BishopAccountability.org
	The Fighting Bishops By Liamy MacNally The Mayo News [Ireland] June 22, 2005 CURA The Irish Catholic Bishops came out fighting last week, or so it seemed. They discussed several issues at a press conference following their summer meeting in Maynooth, including Pope Benedict, CURA, the North, Assisted Reproduction, and relations between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church on the Virgin Mary. The CURA story is interesting. CURA is a Catholic pregnancy advice agency, set up to assist women with unplanned pregnancies. CURA has always been known to uphold Catholic teaching in this regard, which is parenthood or adoption. Abortion was never an option. Essentially, the 'rights' of the unborn child are as important as the mothers (with due regard to the series of constitutional amendments.) The right to life is seen as the fundamental human right upon which all other rights are based. Every other right could only be exercised if one has been afforded the right to life. Without the right to life then one would not exist. Thousands of volunteers across the country uphold this belief, not as a sense of blind loyalty to any doctrine or dogma but because they genuinely believe in the right to life. With the ongoing secularisation of the country, belief is more difficult, compromise is easier as the ability to vocalise the reasons for believing in something one once took for granted becomes more difficult. On a broader level the decline in attendance at church services indicates that people no longer find the answers in the pews that previous generations did. Four women, CURA volunteers, in Donegal objected to CURA handing out a leaflet which included details of agencies that gave information on abortion. The leaflet, Positive Options, is produced by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA), set up by the government to make options, other than abortion, more attractive to women and give detail of the various agencies. The Donegal women who objected to this leaflet because it contained information on abortion were dismissed by the National Executive Council of CURA. This council includes Bishop John Fleming of the Killala diocese. CURA benefits to the tune of ˆ654,000 in annual funding from the CPA. After last week's meeting, the Bishops have now asked CURA to stop distributing the Positive Options leaflet. Did it take four brave women from Donegal to kick-start the myriad of theological brains that go into making up the Irish Bishops Conference? How is it that the Bishops nearly always seem to be coming up the rear rather than leading from the front? Too often they appear as a group of reticent leaders rather than a body of men boldly walking alongside truth. If the gifts given to each Bishop are subsumed in the collegiate then there is something drastically wrong. What now for the four Donegal women? Will any of the Bishops contact them to say sorry? SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD Saying sorry can be very difficult. It issues because a wrong was perpetrated. From a Catholic perspective, restitution is also an issue when a wrong has been done. It is called making good. An apology was issued by the Bishops last week to Rev Gerry Mc Ginnity, a former Dean of St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He is a parish priest from the Archdiocese of Armagh and the Spiritual Director of Christina Gallagher from the House of Prayer in Achill. Over twenty years ago he informed some Bishops about concerns raised by a group of seminarians over a senior staff member, Rev M?ce?l Ledwith, the Vice-President in Maynooth seminary. The seminarians also met various Bishops about concerns over the formation of student priests in the national seminary. Other concerns related to Rev Ledwith's lifestyle. Rev Ledwith was appointed President subsequently while Rev Mc Ginnity was given a sabbatical and refused permission to return to Maynooth. He was then given a junior appointment back in Armagh. Fr Ledwith, or Monsignor, as he was then, left the college unexpectedly in 1994. Three years ago the Bishops confirmed that he had made confidential settlements with two former seminarians following allegations of sexual abuse (which Fr Ledwith denied.) The Bishops then employed Mr Denis McCullough, SC, to investigate newspaper complaints in 2002 of "alleged sexual harassment of seminarians at Maynooth College in the early 1980s and that those complaints did not receive a proper response." This followed press reports in 2002 that a group of seminarians had met Bishops in 1983/4 expressing concern over Fr Ledwith. Last Thursday morning at approximately 8.30am, Fr Mc Ginnity was presented with a copy of the Mc Cullough Report. It was released to the press about a half an hour later. The seminarians in question were unaware of what was taking place. In an attached press release the Catholic Primate, Archbishop Se?n Brady and the Bishop Trustees of St Patrick's College, Maynooth apologised to Fr Mc Ginnity and the former seminarians for failing to properly investigate the complaints about Fr Ledwith. This 'paper apology' was not presented to the men in a verbal or written form and the former seminarians were only alerted when asked for a comment by a journalist. Basic good manners dictate that those affected would be contacted. Christian principles demand more. Neither approach has been adopted. The coldness of their so-called apology is pitiful. There has been no attempt to make personal contact with all the people involved. One wonders to which gallery they are playing. Is it their sole hope that history will record their apology? If so, then it is the more offensive. It only compounds the hurt already perpetrated. To offer an apology is an act of valour. To foul it up in such a manner raises even more questions. How do the Bishops manage to mess up in public so often? It is a disservice to everybody affected. Why waste the grace of an apology on the whims of a press release? The intellectual wheels of theological wisdom turn slowly. Ask the CURA women of Donegal. The Bishops need to take up arms…again.