By Araminta Wordsworth
National Post
July 26, 2011
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/07/26/ireland-in-seismic-shock-over-continuing-child-sex-abuse-by-priests/
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| The Vatican is being accused of continuing to cover up sexual abuses by the Church. |
Full Comment's Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: In language never used by an Irish government leader, Enda Kenny has accused the Vatican of covering up the rape and torture of children by priests in order to uphold its own power and reputation.
The Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach in Gaelic) was speaking about the Cloyne Report, which found that John Magee — former Roman Catholic bishop of the rural diocese near Cork — lied when he claimed he was reporting all allegations of clerical child sexual abuse to police.
"The rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation'," Mr. Kenny said, adding, "For the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago."
The report has caused a sensation in Ireland, long considered a faithful daughter of the Church and with an over-cosy relationship between the Catholic hierarchy and the government.
It follows exhaustive reports detailing systematic abuse by clerics, fruit of the Ryan and Murphy inquiries. Though appalling, the alleged offences happened decades ago. People could at least take comfort in the idea the church had changed its ways. The seismic shock of the Cloyne report is the revelation that the abuse and cover-ups continue to this day.
The Vatican has recalled its envoy for consultation. Meanwhile, Catholic commentators like Father Vincent Twomey, emeritus professor of theology at Maynooth Seminary and a former student of Pope Benedict XVI, believes the Catholic Church in Ireland has been "without any leadership effectively for the last 15 years." He is calling for every Irish bishop appointed before 2003 to resign, the Catholic Herald reports.
Fr. Twomey also told RTE radio he is "incandescent with rage" over the revelations of "incompetence, inertia, and lies."
At the same time, he asks people to spare a thought for priests. In an article in the Irish Times, he notes:
[H]ow demoralizing all of these revelations that have come out over the past two decades have been to the vast majority of priests and religious. The fact is that priests at the coalface, as it were, generally receive warm and generous support from the many faithful who can distinguish between the crimes of their colleagues and the dedication of their man.
We are an aging, clerical force stretched almost to breaking point due to lack of vocations, trying to comfort the afflicted, instruct the young, bury the dead and fulfil to the best of our admittedly inadequate abilities our many other pastoral efforts.
In an editorial, the Belfast Telegraph provides little comfort as it suggests that the cover-up continues:
Even more worryingly for the church, one of its most senior clerics, Dr Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, weighed in with more allegations of continuing cover-ups by elements in both the Vatican and Irish hierarchy.
While the Vatican may regard the Taoiseach's attack as political expediency, the Archbishop's comments are potentially more damaging. Far from being repentant — as it constantly preaches to its faithful — the church is being accused of ignoring its duty of care to young people and trying to avoid both its moral and legal obligations. Self-protection rather than child-protection is still the ethos in some lofty ranks.
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, David J. O'Brien believes the Cloyne report is proof miracles do happen:
Who would have believed anyone could topple Irish Catholicism? But masses of Irish Catholics no longer attend church, and those who do have lost confidence in their priests and bishops. The Irish people are finally disengaging the church from its control of education, social services, and public morality.
What brutal British occupiers could not accomplish over centuries, Ireland's bishops and their Vatican masters have brought about in little more than a decade.
Writing for the Irish Independent, the prolific David Quinn defends the Holy See, accusing Kenny of leading a Paisleyite lynch mob. The government's reaction has been one of almost complete hysteria, he says.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny's statement to the Dail on Wednesday was delivered against this background.
In the sort of language normally associated with a Richard Dawkins or Ian Paisley, he accused the Vatican of "dysfunction, disconnection, elitism … narcissism" and effectively of not caring about the "rape and torture of children."
In a comment piece for the Irish Catholic, Quinn fears the country is on the cusp of a revolution:
Ireland is deep in the grip of the sort of Jacobinism that seized France more than two centuries ago, only without the violence.
But the attempt to seize the property of the Church is there. The wish to almost completely secularise society is there. The desire to demonise Rome is there, and just as in Revolutionary France there are priests and laity happy to go along with all this.
Unfortunately, as in the past the Church has made it easy for its critics. Before the Reformation it had become corrupt. Before the French Revolution it had become too close to a discredited Ancien Regime, and now we have the clerical abuse scandals. But this doesn't excuse throwing reason to the four winds and that is what is now happening in Ireland in our present rage.
Contact: awordsworth@nationalpost.com
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