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	Brady's Vision of Past Is As Illusory As Crystal-Gazing The Catholic Hierarchy Has to Get Real about the Past, Writes Colum Kenny Irish Independent August 26, 2007 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/bradys-vision-of-past-is-as- illusory-as-crystalgazing-1066235.html Do Ireland's Catholic bishops confess their own sins? Or is it just the rest of us who have gone astray? Last week, Archbishop Sean Brady looked into the future (while condemning fortune-tellers). He lamented the faults of modern Ireland, and spoke of "a smaller but more authentic Church". But it is not just consumerism and a breakdown in community that have led to stress and despair today, the bishops too contributed, by how they taught the Christian message and controlled their own church. Brady did not expect his remarks to be treated kindly by media commentators. And he was right. "Crystal Balls" was the rude headline on one tabloid, which chose to home in on his condemnation of horoscopes and tarot cards. It was hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for Brady. His two key speeches last week, in Milwaukee and Knock, were a genuine effort to make us think about our future. But Brady also glossed over the past. Turning modern suicide rates and drug abuse into a sort of vindication of former times simply does not wash. This is not least because suicide was often covered up in the past. And there was plenty of substance abuse, even if the only substance was alcohol and much of it was consumed abroad in emigrant bars. Before we get too nostalgic about the good old days, we need to remember realities. The archbishop mentioned sex abuse just once, saying that "the trauma and scandal around revelations of clerical child sexual abuse accelerated" the trend away from regular attendance at Mass. But it was child abuse itself, and the hierarchy's abdication of responsibility, that he should have addressed centrally (not "revelations" about it, or even the "the trauma and scandal", which were secondary). There was another distancing from reality when he spoke of attitudes towards authority. These, he claimed, have changed as a result, "in part, of the multitude of investigations into how institutions had managed their affairs". But again, it is actually how bishops "managed their affairs" that is the problem, not the fall-out from investigations. His language betrays the hierarchy's underlying resentment of demands for accountability and transparency. Maybe I am being unfair. I mean, what would you, readers, expect from a commentator in the media, motivated as we are by self-interest and vanity (unlike the bishops). Besides, even those commentators who specialise in religious coverage are mere lay people, and so could not possibly be as close to the truth, or to God, as the Irish hierarchy. Archbishop Brady says that traditional sources of social and moral authority "have been partly replaced by the 'authority' and influence of the 'mass media' commentariat". His use of inner quotation marks around the word "authority" seems sarcastic and resentful, perhaps because Brady knows that media commentators do not have a hotline to God like that in every Irish bishop's office. Brady's negative attitude to the media comes as no surprise given the degree of discomfort caused to bishops in recent years by disclosures of sexual abuse and other scandals. The archbishop consoles himself by referring to signs that the media may be losing their grip. He says, quite fairly, that, "people are becoming more cynical about the motives of the media. After all, the bottom line for the media is circulation and audience figures." But one cannot entirely blame newspapers for homing in on Brady blasting horoscopes when this was the angle that the Catholic Communications Office highlighted in its own press release about the speech. There was also something ironic about the archbishop picking the site of a Marian apparition as the place to condemn "future-telling". For decades, the Vatican may have frowned on moving statues, while bishops told us that Catholics did not have to believe in apparitions, but the power of the hierarchy itself was bolstered by a very strong strain of religious superstition that most bishops did little in practice to discourage. And little in Brady's two speeches points to any new initiatives by the bishops to engage even Catholics at large in a transformative debate. There is no sign of radical new thinking, or of a view of theology or dogma much broader than that which drove so many thinking priests, nuns and laity away from the Church. One fears that the Government's new plans for Church-State dialogue are seen by bishops, not as a potentially exciting form of open dialogue, but as a possible way back to undemocratic forms of influence. Last week's images from Knock were like something from the Fifties, as robed bishops led a procession singing a chorus from The Bells of the Angelus. All very consoling, but unlikely to connect with the spiritual needs or intellectual realities of 21st-Century Ireland. And what Archbishop Brady describes as one of "the many signs of hope within our own Church", namely that, "The Church continues to make a huge contribution to education and health" is a double-edged sword. It might be a lot more inspiring if the Catholic Church voluntarily yielded to communities its control of schools and hospitals, rather than appearing to fight a sort of rearguard action, through the appointment to boards of uncritical or right-wing lay Catholics. Archbishop Brady recalled last week how Jesus "went on to warn of the dangers of becoming distracted with the concerns of this world, notably the pursuit of earthly possessions". He and the other bishops seem to find it impossible to understand that, to many Irish people, those words look like a judgement on the hierarchy's own obsession with power and influence (especially in schools and hospitals). Increased lay involvement in local parishes, which Brady also praises, has come too late to look other than begrudging and desperate. It is limited to menial duties and to a secondary role. It is not inevitable that a smaller Church will be more "authentic". Yes, Archbishop Brady, there is despair and emptiness in Ireland. You are right that people feel alienated. But you still do not seem to realise that the behaviour of Irish Catholic Church authorities has played a role in creating the void in which we now find ourselves, breeding cynicism and despair. Until the hierarchy recognises just how far astray it went, it will never occupy again a position of respect, such as you desire for it. If, as the archbishop says, "The Land of Saints and Scholars has become better known as the Land of Stocks and Shares", it is partly because some of the most saintly and scholarly were driven out or were driven to despair by the obscurantism and sheer nasty narrow-mindedness of certain bishops in the 21st Century. But this is never acknowledged frankly by the hierarchy. The Irish bishops have never much welcomed open intellectual debate about the nature of their beliefs; they still do not. When "we meant well" excuses are muttered by those who wilfully forget, others should recall the adage -- "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
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