BishopAccountability.org
	Church Must Act Now to Restore Its Tarnished Image with Faithful By David Quinn Irish Independent November 4, 2011 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/david-quinn-church-must-act-now-to-restore-its-tarnished-image-with-faithful-2925962.html The attack by Enda Kenny on the Vatican last summer was a definite low point in the recent fortunes of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The news that Ireland is now closing its embassy to the Holy See represents an even lower point. The publication of the Cloyne report only days before the Kenny speech seemed to be the final straw for many people as it showed that parts of the church still weren't properly following the church's own guidelines on child protection. The aftermath of the Cloyne report, therefore, seemed a good time to gauge public attitudes towards the church here. What do people think of it? How many would be glad to see the back of it? How many priests do people think are guilty of child abuse? Does anyone believe church teachings are still of benefit to society? To answer these questions, the Iona Institute (which I head) commissioned a poll which was carried out by Amarach Research in September. Some of the questions are based on a similar Gallup poll in the US. The answers from the church's point of view are the proverbial curate's egg. The bad news is that 47pc of people currently have an unfavourable view of the church, and of these, 28pc have a very unfavourable view. Needless to say, most of those who said their view of the church was unfavourable said the reason was the scandals. The good news, such as it is, is that an almost identical number, or 46pc, still believe that Catholic teachings are of benefit to society, despite the scandals. Is a person who holds an unfavourable view of the church necessarily anti-Catholic? Not by a long stretch. For example, 20pc of weekly Mass-goers view their own church unfavourably at present, and given that they are weekly Mass-goers, they could hardly be called anti-Catholic. To try and separate out those who view the church unfavourably, but are not anti-Catholic per se, from those who are anti-Catholic, the survey asked respondents whether they would be happy to see the church disappear from Ireland completely. Some 22pc agreed with this statement and of these, 14pc strongly agreed with it. Some 51pc disagreed with the statement, including 31pc who strongly disagreed with it, and 23pc of people had no opinion. So it's probably fair to say that around a quarter of the public can now be classified as anti-Catholic, a sizeable enough minority. From the point of view of priests, the most worrying finding of the poll was the extent to which the public is overestimating the number of Catholic clergy who have abused a child. According to the one and only national study on the issue, conducted in the United States, 4.3pc of priests in the period 1950 to 2002 were accused of abusing a minor. The average victim was a boy aged between 12 and 14 and the scandals peaked between 1975 and 1985. This study tallies more or less with what we know about the scandals in Ireland although no definitive nationwide figures are available here. Nonetheless, even if we allow that the scandals here were half as bad again as they were in America (the figure for Dublin diocese -- one of the worst hit so far as we know -- was around 7pc), a very large section of the public is still hugely overestimating the number of priests guilty of child abuse. For example, 42pc of people believe at least one in five priests abused a child, and 17pc believe at least half of all priests abused a child. Does this matter? Of course it does, because it creates a climate in which it becomes easy to accuse even innocent priests (think 'Prime Time' and Fr Kevin Reynolds), and in which all priests come under a pall of suspicion. Would it be acceptable to think most Muslims support terrorism because some do? So, where does all this leave the church? The poll confirms that a sizeable minority of the public now views the church with great hostility, and almost half currently view it unfavourably. But this has to be seen partly in light of the fact that trust in most of the major institutions of society has also fallen dramatically. For example, according to another Amarach poll conducted last year, only 7pc of the public trust journalists, fully or mostly, and only 7pc trusted the then Government, fully or mostly. Noteworthy from this latest poll is the fact that one in five respondents think the present Government is excessively hostile towards the church. With regard to the scandals, the church isn't out of the woods yet because more reports will be published and it remains to be seen how bad they will be. But given the intense and understandable anger at the church over many years that has been generated by the scandals, it is a minor miracle that almost half of us still believe Catholic teachings are of benefit to society, despite everything. The church needs to do everything possible to ensure the goodwill that remains doesn't diminish further.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.