Acting PM and devout Catholic, Barnaby Joyce has made the off the cuff sweeping statement that "The Catholic Church had been good for Australia."
As one who was baptised a Catholic, more than sixty years ago, and subjected to the sisterhood, brotherhood and priesthood in the earlier part of my life through school and church, even to the point of being an active member at one time, I believe I am well enough informed to comment on the Church. Given my personal experience with the Church, and the fact that Barnaby did not expand on his broad brush statement, I cannot agree with the politician and devout Catholic.
I will agree some sections of the Church have done good works, and been a positive for society, so too have the Hell's Angels, see; 'Bikies ride for charity". Given their dark side, I am not suggesting that bikie gangs are good for Australia, because they have done some good works, they are not, no more than I would suggest the Catholic Church has been an overall positive good for Australia. Others may not agree, and see it differently.

Paul,
My first day at school in May 1946 at 6 years was in a little country Catholic school. I volunteered to help cut some wood with two other boys it was my turn on the cross cut saw and I managed to cut my hand for that I got the cane by the Nun. I was protestant so did not attend Mass each month when the Priest attended. I do no have happy memories of my experience with that Church. However my experience is not the total of the contribution of the Church. Because the Priests and Nuns did not have family of their own children were treated needing discipline. However Many Catholic families I have met are fine members of community.

I can only assume that Barnaby Joyce was talking about charity work - and that he’s Catholic.

The fact that the Catholic Church can do good is a testament to the fact that there are good people in the world, but the organisation itself is corrupt and poison to its core.

I can't speak on behalf of Mr Joyce and his beliefs.
However, I too was raised as a Catholic.
And having read Dr. Paul Collins book, "Believers:
Does Australian Catholicism have a future?" I'd like
to quote what Dr Collins has to say on the subject:

"Catholicism has
remarkable staying power, an ability to survive unmatched
by any contemporary institution. If you've been around for
over 2000 years you will have learned a few tricks."

"There is of course a theological explanation for this: that
Christ predicted that through his Holy Spirit he would be
with the church "always to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).
This doesn't mean that the church will be perfect or that
parts of it won't wither and die, or that it won't make
mistakes."

"Essentially it means that the Holy Spirit would sustain the
church through all the vicissitudes of history in the sense
that ultimately the church would not betray Christ or lose
the sense of his message completely. It is a case of the
Spirit of God assisting the church to make sense eventually
out of its own human confusion."

"Australian Catholics need to keep these theological
principles in mind because there is a danger that the magnitude
of the task facing the church might engender a sense of
pessimism and hopelessness. Catholicism has survived precisely
because ultimately it is adaptable and able to change."

"The other thing in our
favour is that the Australian church is just the right size.
Not too small so that it becomes incestuous or destroys itself
in the fighting, not too large so that it becomes impossible
to change."

"Personally, I am optimistic that Catholicism in Australia
will survive, certainly with lesser members. but with more
commitment and ministerial energy. But to achieve that
Catholics will require genuine local leadership and a
willingness to confront both the difficulties and opportunities
that the church faces. My feeling is that we are uniquely
placed in Australia to be able to do precisely that."

The Catholic Church is like any human organisation which has its good qualities and its imperfect individuals. It has done many great things and many things it would have been better not to have done.

Many people have an ‘agenda’ against the church and religion in general and this comes to the fore whenever the Church is found guilty of some wrong doing. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon even though they are themselves not victims of injustice by the church.

If anyone is to blame for your bitterness about the Catholic Church or any other religion then it is your parents who introduced you to religion as a child. They were emotionally dependent on religion and wanted you to take up that same dependency. If you somehow questioned their dependence your very existence could be threatened because you were physically dependent on your parents for basic survival. Only when you became able to care for your own basic needs were you free to let go of that type of emotional dependence.

Many people never quite grow up and accept what their parents did to them as children. It is much easier to vent your spleen at the church than it is to confront what your parents did to you. Because of this failure to deal with the real causes of bitterness and resentment the Church has to cop a great deal of abuse that is really meant for the parents of the resentful and bitter.

There would be no Catholic schools if parents did not send them there and there would be no churches at all if people did not introduce their kids to emotional dependence on religion. Bitterness and resentment are the signs of immaturity and a failure to confront the realities of one’s past. What emerges so often in these debates is the immaturity of people who are still denying the reality of their experience and trying to blame someone else.

I have no religion at all. My attendance of churches amounts to a few weddings, christenings & a funeral.

My experience of religion was in playing school boy football against a number of church schools. That experience showed that the Catholics played dirtier than the Church of England boys, but the Methodists left both of them for dead in playing dirty. Thus my knowledge is great.

My daughter on the other hand, equally non religious has the grand kids attending a Catholic school. She found the public school, in a nice suburb in the Gold coast corridor was woeful, both with discipline & teaching standards. I'm old fashioned enough to still have some sympathy for that old, "spare the stick & spoil the child" idea.

My other experience of religion was in the school debating team. The other 3, all girls, were each the daughters of ministers of different religion in our town. They wasted a considerable amount of our preparation time, trying to convert me to their ideas.

They did not succeed in this, but I decided that although I did not need their religions, that it produced such great young ladies, it could not be all bad, & was an asset to the community.