IRELAND
The Journal
The Catholic Church teaching on abortion still holds – but the bishops are opposing the proposed legislation the wrong way, writes Fr Tony Flannery.
THE IRISH BISHOPS have made a very strong statement condemning the Heads of Bill presented by the Government under the title Protection of Life during Pregnancy. I asked a friend of mine today, a solid, intelligent older man who is a regular church goer what he thought. “It is just what I expected them to say”, he replied in a weary voice. He was clearly not impressed.
In the unlikely event that they might ask me for advice I would suggest the following:
Firstly, it is still about fourteen weeks before the final vote on this bill in the Dail. There are a number of stages to go through, and plenty of opportunity for discussion and change in the proposed bill. By coming out so strongly, in such an aggressive and black-and-white way, they have effectively ruled themselves out of any real engagement in the process from now on. They will condemn, and they will lobby individual legislators, but their public position is now fixed and unbending. This is not the way to go about influencing a democratic process.
Secondly, the choice of Cardinal Sean Brady as spokesperson for the campaign is a big mistake. Cardinal Brady is a lovely man, warm and friendly to meet at a personal level. But in the media he comes across as stiff and authoritarian. Also, whether we like it or not, he is massively damaged by his involvement in investigating a case of clerical sexual abuse in his early life. This has left him permanently ‘holed beneath the water line’, and as such, he is no longer the proper person to lead such a campaign. Apart from the Cardinal’s credibility difficulties, it appears as if the Catholic hierarchy have not yet recognized that they no longer hold a significant position of influence in Irish society—for two reasons: (a) their reluctance to tackle the clerical child sexual abuse issue and (b) their failure to revoke the church’s teaching on contraception as outlined in Humanae Vitae which is so out of tune with this generation that it makes the Church’s teaching on any sexual matter appear ridiculous.
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