IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests
Brendan Hoban
Here’s a question: when the Irish bishops decided to actively support the No side in the recent referendum, who actually made that decision?
Presumably there was some kind of consultation, some input from their paid advisors, some assessment of how a particular policy might sit with their priests and their people. In that process, who is listened to? Or more to the point, who is not heard?
I’m being ironic, I’m afraid. There was no consultation (as far as I could see) with priests or people.
Even the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), representing about a third of Irish priests, weren’t asked for an opinion, but then again we’re used to being ignored. There was no consultation either with the Association of Catholics of Ireland. We were not listened to; we were not heard.
The bishops’ decision to support the blunt strategy of outright opposition had all the hallmarks of a policy decided behind closed doors in Maynooth, without testing it against the wisdom of people and priests – and then people wonder why the bishops can get things so unerringly wrong?
That decision, it is now clear, supported by groups like Iona, Catholic papers desperate to hang on to their readers, and right-wing Catholic groups, was disastrous. The bishops, ignoring their people and their priests, got it exactly wrong.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.