Trouble in Melbourne Catholic Education. 

Fr. Eric Hodgens

 Abstract.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart seems nervous about the reaction to his appointment of Stephen Elder as Director of Catholic Education last December.

Last Tuesday (27 February 2007) he emailed his address to the Senate of Priests to all the parishes. This unprecedented action suggests that its contents were pressing. It contained an extended defence of his appointment of Stephen Elder without any advertisement or search process.

His defence is that, because he is the archbishop, he has no need to justify any action he takes. This mentality - widespread among bishops – is seen as unethical by the world of business and administration.

It is also counterproductive. Mr Elder is a man of inadequate qualifications, experience and contacts for one of the biggest educational administration jobs in the country.

 

AustraliaThe Melbourne Director of Catholic Education holds one of the most prestigious jobs in the country.

Victoria’s Catholic Education system is the fourth biggest in Australia (exceeded only by the state systems of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland). This is why the appointment of Stephen Elder as Melbourne Director of Catholic Education by Archbishop Hart last December was so shocking and leaves him severely compromised.

The previous Director, Susan Pascoe, resigned September last after months of being sidelined by the diocesan authorities. She was ideally qualified for the job. First an experienced teacher, she then spent years in educational administration dealing with grass roots administration and curriculum matters. Her subsequent long experience dealing with governments and other educational administrations both state and private made her a well known and well connected figure in Australian education. In this role she kept up the standard of her predecessors Monsignor Tom Doyle and Father Frank Martin.

Stephen Elder’s background by contrast began with a short period in the classroom after finishing teacher training at Victoria University. Then followed some years as a Victorian Liberal MP including a period as Parliamentary Secretary for Education in the Kennett government. Losing his seat in the Bracks landslide, he was given a Canberra job by the Liberal Party in the office of David Kemp. In 2001 he got a middle management job in the planning section of the Catholic Education Office of Melbourne (CEO).

The reason a person of such limited qualifications and experience could get the top job is that Archbishop Hart made the appointment unilaterally without any advertising, search or selection process.

At the August meeting of the Melbourne Senate of Priests Archbishop Hart announced that Stephen Elder had been appointed Acting Director replacing Susan Pascoe while they advertised the Director’s position.

Mr Elder’s first exposure came at an October meeting between the CEO and Melbourne Parish Priests - significant because they are the managers of parish schools. Mr Elder’s presentation was underwhelming. He was asked whether his leapfrogging of more senior and qualified CEO staff meant that the search for a new director might be compromised. He replied that he would not accept the position unless he won it in a proper selection process.

Both of these assurances were annulled by a fax which arrived at parishes and schools on 20^th December after most of the school staff had left for the summer holidays. The fax did not even come out from the Archbishop’s office, but from the CEO and attributed to Stephen Elder.

Catholic bishops are renowned for lack of accountability to their clergy and church members. Church law, based on a monarchical model, protects their autocracy. This gives many of them an unwarranted self-assurance often leading to inadequate consultation and unwise decisions. This is the main explanation of the incompetence bishops showed in handling the paedophilia scandal in the USA and Ireland and now the collaboration scandal in Poland. Ironically this behaviour, which is second nature to them, is considered unethical in today’s world of business and administration. They need to learn morality from the secular world. 

Mr Elder owes much of his inside track promotion to the favour of Ted Exell, the Diocesan Finance Manager, and a key person in the archbishop’s kitchen cabinet. Former Directors have kept their relationship with the Diocesan Finance Office on a very formal level to maintain transparency in their handling of government funding. This has protected them when pressured to contribute from government educational monies to non-educational projects. Two such areas are land acquisition and Papal Youth Day costs. Being in the Diocesan Finance Manager’s pocket makes it harder to resist such pressures.

That will be only one of Mr. Elder’s problems. Fundamentally he lacks legitimacy in his appointment as Director. He has minimal qualifications and experience. There was no process to select the best possible candidate. He and the archbishop broke faith with the clergy by breaking their assurances that a transparent selection process would be followed. As a result, a man with inadequate qualifications and experience now faces a most demanding job leading Australia’s biggest Catholic education department with a demoralized administration, a wary team of Catholic principals and teachers and a very disillusioned clergy and laity.

Eric Hodgens is a Melbourne Parish Priest and a former staffer of the Melbourne Catholic Education Office.

 

Comments

[Mike Day]

What a great article. It is not only in Melbourne that there is trouble with appointment's made by Bishops. It appears the first priority is Catholic, second, does the Bishop like you, and third, can you do the job.