Total Catholic
December 17, 2009
http://www.totalcatholic.com/tc/index.php?/20091217792/news/church-in-ireland-needs-a-drastic-overhaulq-popes-former-student.html
Ireland -- A prominent Irish theologian has said the Church in Ireland is in need of a "drastic overhaul".
Dr Vincent Twomey, professor emeritus of moral theology at Maynooth and a former student of Pope Benedict, told The Universe that the Irish hierarchy had "tragically misjudged the reaction on the ground" in the Irish Church in thinking that they could "simply stick to their guns" and that this crisis would "blow over".
Speaking of the five bishops named by Judge Yvonne Murphy's Commission: Doctors Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, who are still auxiliary bishops in Dublin; the Bishops of Galway and Kildare & Leighlin, Martin Drennan and Jim Moriarty along with Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick, Dr Twomey said, "I can't understand why they didn't stand down on the day the report was published. They knew its contents and they knew what the public outcry would be".
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The retired professor said, "It comes down to moral courage – or rather, in the case of senior clerics, the lack of it."
He underlined that the negligence on the part of the bishops had to be addressed, "negligence that goes beyond that concerned with the governance of the Church, implicitly criticised by the Vatican in its communique".
"They were also negligent in their responsibilities for catechesis and liturgy", he said.
"My problem is that they did nothing and that is negligence while cover-up is endemic in Irish society. In other cultures if something goes wrong in an organisation, and you are found to have been negligent, you resign. No one resigns in Ireland," Dr Twomey stated.
The academic, who studied for his doctorate at Regensburg under the then Cardinal Ratzinger, lamented the lack of understanding of the significance of next month's papal letter to the Irish Church, which he described as "a major document".
He said that had not been appreciated or grasped by the media or the Irish Church.
Dr Twomey, who is a member of the Divine Word Missionaries, told The Universe, "I only know of four such letters in the last century. One was to the Church in Italy (1931) warning them against fascism; the other was Mit Brennender Sorge (1937) to the German Church drawing attention to the evils of Nazism; the third was to the Church in Mexico also in 1937 when revolutionaries were persecuting Catholics; and the last one was written by this Pope himself a few years ago to the Church in China."
It is absurd to hope that "Rome can solve this", Dr Twomey said and added that "the roots of this problem are so deep in our national psyche that only we ourselves, clergy and lay, can change it".
"What Rome could do, if it saw fit, is give the green light for a change of the existing structures", he said, referring to his call for a reduction in the number of dioceses in the Church in Ireland from 26 to twelve or even six.
Dr Twomey also highlighted that seven dioceses in Ireland will become vacant in the near future and he said those positions should not be replaced.
"To start with, a moratorium could be placed on appointments to the Irish hierarchy."
He also called for a Day of Atonement by the Irish Church to seek forgiveness for the abuse which was perpetrated by Irish priests and religious.
"These are some of the ideas that I had in my book The End of Irish Catholicism?", which was published in 2003.
He added, "The object of that book was to find out why the Irish Church is incapable of responding to the challenges of the moment", a problem which has become worse in recent years while the Irish hierarchy has "become more and more incompetent."
Dr Twomey called for a "genuine examination of conscience" by Irish society as a whole over the Murphy and Ryan reports.
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