Church and State.

Cardinal George Pell fired a full broadside at member's of his faith who are members of parliament or teachers in the Catholic school system. He warned that if Catholic politicians voted for the coming therapeutic cloning bill they could expect " consequences from the church " - and he refused to exclude excommunication !
His attack on teachers was no less subtle. Those employed in the Catholic school system will in future be expected to order their personal lives in harmony with the teachings of the church. Presumably that means no gays of lesbians, no couples living together without the sanctity of marriage, no adultery - and all must present at church each Sunday and attend confession.
It's hard to determine if this is just Pell, feeling his oats after being elevated to Cardinal and the new found power bringing out his tyrannical vibes, or if this is an order coming from his boss in the Vatican.
Whatever the cause it is likely to set back relations between church and state by at least a century. Politicians who get elected to this country's parliament take an oath of office to serve the crown. They are responsible to the citizens - but Pell's demand is that they take their orders from Rome at any time that legislation collides with the dogma of the Catholic church.
Basically that means that any Catholic politician who takes his or her elected office seriously can not take the oath of office and at the same time accept the demands of George Pell. In other words, any Catholic with a conscience can not be a member of an Australian parliament !
Things are easier for Catholic teachers. The church is still mired in the deep past as far as accepting modern convention - and many Catholics disagree with it's stance on contraception, the treatment of women and it's attitude to gays - and still smart a their church's refusal to hand over paedophile priests to be dealt with by the law. The church insists that discipline will be " in house " - and in reality this means the priest is quietly moved to a distant parish where he will again reoffend.
Many teachers will simply give Pell the one finger salute, leave their teaching job and find another in the private or government sector. Some will abandon their religion and walk away from the church.
The tragedy of Pell's stance is that the rift between the church and non-Catholics has almost healed from the bitterly divided days of last century when many job vacancy advertisements carried the notation " Catholics need not apply ".
Pell seems to have abandoned the secular approach that has served this country well. Many will see little difference between the Catholic church demanding that Catholic dogma be the law and the similar demands of Islamists that we adopt Sharia law in this country. Both are dismissed because they fail to meet the needs or the views of the vast majority of Australians.
It could be that Cardinal George Pell goes down in history as the man who caused the greatest convulsion between church and state in this country's two centuries plus of religious mix. Hopefully, this is not the intention of his boss in Rome - and hopefully he will be told to moderate his rhetoric !