LONDON (ENGLAND)
Church Times
January 25, 2019
By Madeleine Davies
When the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, welcomed Pope Francis at Dublin Castle last August, he did not flinch from reciting a catalogue of the “dark aspects” of the Roman Catholic Church’s history (News, 31 August 2018).
“In place of Christian charity, forgiveness, and compassion, far too often there was judgement, severity, and cruelty: in particular, towards women and children and those on the margins,” he pronounced. “Magdalene Laundries, mother-and-baby homes, industrial schools, illegal adoptions, and clerical child abuse are stains on our State, our society, and also the Catholic Church. Wounds are still open.”
Overshadowing the visit, already fraught with fears that the Pope would fail abuse survivors, were fresh revelations from across the Atlantic. A grand jury had concluded that more than 300 priests had abused more than 1000 children in Pennsylvania. It was, Mr Varadkar noted, “a story all too tragically familiar here in Ireland”.
His speech was complimentary towards the Pope himself, fulsome in its acknowledgement of the Church’s gifts — the schools that it had established “in the open air next to hedgerows”, the “brave missionary priests and nuns” — and appreciative of the ties between faith and the fight for independence.
But nobody watching could be left in any doubt about the balance of power. It was time, he told the Pope, for “a more mature relationship” between Church and State: “a new covenant for the 21st century” — one in which “religion is no longer at the centre of our society, but in which it still has an important place”.
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