BishopAccountability.org
 
  Why It’s Poetic Justice to Denounce Catholic Abuse

Belfast Telegraph
April 9, 2010

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/why-itrsquos-poetic-justice-to-denounce-catholic-abuse-14761430.html

Poet Paul Muldoon is right in saying unionists must be free to confront Catholic Church, argues Malachi O’Doherty

The Orange Order has received support for its protest against the Pope's visit to Britain from an unlikely source.

While other unionists, including Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey, have been urging the Order to reconsider plans to protest against the visit of Pope Benedict in September, a major Irish poet from a Catholic background has said the protest should go ahead.

Paul Muldoon, from Moy, Co Armagh, told recently how his sister was sexually exploited by a Catholic priest in Dublin after she'd left home when her marriage broke up. She pleaded with a priest for support but he moved her into his house and imposed himself on her when she felt she'd nowhere else to turn for help.

Muldoon says now that he believes that it would be a sign of maturity in Northern Ireland politics if unionists could confront the Catholic Church over its abuses and not fear that they would be accused of being sectarian for doing that.

He argues that when unionists opposed Home Rule on the grounds that it was Rome Rule "in some profound sense they were not at all wrong".

The starkest evidence of that is the extent of child abuse by the Church, the cover-up and the weak response of the Pope, whose first practical suggestion was that all Catholics should go to Confession every week for a year.

Muldoon says: "I think it is a moment at which the citizens of the country, North and South, should come together and put it to the Catholic Church that their time in this country is over. The Orange Order is perfectly within its rights, at the moment, to make a comment about the behaviour of the Catholic Church. It is not necessarily attributable to bigotry at all."

Paul Muldoon says it would be a sign of maturity in the political structures here if the new Justice Department could investigate the Catholic Church and the application of Canon Law without fear of being thought sectarian.

Muldoon says he understands that unionists who have taken a journey into the middle ground will be afraid of being perceived to be sectarian if they attack the Catholic Church. He says: "The trauma that has been visited on this country by the Roman Catholic church is no less than has been visited upon us by the famous English incursions since the Elizabethan era in terms of what it has done to the national psyche." He says that in essence he regards organised religion as comparable to organised crime.

These will be read as some of the most vituperous anti-Catholic remarks recorded from a former Catholic schoolboy. But they are not from a political activist. Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet.

He made these remarks recently at the Poetry Now Festival in Dun Laoghaire, where he revealed the story of his sister's exploitation. He concluded by calling on the Irish Government to make it plain to the Catholic Church that the days of Canon Law are over.

Seamus Heaney later said: "You don't expect Muldoon to lay down the law but he has laid down the law and it is thrilling. I thought it was a great moment of moral authority on the part of Paul Muldoon."

Currently both the Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, and the Health Minister, Michael McGimpsey, have said that there will be investigations into abuse in Northern Ireland by Catholic priests.

There is an impression that the Catholic Church expects not to be rebuked by other religious communities. Muldoon's point is that the Church is entitled to no such protection.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.