UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register
COMMENTARY: There have been three key moments in the recent history of the Irish Church when leading bishops and priests could have chosen to strengthen the faith of the people. Instead, poor choices and inaction have weakened what remains.
by DEACON NICK DONNELLY 05/28/2015
The vote in Ireland has been to legalize same-sex “marriage,” an outcome that suggests a loss of moral clarity among the majority of Catholics in the Irish Church. I am left asking the question: Is the Irish Church dead?
I know this may sound shocking, and some may accuse me of alarmism and defeatism. However, sacred Scripture is clear that, though Our Lord has promised to be with the universal Church until the end of time (Matthew 28:20), it is possible for a local Church to die.
The Book of Revelation contains the locutions and visions Our Lord granted to his beloved disciple, St. John the Evangelist. Our Lord sent seven messages to the local Churches, one of which was addressed to the Church of Sardis, which reveals the awful possibility of the death of a church:
And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: “The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works; you have the name of being alive, and you are dead. Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God” (3:1-2).
In 2003, Pope St. John Paul II urgently addressed the exhortation contained in Our Lord’s Letter to the Church of Sardis to the whole of Europe, including the Church in Ireland, “Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death” (Revelation 3:2). Twelve years later, it is clear that Ireland and many other European countries have not heeded Pope St. John Paul II’s final warning, and, in fact, many of the bishops and people have done the exact opposite: They have weakened what remains to the point of death. …
he Apostolic Visitation of the Irish Church
The first key moment was Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic visitation of the Irish Church in response to the crisis caused by pedophile priests and the bishops’ widespread cover-up of crimes of child sexual abuse. Pope Benedict’s “Letter to the Catholics of Ireland,” announcing the need for an apostolic visitation, clearly stated his judgment as the Successor of St. Peter that his brother bishops had failed. He said this was a failure where “grave errors of judgment were made and failures of leadership.”
The apostolic visitation report was mainly a snapshot of the Irish Church that summarized safeguarding measures that the Irish episcopacy and religious orders were already putting in place. It also made a number of reasonable recommendations, including: the updating of safeguarding guidelines in accordance with the norms established by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; the reorganization of ecclesiastical tribunals; the formation of seminarians; and various formation, spiritual and administrative changes for religious orders.
One paragraph of the report stands out in light of the open dissent among Irish priests supporting, or remaining neutral towards, the legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2015:
“Since the visitators also encountered a certain tendency, not dominant but nevertheless fairly widespread among priests, religious and laity, to hold theological opinions at variance with the teachings of the magisterium, this serious situation requires particular attention, directed principally towards improved theological formation. It must be stressed that dissent from the fundamental teachings of the Church is not the authentic path towards renewal.”
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