St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 30 August 2026
In 1973, the American writer Ursula Le Guin published a short work of philosophical fiction, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Set in an imaginary city where all enjoy peace and prosperity, the story opens with a summer festival including a horse-race for the young. Though limited in technology and resources, the citizens of this utopia are intelligent, cultured and free of overlords and slaves, enemies, soldiers… and priests.
But it’s too good to be true. It turns out that the bliss of Omelas comes at a price. The serenity and splendour require that a single unfortunate child be locked up in perpetual darkness, malnourished and miserable. When the citizens discover this, most react with disgust at first, but then acquiesce in this one injustice that secures the happiness of all. The few who are unwilling to accept the macabre terms become “the ones who walk away from Omelas”.
Our story is a critique of certain kinds of moral reasoning—specifically, the unsophisticated pragmatism that says ‘you can do a bit of evil to achieve some good’; and the more erudite calculus of the utilitarians that justifies even great evils, as long as enough people end up happy as a result. Le Guin was inspired to write it after reading an essay by the philosopher William James who posed a similar moral dilemma.[1] But there is another striking parallel to Ivan in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, who asks Alyosha whether one could build a world of happiness knowing its foundation relied upon the torture of an innocent child.[2]
Christians, Dostoevsky would have insisted, could never accept such a bargain. That good must be pursued and evil avoided is obvious to them as a matter of moral logic and reinforced for them by divine law.[3] Transformed by Christ, ours is not some self-interested, ideological or bureaucratic strategy to justify immoral behaviour in pursuit of some supposed ‘greater good’ or fairy tale nirvana.[4] No, ‘the good life’ for human beings, Paul says, is to know and do “what is good, what God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.” (Rom 12:1-2) It would be slanderous to say any Christian thinks the end justifies the means (Rom 3:8).
Clear enough—but not always easy. Working out what is the right thing to do can be complex. Doing it can be even harder. And even if we do good, not everything will work out neatly. There will still be suffering in this world: incurable diseases, irreparable injustices, frustrated ambitions, irreversible losses, natural disasters such as occurred this week in the Nepalese floods and landslides. There are wounds in relationships no wishing can undo. There is grief at loss of health or hope, of people and dreams. All these little deaths precede our more final one. Even as we seek to do all we reasonably can to make people comfortable and happy, and alleviate pain and discomfort, we acknowledge that suffering is part of life.
But this week past, after years of trying, utilitarian advocates of euthanasia succeeded in legalising that practice in the Northern Territory, the last place remaining in Australia. For years now these enthusiasts for ‘mercy killing’ have been selling us various safeguards and then systematically dismantling them. Euthanasia is being extended from the terminally ill to those who are not so sick, perhaps not sick at all; from consenting adults to children, the demented and the unconscious. Now they want euthanasia prescribed over the phone by a doctor we’ve never met. And these campaigners have recently taken to seriously misrepresenting the Church’s views, insinuating that Christians want people to suffer, and are happy to impose this not just on themselves but on others. That is plain false. Since the beginning Christians have been animated by compassion and active in caring for those who suffer. The Catholic Church is in fact the oldest and largest provider of health and aged care, palliative care and welfare services in the world. To say that Christians want more human misery, because it’s virtuous or spiritual, is to radically misunderstand them. We want no one, in fact, to suffer needlessly.
What, then, do we believe about suffering? A first point to make is that tribulations are unavoidable for any living, feeling being. Rather than minimise or disguise it, the Bible recognises the illnesses, griefs, persecutions, injustices, and deaths that people endure.
But to say that Christians are realists about suffering is not to say they simply acquiesce in it, adopting a ‘stiff upper lip’, a ‘just suck it up’ philosophy. Just as Jesus spent much of His mission healing and consoling, so the Church must do the same, seeking every reasonable means to reduce suffering and enable happiness.
And if Christians do not minimise or acquiesce in suffering, we also refuse to romanticise it. Sin, disease and death are our last enemies—enemies to be conquered by God’s grace (1Cor 15:26) but never our friends. When facing suffering Himself, Jesus was troubled, groaned, sweated, wept, cried out.[5] Far from romanticising suffering, He prayed that the cup of wrath be taken from Him even if He was able also to say, “God’s will be done.”[6]
So what sense are we to make of today’s Gospel (Mt 16:21-27)? Jesus tells the guys that He is destined to go up to Jerusalem and there suffer grievously and be executed. Peter exclaims ‘Heaven forefend’ and remonstrates with Him to avoid this at all costs. Jesus responds, ‘You’re behaving as a Satan, a stumbling block, an obstacle to my mission Peter!’ Peter’s folly is not that to oppose suffering or to protect Jesus: those are perfectly reasonable things to do. No, his mistake is to think avoiding suffering is the highest goal, the thing that trumps everything else, even the work of salvation. Jesus’ harsh reply is intended to shock him and us. There are worse things than the cross, He says. It’s not that He wants us to be miserable; Jesus is no sadist. But He wants us to know that some things are worth enduring a lot for. Things like truth, fidelity, family, friendship, like the sanctity of life, or love of God and country. Reverence for these things can cost us dearly. But sometimes it is worth it. To save your life, you must be willing to lay it down, Jesus says.
He’s right, of course. Anyone who has ever tried to live with moral integrity or to love with all their heart, knows it costs in comfort and convenience. Truth and love require generosity and fortitude. Christian courage doesn’t immunise us from challenges or desensitise us to anxiety. But it does ensure that we are not ruled by fear or prevented from doing what’s right, when it is hard or unfashionable. With courage we can put on the mind of Christ, as Paul exhorts us, we can conform ourselves to the will of God rather than simply acquiescing to the logic of this world (Rom 12:1–2).
The ones who walk away from Omelas in Le Guin’s story know deliberately hurting or killing the innocent, or doing some other evil, cannot be excused by the gains for self or others. They will not call evil good or to do evil to achieve it. Our faith agrees. But Christianity goes further. It tells us that suffering need not be meaningless. By God’s grace human beings can transcend great difficulties and demonstrate virtue and principle along the way. They can unite themselves to Christ’s passion as He did to ours. For at the heart of their faith is the God who, rather than observing our challenges from a safe distance, entered into the depths of human suffering Himself in Jesus. And He doesn’t ask us to bear our crosses alone, but to walk with Him, be sustained by Him, and so be led through cross and tomb to everlasting life.
[1] William James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” International Journal of Ethics 1, no. 3 (April 1891): 330–54.
[2] Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. See Chap 4, “Rebellion.”
[3] Ps 34:14; 37:27; Prov 11:27; 14:22; Sir 33:14; Tobit 12:7; Isa 5:20; 7:15-16; Amos 5:14-15; Mic 3:2; Mt 12:35; Jn 5:29; Rom 12:9; 12:21; 16:19; 1Thes 5:15; 1Pet 3:11,17; 3Jn 1:11.
[4] Mk 7:20-23; Rom 1:28-32; 2:8; 6:13; 12:2; 1Cor 3:9-15; 5:1-12; 2Cor 1:12-14; 5:17; 12:20-21 etc.
[5] Jesus was troubled: Jn 12:27; 13:21. Jesus groaned: Jn 11:38,43. Jesus sweated: Lk 22:44. Jesus wept: Jn 11:35; Lk 19:41; Heb 5:7-9. Jesus cried out: Mk 15:34; Jn 7:28,37; 11:43.
[6] Mt 26:39; Mk 14:36; Lk 22:42; cf. Mt 20:22-23; Mk 10:38-39; Jn 18:11.
Introduction to Evening Mass of the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, 30 August 2026
Welcome to our Evening Mass here at St Mary’s Cathedral. I especially acknowledge our seminarians who are with us tonight as I begin my visitation of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd for 2026.
I acknowledge concelebrating with me Bishop Geoff Jarrett. I salute the seminary Rector, Fr Michael de Stoop, Vice Rector Fr Greg Bellamy, First Year Director Fr Dominic Nguyen, Spiritual Director Fr Daniele, and other members of the faculty present in the cathedral.
To visitors and more regulars, a very warm welcome to you all.
