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  When Irish Eyes Are Crying
Ireland's Catholic Church is struggling to break an anti-ecclesiastical fever

By Michael Higgins
Globe and Mail
July 5, 2010

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/when-irish-eyes-are-crying/article1626937/

The anti-ecclesiastical temperature in Ireland is rising. No surprise, in a way, given recent developments.

Irish Catholics have been buffeted, bruised and betrayed for years now. Various revelations of clerical misbehaviour – sexual and physical abuse by priests and religious brothers, emotionally brutalizing treatment at the hands of nuns, egregious instances of venal activity and spiritual hypocrisy by bishops – have soured the national taste for religion. As the brilliant spiritual writer and poet Aidan Mathews starkly phrases it: "Seminaries silent. Churches sold. Priests in prison. Children impaled. The annihilated father."

The Ferns, Murphy and Ryan reports publicly exposed the criminal misdeeds and sins of church leaders for all to see. Bishops have resigned; religious orders struggle with costly liabilities; commentators and pundits have a field day; and lay Catholics can be forgiven for thinking that living in a state of personal and ecclesial turbulence appears to have become their permanent destiny.

But it's not all Sturm und Drang.

Religious figures and writers, both clerical and lay – such as the late Father Brian Tierney, the journalist John Waters and the embattled and heroic Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin – have all articulated a vision of moral and spiritual reconstitution for a shattered church. And there are clear public signs of effective accountability. For instance, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, led by its impressive Presbyterian CEO Ian Elliott, has achieved extraordinary success implementing its policies and monitoring compliance, in sharp contrast with the state's Health Service Executive, which has only managed to implement proper child protection procedures in barely half of its regions.

And a recently created papal deputation consisting of five bishops of distinctly Hibernian ancestry – Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (London), Timothy Dolan (New York), Sean O'Malley (Boston), Thomas Collins (Toronto) and Terrence Prendergast (Ottawa) – and charged with conducting an apostolic visitation is further confirmation of Pope Benedict XVI's grave solicitude for the Irish church.

As you can see, the church is struggling to find ways to bring down the fever. Yet, the temperature continues to rise. Delirium is on the horizon.

For many Catholics – practising, lapsed and formally departed – a dramatic gesture is called for to break the fever: the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh and the Primate of All Ireland. Not surprisingly, Cardinal Brady declared his determination to remain in office to ensure the momentum of renewal and healing.

But in the editorials, newspaper columns and university common rooms and on the phone-in programs and television panels – and, perhaps most tellingly, in the pubs – the consensus remains unaltered: Cardinal Brady must go!

This has no comparable parallel in Irish history, although there are several contemporary parallels: the disgraced Hans Hermann Groer of Vienna and the obstinate Bernard Law of Boston. These examples have not been lost on the Irish Catholic community, although, in Cardinal Brady's case, there remains a residue of affection and respect for him personally.

Simply put, Cardinal Brady has become the symbol of episcopal failure, the lightening rod for Irish outrage. It all stems from an incident in the 1970s when he counselled two young men who had been sexually abused by the infamous priest-predator and Nortbertine friar Brendan Smyth to drop their accusations and to formally swear secrecy. The boys complied, the bishop was informed, no action was taken and Smyth abused with impunity for nearly another two decades.

Cardinal Brady does not dispute the facts, and he deplores the dire consequences of his ill-considered judgment. After all, others acted as he did, canonical requirements were met, and the reputation of the church remained unsullied. He concedes that such a culture is now in ruins, its moral spinelessness on full display. Nonetheless, he has found himself at the crossroads of a scandal roiling the Irish church: the credibility of the foundational institution of Irish society, its ethical voice, profoundly and irreversibly compromised.

Calls for his resignation arise out of a complex mix of impotence, desperation and remorse. His inability to read the national soul, to confuse resignation with capitulation, to place the dignity of office above the need for reparation, combine to constitute his personal tragedy.

Cardinal Brady should have chosen as his model Alphonsus Penney, Archbishop of St. John's, who submitted his resignation following the release in 1990 of the report of the Winter commission, which he had established to investigate abuses in his archdiocese. He accepted the cost of stewardship. Cardinal Brady should do likewise.

 
 

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