Australia’s Nuncio to the World Michael Easson

On April 19 last year, in the crypt of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral, Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, churchman, ecumenical pioneer, former Papal Nuncio, Sostituto (deputy) for General Affairs to the Secretary of State of the Holy See, tireless advocate of respect for the people of the first Covenant, was interred, after a two-and-a-half-hour Requiem Mass presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana, the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, fellow bishops, clergy and a packed congregation.

The presence of members of Jewish, Orthodox Christian and various Protestant denominations at the funeral indicated that this was no ordinary man. “Even if you cry your eyes out, don’t worry; he was worth every tear,” the Bishop of Wollongong, Brian Mascord, said in his homily.

Cassidy was an unlikely priest and an unlikelier ecumenical leader. He not only transformed Catholic relations not only with the “separated brethren” (other Christians), he also forged a new relationship of understanding between Catholics and Jews. No Australian Catholic since Saint Mary MacKillop of the Cross had greater influence on the Church. No Australian, notwithstanding Cardinal Pell’s recent eminence, has risen so high in the Holy See, with such lasting, global impact. His memoirs, My Years in Vatican Service (2009), and book Ecumenism and Inter-Religious Dialogue (2005) convey that perhaps only an Australian of his type could be so winningly effective.

Cassidy was born to non-Catholic parents who acrimoniously separated when he was a toddler (in 1926 his mother took his just-born baby brother, Douglas, to live with her and her de facto partner, whom she married sixteen years later) and Cassidy was brought up by his paternal grandparents. His grandmother, a Catholic, while on holiday at Gulgong in country New South Wales, decided to arrange what she had not done for her sons: baptism into the Catholic faith (although Cassidy had already been christened in the Church of England). His father was an itinerant worker who stayed in touch, his granddad a retired mineworker on a pension—a poor but loving family.

Apart from a few years attending a convent school at Bondi, his schooling was at state schools near where he lived at Punchbowl and Condell Park—Bankstown Central (for primary) and then at Parramatta High School. There were no Catholic catechetical classes at the latter, so Cassidy went to the Methodist minister’s group. Yet he was determined in his Catholicism from a young age, trekking across paddocks to attend St Felix de Valois Church on Chapel Road, Bankstown. One parish priest, the Catholic historian and later archbishop, Eris O’Brien, encouraged him to contemplate holy orders. After his grandfather died in 1939, to support his grandmother young Ed left school at fifteen without completing his education, a common experience for working-class lads.

A new parish priest at St Felix thought his “unsuitable” background (divorce was then rare to Catholics), lack of upbringing in the faith by Catholic parents or attendance at parish schools, and limited education, meant that he should seek something secular. To obtain his Leaving Certificate, Cassidy undertook night school while employed as a clerk in the Department of Road Transport. A direct appeal to Archbishop Norman Gilroy led to his being accepted for training for the priesthood. During holidays from the Springwood and St Patrick’s seminaries, he worked at David Jones department store in the city.

Cassidy was ordained in July 1949, along with the future Archbishop of Sydney and Cardinal, Edward Clancy. After the service, Cassidy’s father told him that he had been received into the Catholic faith which was why he received Holy Communion. His mother was also in the congregation; Cassidy persuaded her to join the reception on the day they spoke for the first time.

At Yenda in Wagga Wagga diocese, he learnt some Italian (useful for ministering to Italian migrants in the Riverina). In 1952, Bishop Francis Henschke suggested he undertake canon law studies in Rome. Cassidy’s new teachers were unable to pronounce the name of his diocese, so Cassidy latinised the Wiradjuri people’s expression (“wagga wagga”) as Corvo Polilanus (place of the crows). Graduating in 1955 with a doctorate (on the history and juridical nature of the apostolic delegations), he entered the papal diplomatic service, serving in Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Appointments followed in India from 1955 to 1962. Years later, when he congratulated Mother Teresa on her success, she responded: “I used to come away from the internuciature thinking the papal representative and his secretary should really have more faith!” He served in Ireland (1962 to 1967) during the Second Vatican Council. He drolly comments in his memoirs: “Already in 1967 the BBC television was becoming readily available in large areas of Ireland, bringing new, secular thoughts and propaganda right into Irish homes”. Then he was in El Salvador and Argentina (1967 to 1970), where he knew Óscar Romero, “a close friend”. “Unfortunately,” he says of this martyr, murdered in 1980, “some members of the church in Latin America, including cardinals, have judged Romero harshly, branding him an exponent of the theology of liberation”. He disagreed with this assessment and commented that Archbishop Romero (since 2018, Saint Óscar Romero) “did not find it easy to be at home with the wealthy elite. But the Church had placed him there, and he did as his conscience demanded and became the voice of a suffering people.”

Then came two years as pro-nuncio in Taiwan (1970 to 1972), hurriedly consecrated in Rome as an archbishop beforehand. Through sources in Hong Kong and directly, he pursued contacts between the official and underground Church in China, as the Holy See, like most of the rest of the world, quietly downgraded representation to Taipei. Pope Paul VI visited Hong Kong on December 4, 1970, and preached:

There comes to this far eastern land, for the first time in history, the humble apostle of Christ that We are. And what does he say? Why does he come? To sum it up in one word: Love. Christ is a teacher, a shepherd, and a loving redeemer for Christ too. The Church cannot leave unsaid this good word: love, which will be forever.

Still nominally responsible for Taiwan, he then moved to Bangladesh (1973 to 1979), with Burma added to his portfolio. In the Jubilee Year 2000, Cassidy celebrated Mass in Bengali at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the first time the language was spoken at that altar.

Then came a series of appointments in Southern Africa (1979 to 1984). He noted: “It was difficult, however, to preach peace and patience when one could not foresee an end to the injustice they experienced daily.”

His most difficult role was in the Netherlands (1984 to 1988), where the liberals were becoming more liberal and the conservatives more doctrinaire, as the Catholic Church rapidly declined. Cassidy played a harmonising, conciliatory role, including the Pope’s official visit in May 1985.

Cassidy explains his respect for John Paul II, who sought to teach “with authority, but also by persuasion”. He acutely sums up the challenge: “the Servant of God insisted constantly … on the deep-seated harmony between faith and reason, and between the moral law and the well-being of the human person and of society”.

Then came Cassidy’s appoint­ment as No. 3 in the Holy See, as the Pope’s chief of staff, as the Substitute for General Affairs to the Secretary of State of the Holy See (1988 to 1989). Some Vatican gossipers thought “it was a bit too much” that such an important figure played tennis with members of his staff, including his Swiss Guards.

After urging the Holy Father to reconsider the offer (he thought himself unworthy), from 1989 to 2001 came Cassidy’s most significant roles: President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and, separately, of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. He set out to continue the work of Vatican II with renewed vigour. In 1991, aged nearly sixty-seven, Cassidy was elevated to Cardinal.

Cassidy sometimes referred to the ecumenical movement as akin to climbing a very high mountain, where the hardest steps are those towards the top. Looking back, he says:

In the first forty years of our ecumenical climb we had covered a lot of ground and were able to enjoy a new vision of unity, but to reach the summit of full communion will need the dedication and skill of the theologian and historian working together in a dialogue inspired and aided by the Holy Spirit. What has been achieved is already well worthwhile and truly beautiful, and surely is enough to encourage us to continue our efforts.

There were notable achievements, particularly the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999) between Catholics and Lutherans. This aimed to resolve the dispute between the communities, in Cassidy’s words, on “the way we are justified or, stating it more simply, saved”. (Justification refers to how a person might justify their life at the gates of heaven.) Cassidy goes on: “the problem was in understanding the relationship among faith, works and justification”. A solution is proposed in these words:

Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.

Here is not the place to exhaustively discuss the nuances, though it is interesting that the World Methodist Council subsequently adopted the Declaration in 2006. So too, in 2017, did the World Communion of Reformed Churches, representing around 80 million members of Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, United, Uniting and Waldensian churches.

Cassidy is absorbing in his discussions about ecumenical movements, the relations between Catholics and various Eastern rite, Anglican, Orthodox and other faiths. Though in many ways doctrinally close, the Orthodox and Catholic faiths have not made sufficient progress towards reunification: “History … has left a bitter heritage that makes these relations particularly difficult and delicate.” After all, “the second millennium saw divisions, condemnations and the Crusades”.

Cassidy had a generous and ambitious perspective on ecumenism. He wanted phased reconciliation rather than mere conciliar “fellowship”. Cassidy was critical of what he called “pre-conciliator thinking”; he saw other Christians as brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church. As the Second Vatican Council declared:

All those justified by faith through baptism are incorporated into Christ. They therefore have a right to be honoured by the title of Christian and are properly regarded as brothers in the Lord by the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church.

Yet sometimes Cassidy was accused of wearing the garment of traditional Catholic dogma “lightly”. His references to and attempts to articulate and accommodate legitimate diversity in the context of unity set off alarm bells. But that is unfair to Cassidy’s understanding of the challenges and appreciation for the need for step-by-step progress, mindful of orthodoxy.

Not everyone in the Curia wanted Cassidy to succeed. In some circles, there was keenness to run the doctrinal geiger counter over things for indications of doctrinal impurity. In 2000, the document Dominus Jesus, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, bluntly stated: “the ecclesial communities which have not conserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense”. Cassidy, almost in despair, wrote: “This is of course Catholic doctrine, but hardly anything could be more delicate than to tell another Christian community that they are not a church.”

As for better relations between Catholics and Jews, the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 document Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) provided guidance. Significantly and astonishingly, Cassidy was trusted to sort out the doctrinal and practical issues of Jewish–Catholic relations. In 1998, the statement We Remember was addressed to all Catholics to meditate on the significance of the Shoah:

To remember this terrible experience is to become fully conscious of the salutary warning it entails: the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism must never again be allowed to take root in any human heart.

Cassidy argued that We Remember meant that “we who are members of the Church … are called to repentance (Teshuvah)”. This Hebrew word signifies regret of misdeed, decision to change, and verbal expression of one’s sins during the Ten Days of Penitence between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Cassidy noted a resistance “in many circles to the idea of a mea culpa”. There was a lot to consider, including the Church’s and its members’ past wrongs (for example, the ghetto came into being in 1555 with a Papal Bull), and the theology of supersessionism, that God’s Covenant with the Jews was cancelled by Christ’s with mankind. The portrayal of the Jews in past Church teaching as doomed to homeless wandering as a result of the Crucifixion, required radical reassessment and repudiation.
Cassidy’s Australian background added depth to his thinking. He privately said that in Sydney and Melbourne, for example, Catholic–Jewish relations, particularly among the laity, were healthy with many strong, friendly, informal and personal links, in contrast with many European countries.

Cassidy was sympathetic to Covenant “dualism”, as was Pope John Paul II in several of his speeches, though the doctrine was never form­ally expounded. The dualism is that both Coven­ants operate in perpetuity.
This sparked various counter-reactions. After Cassidy’s retire­ment, Cardinal Avery Dulles, Catholic convert son of John Foster Dulles, the former US Secretary of State, argued that only through Christ can we be saved, in opposition to what he considered dualism’s wobbly thinking.

The language of the Catholic Church in official documents and proclamations has, however, in the years since, decisively shifted to the Cassidy position. Pope John Paul II said: “Judaism is not to be considered simply as another religion; the Jews are instead our ‘elder brothers’.” On November 17, 1980, the Holy Father delivered a speech to representatives of the Jewish community in Mainz, Germany, where he asserted that God’s Covenant with the Jewish people was never revoked. Benedict XVI refers to our “fathers in faith”. In 2015, the Holy See released a new document authored by the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, including Cardinal Kurt Koch, which concluded that Jews do not need to be converted to find salvation: “from a detached coexistence, Catholics and Jews have arrived at a deep friendship”. Pope Francis, in Evangelia Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”, 2013) states:

 while it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists a rich complementarity as well which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples.

The continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel is not questioned.

Cassidy’s work ultimately led the Church to lean to the position that God’s Covenant with the Jewish people is eternal (not cancelled by Christ’s Covenant with mankind); implicitly, for Catholics to aggressively evangelise the Jews is disrespectful to their Covenant.

Such developments were deeply significant in theological terms in recasting 2000 years of bad history. Perhaps because Cassidy came from a country without a history of active, fierce, murderous anti-Semitism, because of his obvious emotional sincerity, and shame for past sins, because his personality and wisdom matched the task, and because John Paul II also wanted better relations, the confluence was right for the moment.

After fifty years absence, Cassidy returned to Australia in 2002, and lived in Newcastle, serving the Italian community in the diocese (his fluency in Italian considerably improved since those days in the Riverina) and assisting a parish in Hamilton. His nimble priestly ministry continued up to only a few years ago, his mind fully alert to the end, which came on April 10, 2021.

As our Jewish friends say: may his memory be a blessing. His humility, good humour, convictions and instinctive search for common ground, on firm foundations, are some of the reasons why.

Michael Easson’s career includes periods as Secretary of the Labor Council of New South Wales and Chair of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration