WHILST applauding “long overdue” Australian government reform initiatives for mental health, the Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc has expressed some some reservations regarding the appointment of Monsignor David Cappo to oversee these reforms as head of the national Mental Health Commission.
Monsignor David Cappo
The Foundation points out that Cappo – appointed Vicar-General in 2000 and who is also the administrator of St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral – is:
A representative of the Catholic Church, a Church which still condones a belief in demonic possession of individuals and the practice of exorcism reminiscent of medieval times. This is hardly congruent with the ideological and dogma-free approach required to address mental health issues today across all segments of a multi-faith and no-faith society.
The Foundation adds:
We would like Monsignor Cappo to articulate his beliefs in relation to his Church’s long held, and in some areas continuing beliefs, that mental illness relates to the divine and the demonic. Current Vatican Policy claims exorcists regularly consult with psychologists and psychiatrists to differentiate legitimate mental disorders from bona fide demonic possession. This does not inspire confidence.
And it concludes:
As he is representing all sectors and not just the members of his faith in his new role as chairman of the National Mental Health Commission, we feel all Australians are entitled to hear Monsignor Cappo’s public views on these matters, and whether he is capable of separating church and state in his understandings, interpretations and advice relating to mental health treatment and prevention for all Australians.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
September 8th, 2011 at 9:56 am
This is like putting a paedophile in charge of a boys choir.
Oh, hang on a minute…
September 8th, 2011 at 10:53 am
Disturbing news,especially as the Vatican is now on a bit of a marketing mission to sell the services of their ‘exorcists’ as complementary therapists for local and national government public health services.
But I think there’s another side to that Vatican policy on consultation with psychiatrists and psychologists that’s more revealing.
A few years ago, a Franciscan monk told me that, as part of the ‘testing vocation’ process for new monks, they now have a compulsory psychiatric evaluation. This was because since mid-20th century an increasingly large percentage of applicants for ‘monkdom’ turn out to have mental disorders. In my Franciscan friend’s case, for example, they’d just had a case where a trainee monk ran amok with a hatchet in the monastery chicken coop!
One of the reasons Catholicism finds it impossible to get new monks and priests is that once the trick cyclists have rejected those with identifiable psychotic or serious neurotic problems there really aren’t many applicants left.
September 8th, 2011 at 11:12 am
And it will scupper their chances of getting a job elsewhere – it’s hardly likely to be kept secret, as they haven’t been enrolled in the priesthood.
September 8th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
I take the view that this person is more in need of medical help due to his ongoing mental illness (he believes a book of fairy tales and horror stories is actually true) than the right person to become head of a mental health body.
September 8th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
What is going in Australia? I thought that it was a straight talking, straight thinking country with an atheist at the head. But with their government ignoring the constitution and shoving chaplains in every educational orifice spreading goodness knows what fantasies and threats of hell and damnation to those who don’t comply. To say nothing of the huge amounts of money that the (monopoly) agency makes when assigning these deluded people to schools. Now they have appointed a religeot of one of the most extreme kinds to run a government department connected with mental health. (Gasp). Who’s running which asylum? Is Australia now being run directly from the Vatican?
September 8th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
The only thing as bad as putting lunatics in charge of the asylum is putting religiots in charge.
September 8th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Here’s some news to warm the heart of your cockles!
http://www.christian.org.uk/ne.....rehearing/
Nothing fails like prayer!!
September 8th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
And things aren’t all going to plan in Australia either:
http://www.canberratimes.com.a.....85003.aspx
September 8th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
barriejohn:
Almost as good is that if you go to the CI’s homepage, it’s one of their top stories. Quite encouraging that such a small story gets such prominence. Seems it’s quite hard to find excuses to seem persecuted, these days…
September 9th, 2011 at 10:14 am
Daz: In one of the newspaper reports the owners say how very grateful they are to the CI for all the extra business that the free publicity has brought them once again – doh!
September 9th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
There are some sort-of-new-school priests out there who are capable of separating fact from fantasy when it comes to medical services (or astronomy, which is pretty in vogue in the Vatican for some reason), and it seems reasonable that the Atheist Foundation want to give the monsignor a chance to at last lay out his views and explain himself rather than say a priest just cannot be head of anything medical. Still, I am baffled as to why he seems to have been the only or best candidate – why would you turn to a priest to be the head of any kind of medical service? Isn’t that what doctors are for?
Looking at the Christian Institute links, I found one story on the front page that’s really quite baffling – apparently a library is asking people (optionally) for info on their sexual orientation and if they are transgender. A bit of an odd question for a library to ask, certainly, but what does that have to do with Christianity? The only link I can possibly imagine would be if Christians were small-minded bigots, so weirded out by the concept of people being gay or transgender, they get angry at the thought of it even being brought up, but surely the Christian Institute doesn’t think of Christians in that way… right?
September 10th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
As woggler puts it – a case of lunatics in charge of the asylum. If delusion is a case for mental health then there can be no greater need of help than for those with the delusion of religious belief….and so will Cappo be able to treat himself? And who is the delusioned person actually responsible for such an irresponsible appointment?
September 16th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
26 suicides in Australia can be tracked back to Catholic pedophile priest child rape, but Australian Catholics don’t care.
Convicted Catholic pedophile priests Robert Best and Gerald Ridsdale raped dozens of children at St Alipius primary school, and at least 26 have committed suicide. Any normal human being would want to find the other victims and prevent further suicides, but Bishop Peter Connors says “there’s no need for an investigation. We’ve learned what we needed to learn about what is appropriate behavior and what isn’t appropriate behavior.â€
See
http://news.smh.com.au/breakin.....1i9ja.html
The Catholic church should be fully investigated for crimes against children and covering it up, and you can;t trust Catholics to do it.