Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to say a few words about the elevation of the archbishop of Buenos Aires to the role of pope. I think we all remember where we were on significant dates in history—where we were on the morning, as it was in Australia, that President John Kennedy was shot; when the planes flew into the World Trade Centre on 9/11; and when Princess Diana was killed in the tunnel in Paris. Those sorts of things resonate with us, as indeed did this with me. It was early in the morning and I was listening to Geraldine Doogue on the radio from Rome and she said, 'There is white smoke.' So I jumped out of bed and turned on the television to soak up the moment. Indeed, for people who had been standing in the rain in Rome, it must have been quite a momentous occasion.

This was a bit different from the election of previous popes. The methodology was still the same, but two great forces of humility came into play: the first one was that the retiring Pope, Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, felt that he could no longer carry out the role in the form it needed to be carried out—that he could not give it the rigour that it required. That was an incredibly courageous act, to stand down. I think there is almost a belief amongst Catholics that the Pope has to die in harness. I do not mean that disrespectfully, but there is a great sense that he is such a person apart from others that the idea of resignation is unthinkable. But when you take a step back and put yourself in Benedict XVI's shoes, you can see that it was a very courageous move that he made, and he gave his cardinals about a month to start thinking about it. So they did not go into this conclave, as with many other ones, with a sense of grief at the loss of the last Pope and a sense of bewilderment. But the last Pope, by the very nature of his resignation, presented them with another challenge: the challenge of where to take the church. When you saw the media shortlists, the current Pope was mentioned in one or two and he was—so we are told; it is all supposed to be terribly confidential—the runner-up last time. But for most Catholics, it was quite a surprise.

Again we had seen the humility of Benedict XVI, on the one hand, and now this man's first approach to the people was one of great humility in asking people to pray for him. You can see that that strain of humility comes through in many ways: that he felt more comfortable being on the bus going to work in Buenos Aires, or cooking a meal at home—I would not be up to that; I am hopeless at that sort of thing, and, for a guy to put in a full day's work in the church and then to come home and have to cook dinner, he must be a man of many parts. And, as the member for Fowler said, for him to go in the minibus with the cardinals, and go to pay his bill—while some might say, 'They are just symbolic gestures,' they are a series of symbolic gestures that characterise where he is coming from. He is not wearing a radiant gold cross; he wears the iron cross that he brought with him from South America.

As well as being a Pope of humility he is a Pope of many firsts. He is the first Jesuit Pope. There has been a bit of tension—not always but in many periods of the church's history—between the Jesuits and the papacy. In fact, at times the head of the Jesuits was often referred to as the 'Black Pope'. It was almost unthinkable in some ages that a Jesuit could be a Pope, so this is not just a first but a real first. It signifies intellect, it signifies healing and it signifies rigour. He comes from Italian parentage, so that creates a link with many Italians to whom the papacy is terribly important. He comes, as the member for Werriwa said, from a railway-working family, so he has known what it is like to grow up in a working household. He is the first Pope from outside Europe for nearly 1,000 years. He is the first Pope ever from the Southern Hemisphere, which is something that countries like ours, New Zealand, the other South American countries and South Africa can take some pride in. Perhaps, if he comes from Argentina, he knows a bit about Rugby Union, so that might be something we can indulge him with if he comes to Australia.

The important thing is that he takes the church in hand. As a man of great piety and great humility, it is important that he exercises that intellectual capacity and that rigour for which the Jesuits are known and brings them into the church at a time when its administration has been called into question and its determination to bring paedophilia to heel has been very much in the news. I am sure he will be up to that.

I hope that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference in Melbourne, Archbishop Hart, and the Cardinal in Sydney will make sure that this Pope gets an early invitation to visit Australia. He is a person who obviously does not stand on trappings and ceremony, and I am sure a person of that background will resonate very strongly with Australians. I wish him God's blessing.

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