Occasional Address at Graduation Ceremony International College of Management, Sydney, St Patrick’s Estate, Manly

Occasional Address at Graduation Ceremony
International College of Management, Sydney, St Patrick’s Estate, Manly, 5 November 2015

My thanks to Mr Darryl Courtney-O’Connor AM, Founder and Chair of the International College of Management, Sydney, and his wife Anne, for inviting me to give the Graduation Address today. I also acknowledge President and CEO Kevin Tickle, board members, academic staff, esteemed guests, family and friends of our students. Above all, I welcome our international and local graduands in undergraduate and masters degrees and diplomas from the ICMS and Aspire Institute: it is a day for you to celebrate your achievement, treasure the experiences you have had here, and ponder what it will mean for the years ahead of you.

It might seem a little strange for the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney to be giving an address at the ICMS given that it is not a Catholic organisation. So let me explain. First, the ICMS is in the buildings that were from 1889 till 1995 the seminary of the Catholic Church in Sydney. Thousands of young men in black cassocks were your predecessors as students here. 1,714 of them were ordained Catholic priests and went on to serve the Australian community. Not just in this chapel but everywhere you look around these buildings and grounds we see enduring signs of that past. As Archbishop of Sydney I am still the landlord and in fact I’m occasionally to be found wandering the grounds, playing on the tennis court or visiting this chapel. I am pleased to say that the buildings and grounds are being well cared for and indeed improved under the administration of the ICMS, and that the teachers and students here are putting them to very good use.

I also have an enduring interest in tertiary education, having been many years a student at university myself and having been a university lecturer for many years thereafter. My particular area of interest is ethics and so I’m hoping that the graduates of this college are not only experts in hospitality services and business management but also in business ethics. One way or another in the years ahead you are all going to face ethical conundrums: do I do this thing the boss is asking but which I think is morally or legally problematical? Do I co-operate in some activity which I wouldn’t choose myself but in which I am part of the team? Does profit always come first? Or my career and income? Or getting along with others? Or are there some lines I won’t cross? These are not just questions for archbishops and seminarians: they are questions for everyone with a human heart and mind, with a conscience; questions for anyone who ever stops and looks at themselves and says: what am I doing? What kind of a person am I becoming in the process? Your student days are the time to start asking yourself these things, before you get too mired in any particular project or workplace; time for reflection not just on the immediate subject before you but the bigger questions about what is true and good and beautiful, about God, the universe and myself.

So I’m here as landlord and as an academic: but I am also an administrator. Sitting beside me today is one of the Deans who is also an expert in international event bids and organisation. I happen to have been coordinator of the biggest event ever held in Australia: the World Youth Day in 2008. So I certainly have some understanding and sympathy for the future event orghainzers here! I am also one of the biggest employers in Sydney: there are almost 12,500 people on the payroll of the Archdiocese employed in our schools, welfare agencies, chancery and parishes, plus thousands of priests and other volunteers, and thousands more employed by religious orders or associations. We have projects such as parishes with many different sorts of outreach, hospitals, aged acre facilities, preschools, primary schools, secondary schools, Catholic tertiary institutions, chaplaincies to a range of ethnic groups and institutions, counselling services, advocacy groups and service groups of many different kinds such as the Vinnies shops and St Vincent de Paul vans which feed so many street people… there are so many things that the contemporary Church does and I have to be a leader and manager of those things. So I have great interest in and fellow feeling for our graduates who will go on to be future leaders and managers, in some cases of quite large organisations. You will in due course, like me, have to ask important questions such as: What are the goals of this business? What does it contribute to the good of my community as well as of the owners? Is this the best way to deploy our energies and people? How can we do what we do better? What new, imaginative, contributions might we still make? What does it mean for me to be a leader or manager in this operation? And so on…

Of course, I’m essentially a God-person rather than a business-person: I’m flummoxed by balance sheets, statements of account, industrial relations and all the rest, and rely hugely on excellent lay staff to advise me in these matters and to administer the details on my behalf. But as landlord, academic, administrator and pastor I am deeply interested in what people like you do and will do in the future and so delighted to join your celebration today.

Last weekend the Rugby World Cup concluded. Some of you may be from nations sadly deprived of Rugby; even more sadly, some of you may support teams others than the Wallabies. But that’s OK: after all, we Aussies were sad too… as we didn’t get to hoist the Webb Ellis Cup in the end. Apart from the final, there were plenty of exciting moments for the Wallabies, such as our defeat of traditional rivals England in the group matches stage: I received a congratulatory text-message from a French bishop who clearly thought my enemy’s enemy is my friend! Then there was the controversial penalty goal in the dying stages of the game against Scotland: I received another message, this time from a Scotsman, telling me all Aussies should hang their heads in shame… Sport, like the rest of life, has its ups and downs, its luck and loss, its exhilarating dramas and downright despair. Of course, success requires natural talent, acquired skill, long experience, careful planning, self-discipline, perseverance, hard work. And for all the prima donnas and promo dons, the fact is it requires teamwork, the support of colleagues and collaborators, family and friends. All of which applies not only to sport but to the rest of life. For most of you, the greatest natural support in life will come from your spouse and children and extended family; but work colleagues and friends will also be very important. Hopefully at this College you’ve already begun to develop networks of life-long collaborators. But in the end, no matter how much support you have, it is up to you to make the most of your life. Graduating today is testament to your willingness to make a go of your life.

Some would say that even with all the internal commitment and external support in the world, success in life depends on having more than a little bit of ‘Lady Luck’. I’m inclined to say there’s no such thing. Let me explain. Of course, there are factors beyond our control in life and they sometimes seem to fall on us undeservedly, randomly. But my thought for you today is that there’s something much better than the capricious Lady Luck. There is an Almighty, Provident God who created the universe and holds us continually in existence and wants the best for us: wants us to flourish in this life, contribute to our world, live and love in ways that bring us deep joy amidst the challenges, and ultimately join him for an eternity of happiness. Give me that over ‘Lady Luck’ any day.

So graduation is a time to celebrate your own hard work and achievements; a time to be grateful to those who helped to get you there; but also a time to consider how all that might best be applied in the future. In that respect you are not so different to the seminarians of old who ‘graduated’ by being ordained in my cathedral or in this very chapel. To ask where God fits into my plans or, better, where I fit into God’s plans, is not pie-in-the-sky stuff, not about sitting back and waiting for God to do everything for us. God gave us a mind, heart, imagination, a body and a stretch of life, the freedom to choose and the talents to do good things with that freedom. But we do that all the while relying on Him. The God I believe in loved the world, loved humanity, loved you so much He gave His only Son, who became one of us, who studied and worked, lived and loved, as we do. By His Incarnation we are shown that we don’t have to choose between God and humanity, faith or reason, ideals or practicalities, science or religion, profit or people: the God-man shows we don’t have to be either-or people in these matters but can be both-and people if we cultivate virtuous hearts, apply sound principles and, above all, lean on each other and on Him.

I realize we all come from very different spiritual backgrounds and some are believers, some non-believers, and many still searching. What we can all agree on, especially as we delight in the education we have received, in these truly beautiful architectural surroundings, in the even more breathtaking natural surroundings of North Head and the Northern beaches of Sydney, is that we care deeply about the world and its people. We all know we can do our bit to make that world more just, more compassionate, more peaceful place. We can, in our own quiet and simple ways, be beacons of hope, idealism and care in our world. Being successful in life is not just about accumulating gadgets and experiences, having lots of sex or power or wealth, being esteemed by the media or your Facebook friends. It’s about a deeper happiness that comes from commitment and self-sacrifice for a project, a cause, a person. The greatest thing you can achieve in life is making yourself, with God’s help, a really good person – what us Catholics call ‘a saint’. And so as you emerge from this ancient seminary chapel, I charge you with a mission, just as archbishops of old charged the new-made priests: take your newly minted degrees and diplomas from this fine establishment to the worlds of business, management, hospitality, tourism or further study, determined to have an eye to the bigger picture and to make a real contribution. Congratulations on your achievement. God bless you and your futures!