Stephen Crittenden: If you were expecting to hear John Cleary's familiar voice again this year, he's not here because he's off hosting Late Sunday Night Talk on ABC local radio from 10pm till 2am, that's Sunday evenings.

This week on The Religion Report, America lurches to the religious right in the early days of the new presidency.

And we speak to two Muslim clerics living in Australia, one protesting outside the New South Wales parliament, the other just made a member of the Order of Australia.

But first, Pope John Paul has announced the creation of 44 new cardinals in recent weeks, most of whom will be eligible to vote when the time comes to elect his successor. Many of those named are from Latin America.

Well, as this long pontificate draws to its close, it's perhaps not surprising that these announcements have been greeted by a lot of loose talk about the College of Cardinals being stacked. I asked Father Paul Collins whether the College is any more stacked now than it was previously.

Paul Collins: Well the answer to that is Yes and No. Yes, there's a sense in which there's no doubt the Pope is going to choose people who reflect his vision of the church, there's no doubt that you won't get to the point of being an Archbishop today or a Bishop in a very large diocese, and they're the type of people who are chosen as Cardinals generally speaking, if you're not working in the Vatican, you won't get there unless you do in many ways reflect the agenda that has run right through this papacy. But the thing that people tend to forget when they say that the College of Cardinals has been stacked, they forget that when the Pope dies they're their own men then.

Stephen Crittenden: Well let's look at some of the individual names in this big list, because some of them are quite interesting: there's a Peruvian Cardinal who's a member of Opus Dei, and who's been linked to the regime of disgraced former President Fujimori of Peru.

Paul Collins: Yes, the gentleman's name is Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne. He's a member of Opus Dei, born in 1943, was actually quite a champion basketball player in Peru. But Thorne is the first Opus Dei Cardinal; he had been the Bishop of Ayacucho up in the Andes, and he was the person (I don't know if you can recall, but the Japanese Embassy was occupied by the Shining Path guerrillas about three years ago) and the person that Fujimori, the then President of Peru, used as the link between the Shining Path and his government was Cipriani. So it is quite a coup for Opus Dei in many ways, as I said.

Stephen Crittenden: And also an insight into the way that Opus Dei cuddles up to the leadership, the elites in Third World regimes and Third World countries.

Paul Collins: Well certainly their influence has been very, very considerable on some governments, largely because in fact they work to do this. They have a view that it's the elite that you need to bring to spiritual fulfilment and maturity and theological education, and they certainly have penetrated very strongly in a country like Peru.

Stephen Crittenden: There's some controversy over the appointment of Archbishop Desmond Connell of Dublin, because the Primate of all Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady of Armagh was passed over.

Paul Collins: Have you ever known the Irish to agree on anything?

Stephen Crittenden: Had Brady done anything to upset the Vatican?

Paul Collins: Well I mean, if you look at the two of them, Brady is a much more progressive person, there's no doubt about that; his background is much more pastoral. Sean Connell's background is that he's a Semitic scholar. He's been a fairly uninspiring Archbishop of Dublin. Mind you, he's in a great tradition of uninspiring Archbishops of Dublin. Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who was known as The Sphinx, was one of his predecessors, whereas Armagh has tended to have, if you like, more colourful, more pastorally-oriented and much more open Archbishops. Probably that's because most of those Archbishops would have experience as priests and bishops in the north, where of course the position of Catholics is that of a minority rather than a majority, at least in some areas. So Brady I think was seen as a much more open man, whereas Connell is seen very much as a rather uninspiring reactionary.

Stephen Crittenden: We mentioned somebody who was a member of Opus Dei a moment ago; another interesting appointment is Father Avery Dulles, the well-known American priest, someone who has links right to the centre of power in the United States, in fact the son of a former Secretary of State.

Paul Collins: Yes, he doesn't have a vote in the next conclave because he was born in August 1918, so he's well over 80, but Avery Dulles is one of the best-known theologians within the English speaking world certainly. His fine book 'Models of the Church' has had tremendous influence in theological education over the last 20 or 25 years since it's been published. He has another very fine book which came out in the late '80s called 'The Catholicity of the Church', so he's been a theologian of the church if you like, an ecclesiologist, as they're called. He was the son of the United States Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that makes him of course also the nephew of Alan Dulles, who was the founding administrator of the CIA.

Stephen Crittenden: Paul, is there anything significant in the fact that the original 37 names came out early last week, and then suddenly early this week, there've been another seven names added to the list?

Paul Collins: Well yes, it is unusual. In fact, Stephen, I can't think of an example this century where this has happened. In the case of two of them, they have been Cardinals "in pectore" is the term that's used, or "in pecto" is the Italian.

Stephen Crittenden: Secret Cardinals.

Paul Collins: Secret Cardinals, in the sense that the Pope hasn't announced their names because of dangers to themselves if their names were announced.

Stephen Crittenden: But there are a couple, two in particular, that are very interesting: a black Archbishop from Durban in South Africa, and somebody who's name you wouldn't have thought would have been an afterthought, the President of the German Bishops' Conference, Karl Lehmann of Mainz. I mean, is there a sense that John Paul II is not paying full attention, or that there are political machinations going on in the Vatican that there's a kind of an opposition team who've started to flex their muscles in the last week?

Paul Collins: I can't see that personally. I can't explain to you why there has been this delay. It was said that he was smiling and laughing when he announced these latest five. The reason is simply not obvious to me, and exactly as you say, Stephen, that someone like Karl Lehmann the Bishop of Mainz and the President of the German Bishops' Conference, who certainly would not have won high points for himself in Rome last year when he suggested that the Pope ought to resign (he then went on of course to deny that he had said that). Another person that's here is Johannes Joachim Degenhart, the Archbishop of Paderborn, who from memory I think is a fairly conservative man; he's certainly quite old, I think he's only got about a year or two before he reaches the compulsory retirement age of 75.

Stephen Crittenden: And is described as having made 'public demonstrations of his fidelity to the magisterium of Pope John Paul II.'

Paul Collins: Yes, well we know why he got it. But I have to be honest, I find it very hard to explain why this sudden addition to the list.

Stephen Crittenden: We perhaps should conclude, Paul, by making some mention of Archbishop George Pell of Melbourne, Australia, because I think there was an awful lot of media speculation that his name would appear on this list, and I must add, it's not speculation that came from this program, and not speculation that he, to my knowledge, ever encouraged.

Paul Collins: I think that's absolutely right. I've been saying for a long time that it was most unlikely that Archbishop Pell would be appointed a Cardinal when there were already two voting Cardinals, two Australians as voting Cardinals, Cardinal Cassidy who has just retired from the Roman Courier, he's 75, but he's still got a few years to run before he's 80; and Cardinal Clancy of course, in Sydney, the Archbishop of Sydney.

Stephen Crittenden: So that three Cardinals in a population of 18-million or 19-million is way too much to expect.

Paul Collins: Of course, when there are only 4-million Catholics, that's the first thing. And the second thing is that countries like Brazil, Argentina, Ireland, Bolivia, I mean place after place that are Catholic countries didn't have Cardinals. New York didn't have a Cardinal, the Cardinal Archbishop of New York had died, O'Connor, and he's been replaced by Edward Egan; Washington didn't have a Cardinal Archbishop, so all of this certainly indicated to me that the likelihood of another Australian being appointed was pure wishful thinking. I don't know who's wishful thinking it was, I suspect it came more from conservative elements within Melbourne, perhaps it was a little bit of self-illusion on the part of Melbournites, and being a Melbournite originally, I think I can say that. And it's an illusion that was taken up widely by the Australian media.

Stephen Crittenden: Paul Collins, thank you very much for your time.

Paul Collins: It's a pleasure, Stephen.



Stephen Crittenden: In the United States this week, George Bush has moved to establish what he calls an 'office of faith-based action', to oversee the provision of welfare by charity and church groups. It's becoming apparent that the President has a more conservative social agenda than he displayed during his election campaign. Last week he banned US government funds to international organisations that provide abortion counselling or publicly support abortion. So is the President revealing himself as a religious ideologue, or is he a moderate with a strategic eye to gaining conservative support?

David Rutledge spoke to journalist Steven Waldman, Editor of Belief.net, and asked: How deep do the President's religious convictions really run?

Steven Waldman: Well I think his personal conviction on it runs pretty deep, but his ideological approach to abortion has always been to talk in symbolic terms, more than to take the domestic political positions that would cause controversy. So for instance, he came out against the government spending money in overseas population control things that had abortion in it, but most Americans don't care that much about that.

David Rutledge: So it's just a symbolic gesture, you're saying?

Steven Waldman: Well he would say it's more than a symbolic gesture in the sense that the way he has put it is 'The first thing we have to do is change public opinion rather than laws' and so he would say 'Well the symbolic things are not just symbolic, it's part of a campaign to change public opinion, and that's where we have to start.'

David Rutledge: Is there a more general trend appearing here? Do you think his presidency is going to turn out to be more conservative than we thought?

Steven Waldman: I think we don't know. It's sort of fascinating to watch on any given day, which way he seems to be shifting. I would say his Cabinet is probably more conservative than Ronald Reagan's, but he is approaching most of his conservative views in a very shrewd way. He seems to be on the one hand throwing bones to his conservative supporters, but on the other hand doing some pretty high profile moderate initiatives.

David Rutledge: What about George Bush himself? He doesn't strike you as the overly introspective type; how deep do you think his own religious convictions run?

Steven Waldman: I think his religious convictions run quite deep. I would say in fact his religious convictions probably run deeper than his political convictions. One of the issues that's going to be interesting is to see to what extent his religious convictions influence his political convictions. You know, the initiative that he put out there today, Monday, is an effort to give more government money to religious groups, and this really directly stems from his personal view, from his own life experience, that it is religion that really changes people's lives, not government programs.

David Rutledge: What about the constitutional problems that that would bring up?

Steven Waldman: Well he doesn't seem to be particularly worried about that. There are a lot of people who think that the constitutional issues can be worked through. It's a little bit simplistic to say 'Oh well, they can be worked through,' there really are some pretty strong tensions there, but it's quite a popular notion here right now, the idea that more government money should be going to religious groups.

David Rutledge: Why is that?

Steven Waldman: Well I think part of it is a general scepticism on the part of America which has been brewing for the last 20 or 30 years, that government bureaucracies don't work very well, and religious social programs tend to be more effective.

David Rutledge: With the abortion issue, how far do you think he is actually prepared to go? There are appointments to the Supreme Court coming up; is the President going to try and overturn Rowe versus Wade?

Steven Waldman: I think he won't try to overturn Rowe v Wade in terms of proceeding with a constitutional amendment and a lawsuit. I think he will try to put pro-life justices on the court, and do it that way. To me, the most interesting case on abortion for Bush is going to be the RU46, the so-called first option pill, or the abortion pill, depending on which side you're coming from. This is the pill that was marketed in France, and which enables women to essentially induce abortions through a pill. And this has been a big target of opposition among the anti-abortion forces in America. During the campaign, Bush astonished and disappointed the pro-life forces by saying he would not do anything to overturn, to block the access to the abortion pill, and I suspect that he will go back on that, that he will shift his position on that and he will try to do a little bit in the way of trying to restrict access. But that's the one where I think the battle is going to be fought over.

David Rutledge: It was widely reported last week that in a presidential message read out to the March for Life protesters, the President said that he wanted to work towards a 'culture of life', he wanted to affirm that every person at every stage of life is created equal in God's image, and yet of course we know that as Governor of Texas he presided over a number of criminal executions. Does he perceive any major contradiction there?

Steven Waldman: He does not, because of the word 'innocent'. He'd say that abortion is an assault on innocent life and the death penalty is not an assault on innocent life. Obviously not everyone agrees with him on that, including the Catholic Church, which views those positions as inconsistent. But no, he doesn't seem bothered by that.

David Rutledge: What pressure is coming from the Catholic Church on this issue? For example the Catholic Bishops seem to be reluctant to take this issue up in any big way. Is there any sort of groundswell of action developing on the church front?

Steven Waldman: Yes I think the religious groups are a lot like every other political player in the beginning of a new administration. They're sort of waiting to see what happens a little bit, they're waiting to see what this new President is going to do, what kind of authority he has, who his allies are going to be, so everyone is taking a pretty cautious approach now. But by 'everyone' I mean in the establishment religion area. Certainly the Catholic Church has been anti-death penalty and certainly the church has been anti-abortion. I don't see them so far kind of rubbing Bush's nose in what they would view as a contradiction on his part.

Stephen Crittenden: Steven Waldman of Belief.net



This last Australia Day weekend was a significant one for Australian Muslims.

One of Australia's most senior Islamic clerics, Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam of Thomastown in Victoria, was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to multiculturalism, the Muslim community and multi-faith understanding.

Sheikh Fehmi arrived in Australia way back in 1951, and it's probably fair to say he's one of the few Muslim clerics in Australia who has shown any sustained interest in inter-religious dialogue.

I asked him to reflect on the particular problems he has sought to address in these last 50 years.

Fehmi Naji: Well, Number 1, I was like a father to the whole community here, and trying to help the community in every field, being immigration, education, sponsorship, personal family matters, marriage, divorce, funerals, name it, I'm there with them all the time. We have established a lot of work here. In 1957 we built the first mosque and Islamic centre in Melbourne in the area of Preston. Nowadays in and around Melbourne you find around 35 Islamic centres have taken place, and nearly seven high schools as well.

Stephen Crittenden: Muslim migrants to Australia obviously come from a very wide range of ethnic backgrounds, although we tend to forget that. You know, we have Malaysians and Indonesians on one hand, Turks, Lebanese on the other; is one of the problems when they arrive in a country like Australia, that those different communities are very isolated from each other, and that Malaysian or Indonesian Muslims don't have very much to do, say, with Lebanese Muslims? I mean for example, there's a perception, and I don't know whether you think it's a fair perception, that Muslim migrants in Australia have been very slow to take up the cause of those refugees who are locked up in the Woomera Detention Centre for example. Is that fair, or unfair?

Fehmi Naji: It is unfair, because we have done a lot of work for them. When these refugees come from the Detention Centre in Woomera to Melbourne, we work day and night with the Councils, we work with the Immigration Department, we work with the churches altogether, and we help those refugees in a very wide way. So a lot of work has been done, and if somebody did nothing, I don't know.

Stephen Crittenden: I wonder whether you think over time, say in the last ten years or so, do you actually detect a change in attitude amongst ordinary Australians towards, say, the Palestinians, that perhaps compared with 10 or 15 years ago, there's now much more sympathy with the plight of Palestinians in the conflict in Israel.

Fehmi Naji: 100-percent, that's quite true, quite true indeed, and people start to realise that the plight and the Palestinians are the underdog and Palestinians are not having a fair go, and all this sort of thing; they can see it now, on TV and the news and the media, most of the time, are reporting things which they never reported before.

Stephen Crittenden: On the other hand, is there a perception do you think, a correct perception perhaps, that Islam is a violent religion, is that one of the big problems that you have to constantly tackle in the Australian media?

Fehmi Naji: Yes. I remember the old time, in the '50s and '60s, because I've been here since 1951, and at that time the media was very harsh indeed, to talk about things which are not 100% right.

Stephen Crittenden: But nonetheless, I mean is there an element of truth in that idea? You know, you only have to look to what's going on in a place like Ambon in Indonesia.

Fehmi Naji: It is very unfortunate, but sometimes you don't get the exact truth, between you and me.

Stephen Crittenden: It must be very difficult for you.

Fehmi Naji: You see, I mean who is who, who is starting first, who is doing harm to the other first, who started it all, all this sort of thing we don't know. We cannot defend Muslims' acts all the time, because Islam is one thing and Muslim is another thing, and sometimes Muslims can be good people, bad people, middle between the good and bad and so on, the same as anybody else.

Stephen Crittenden: So it's not all black and white.

Fehmi Naji: Not all black and white, definitely.

Stephen Crittenden: As a serious religious man, have you found it difficult at times to deal with the kind of liberal, secular values of the wider Australian community that you're living in?

Fehmi Naji: Yes. This I admit, that we do not agree with the extreme freedom which is taking place around us.

Stephen Crittenden: But it must make it very difficult when on the other hand, you also want to encourage Muslim migrants to intermingle with Australians.

Fehmi Naji: Yes. We say there's no harm in intermingling with Australians at all, we love to do that, but we don't want to grow into the way that we lose our principles and our basis of religion, no, we still want to keep that, come what may, under all circumstances. For instance, I have a mate who works in a factory or in an office or anywhere else, and he has a habit every night on his way home to pass the hotel and drink beer, but I don't have to do that.

Stephen Crittenden: Can I just ask you finally whether you think there are any positive ways in which Australian Muslims are being changed by living in Australia?

Fehmi Naji: When I say the word 'change', changed to a degree. For instance, to celebrate Australia Day, there are many Muslims who share with that celebration.

Stephen Crittenden: Surely, but I mean for example, when Irish Catholics came to Australia in the 19th century, now 100 years later, they're very Australian Catholics. Do you think there is going to be a way in which we see the development of an Australian kind of brand of Islam?

Fehmi Naji: Well, exactly. I'll give you one example: to me, with my family, I have my children, all of them in Australia, and all reared here and gone to school here, gone to universities here, and they are working with Australians here, and they are 100% Australian, good Muslim Australians.

Stephen Crittenden: But an Australian Catholic may think very differently and worship very differently from an Irish Catholic. Now do you think that the same may happen with Muslims in Australia?

Fehmi Naji: Well you just said before that the Catholics came here 100 years ago; we have been here less than 50 years, the majority, maybe some of them have 10 or 20 or 30, so when they reach the 100, maybe they will be different, for sure.

Stephen Crittenden: We'll have to wait and see.

Fehmi Naji: If we're still around.

Stephen Crittenden: And congratulations to Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam.

People in Sydney walking past the State Parliament buildings on Macquarie Street in recent weeks might have noticed a tall Muslim cleric who has taken up residence in a tent on the footpath outside. He is Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi, a liberal cleric who fled Iran four years ago after being very critical of the Iranian regime. Ayatollah Boroujerdi's wife and two daughters are now under house arrest in Iran, and he's hoping the Howard government will put pressure on the regime there to let his family join him here in Australia.

David Rutledge spoke to him this week.

David Rutledge: Ayatollah, can you tell me how long have you been resident in Australia?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: I have been in Australia more than four years.

David Rutledge: And why did you leave Iran?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: Because my life was in danger, and if I would leave Iran maybe few weeks late, maybe I couldn't leave Iran.

David Rutledge: What was your position in the government?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: In Iran, mostly I have been involved with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

David Rutledge: Your family is back in Iran and they're not allowed to join you, is this correct?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: Yes, more than four years I have not seen my family, and the Iranian regime doesn't let them come out. In fact I can say they are hostage; as a hostage the Iranian regime wants to make me silent, because I have some secret information about government, and about their terrorist operations in the war. I sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and somebody on behalf of Mr Kofi Anan sent the answer, and they want to do something. I have hope and always I pray and ask God to solve my problem.

David Rutledge: What would happen to you if you went back to Iran?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: I would be executed.

David Rutledge: So now you're here, outside the State Houses of Parliament on Macquarie Street; how long have you been here for?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: This the 19th day I am in this protest, and chaining myself, my hand and my leg, to this Parliament. I want first of all to show to people of Australia that the Iranian regime is against human rights, and I am gathering some signatures in this petition. I have more than 1,000 signatures, Australian people are really nice and kind people, and I want to send this petition to Mr John Howard to ask the Prime Minister to ask the Iranian regime to free my family, because the Iranian regime has a good economic relation with Australia, so I think if the Prime Minister asks the Iranian regime to free my family, they will do.

David Rutledge: In Australia, the Iranian government is usually referred to as an 'Islamic' government; do you think this is a true representation of the Iranian government, are they truly Islamic?

Manteghi Boroujerdi: If we explain about the meaning of the word 'Islamic' as a religious society, if we say Islamic society is a religious society, and a society which has a relation with God, and wants to be honest, we can say Australia, Canada, England, USA, so many western countries, they are religious societies. They don't say 'We are religious', but in fact the spirit of religion, we can see the spirit of religion in these societies. And some other countries in the Middle East, in Asia, they say 'We are Islamic' they have a name of Islamic, but in fact they are not religious societies and religious governments.

Whenever I walk in the street, whenever I go out in Australia, I feel I am in a real religious society. I don't want to say it is perfect, we don't have a perfect society on the earth, but when we compare, if we compare Australia with Iran and other countries in the Middle East, we can say it is heaven.

Stephen Crittenden: And we are in paradise.

That's all this week. Thanks to John Diamond and our new producer, David Rutledge.