Edition 2, page 11

UPLIFTING PERSONALITY

Father Michael Tate – An Unauthorised Biography

Father Michael Tate is an old Virgilian who studied Law at UTas, and Arts at Oxford, before returning to Tasmania and specializing in constitutional law and becoming Dean of the Faculty of Law before entering politics.
In hindsight, Father Michael has referred to the key activity of politics as being the redistribution of wealth, and entered politics with Martin Luther King, being a firm believer in non-violent social change as the most enduring form of change.
Michael Tate used to be a senator for Tasmania, in federal politics for from 1978 to 1993, and served as Justice Minister in the Hawke government. While in politics, his focus was social justice, especially the injustice of exorbitant military spending compared to funding the relief of suffering. Amongst other things, he wrote the Australian Citizenship Pledge, which allows for the religious and the non-religious. Michael ended his political career over the first Gulf War, having to rationalize it, but knowing that his actions had betrayed his anti-war principles. He left politics for the ambassadorships to the Netherlands and the Vatican.
He still remains active in the field of politics, thanks to the Gold Pass afforded him as an ex-senator, advising Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby on human rights issues, e.g. the possibility of a national Human Rights Charter or Bill of Rights. Father Michael’s position is to have senators, rather than unelected judges decide on fundamental human rights issues.
The W.H Auden poem which inspired Michael Tate’s priesthood reads as follows:
When you appear before the judgement seat of God -
God will recite by heart the poems you could have written
And you will cry tears of shame...


Father Michael believes the Gospel has transformed Australia into the peaceful multi-cultural wonderland it is today, and the solution to conflict is the old adage “Think Globally, Act Locally”. His vision of Heaven is “…a situation where the soul is permeated with unconditional love”

Father Michael is not the crusty old dinosaur he perhaps could be – his stance on Genesis is one of “inspired literature, rather than insipid literalism”.

Father Michael’s youthful vigour even helped start up a dot.com: liturgyhelp.com, which Michael described with his typical humour as the “yahoo of the catholic publishing world”. He is “repulsed by … the emphasis on megastars and extravaganza”, and is challenged by physical ailments that often come with great age.

Father Michael did his 4-year apprenticeship in Claremont and Bridgewater, and now looks after 4 churches in Sandy Bay and Taroona, while assisted pastorally by Sister Kathleen Kennedy, and administratively by Claire Manthorpe.

Father Michael can be contacted on 0418 397 602, or mtate@bigpond.com, or at his UTas Chaplaincy on 6226 2385, or m.tate@utas.edu.au.

Father Michael Tate is currently on sabbatical leave and expected back in Hobart soon.