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	Steve Coronella Irish Church in Need of Renewal This Holiday Season By Steve Coronella Medford Transcript December 10, 2009 http://www.wickedlocal.com/medford/news/lifestyle/columnists/x730414185/Steve-Coronella-Irish-church-in-need-of-renewal-this-holiday-season MEDFORD -- Just two weeks until Christmas. What better time for a feel-good story to lift the spirits and carry us buoyantly into the New Year. No such luck, I'm afraid, on this side of the water. Another report on child sexual abuse by Catholic priests has just appeared in Ireland, and it's generating a whirlwind of controversy. The Murphy Report, commissioned in 2006 and published at the end of November, tells a depressingly familiar story. In brief, children's welfare was routinely disregarded for almost 30 years. The report covers cases of abuse in the Dublin diocese from 1975 to 2004 and shows that Irish bishops and cardinals were concerned primarily about avoiding scandal and preserving the status and assets of the Church and its priests. The report's language is unambiguous and hard-hitting. "Complainants were often met with denial, arrogance and cover-up and with incompetence and incomprehension in some areas." The report also notes a number of "inappropriate" contacts between police authorities and the archdiocese and says some senior police officials clearly believed that offending priests were not their responsibility. In fact, when they were alerted to possible instances of abuse, the police often reported the complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them. Tragically, reports of this nature have become all-too common in recent years. And not just in Ireland. Australia, Canada and the U.S. have also seen their share of sexual abuse cases involving Catholic priests entrusted with the care of children. (Although, worryingly from an Irish perspective, a lot of the clerical offenders outside Ireland bear unmistakably Irish names.) So what's been the reaction to this latest report? Nell McCafferty — a maverick journalist who helped lead the women's rights movement in Ireland in the 1970s and 80s and remains a courageous voice — has suggested that the Murphy Report be hammered to the door of every Catholic church here, Martin Luther-style. Her hope, I imagine, is that a latter-day reformation will result, with more power — ceremonial and otherwise — vested in the laity of the church. (This may happen regardless of any recurring instances of scandal or arrogance on the part of church figures. In Ireland and indeed across the Western world, the number of men entering the priesthood is declining sharply.) According to a report in the Irish Times, ordinary Mass-goers have a more divided reaction: revulsion and anger over the incidents of abuse detailed so graphically in the report, tempered by sympathy for the plight of their parish priest. And subsequent comment in the papers and on radio and TV suggests that the Catholic Church in Ireland is about to enter an unprecedented period of decline and even active opposition to its involvement in everyday life. This latter development can already be seen in the growing movement to disentangle the Church from the running of the majority of Ireland's primary schools. But rather than lay into the Catholic Church for the remainder on this column — there are plenty of other commentators more inclined to the task — I'd like to ask: Where do those believers who worship under the church's banner, particularly in affluent Western societies, go from here? And is real change set to occur, not just in Ireland, but in Catholic communities generally? This is where women must begin to exert their influence. Paradoxically, women are the backbone of the church. Women continue to marry in the church. Women continue to encourage the education of their children in church doctrine. And women continue to play an essential role in the day-to-day running of parish schools and churches. It is clear that without the involvement of its women members, the church would wither and die. But why do women remain faithful to an institution that has such slight regard for them that says to them they are somehow inferior to the men who sit beside them at Mass each week? That's the question, I hope, that will govern the direction of the church in years to come. The basic human failings of church officials will always be with us. Despite their traditional finery and well-schooled sophistication, bishops, cardinals and even the pope himself are vulnerable to the same urges and impulses, underneath it all, as the rest of us. The real sin occurs when their humility abandons them and priests use their exalted office to commit the type of grotesque criminal acts cited in the Murphy Report. But we can still believe. Maybe this Christmas season, triggered by the depressing news from Ireland, the Church will begin to experience the rumblings of a much-needed renewal. — Medford native Steve Coronella, MHS Class of '77, moved to Ireland more than a decade ago. Read his "At Home Abroad," in which he reflects on his new life outside the U.S. and recalls the land he left behind. He can be reached at E-mail: sbcoro@eircom.net
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