, but a reflection on how to live one’s Catholic faith in the public sphere.
De Bruyn told the graduands that, for more than 40 years, he had worked in a union that covered warehousing, retail and fast-food companies, fighting for the rights and wages of some of the lowest paid workers in the country.
He explained that bringing these aspects of his Catholic faith to his work and advocacy was not controversial, but that bringing other aspects of his Catholic faith was contentious.
To illustrate his point, de Bruyn offered three examples: abortion, IVF and marriage.
In relation to IVF, de Bruyn explained that both he and then-federal Labor leader Kim Beazley were asked in separate media interviews their opinion on whether single women should be allowed to access IVF. De Bruyn had opposed the suggestion, because, he said, “it was morally wrong to deliberately bring children into the world in an environment where the child would have no father.”
Beazley gave the opposite answer in his interview, sparking a need for the Labor party to address how it dealt with serious moral issues on which its members might disagree and resulting in allowing state and federal politicians a conscience vote on moral matters. He then went on to elucidate how the conscience vote was used during the various attempts to redefine marriage over the years.
While de Bruyn’s speech might have been peppered with Catholic teaching on these issues—which should not be objectionable anywhere, let alone at a university that bears “Catholic” in its name—that wasn’t the point of it. The point was summed up in his concluding remarks:
“As happened to me, you will be faced with issues in your professional and personal lives where the general opinion of the majority of the population is at odds with the teaching of the church.
“My experience is that many Catholics cave in to peer pressure. They think their professional lives will be harmed if they promote the teaching of the church. My experience is that this is not so.
“Despite my view on some issues being at odds with the views of my contemporaries over the past 50 years, it never affected my career at all.”
De Bruyn was encouraging those present to not be afraid to promote the Catholic faith in their professional lives, because it will not affect their career as they might apprehend it will. He had managed to be a faithful witness to the Catholic faith in the unions and labour movement, even as he watched these gradually depart from traditional values. He was there to tell the students that it was possible; that they should not be discouraged; that they should have hope. In my view, such a message is entirely apt for the graduating class of a Catholic university to hear.
The irony is to be found in De Bruyn’s summation, where he explained to the graduands that the “key determinant” is how they present their case. “If you do it in a manner offensive to others, they will respond in a hostile manner,” he said. “If, however, you use logic in a persuasive way, others may still disagree but they will respect you for your point of view.”
Except at ACU, it seems.
