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	Opinion: Church and State Stand Indicted The Clare Courier December 18, 2009 http://www.clarecourier.ie/article.asp?id=1748 Many people in our community will have been troubled by RTE’s Six One News interviews with Bishop Willie Walsh and Shannon’s parish priest, Fr Tom Ryan. Deep distress was written all over the face of Bishop Walsh whose very physical appearance was that of a man carrying an overwhelming burden on his own shoulders. Fr Ryan’s emotional outburst, when a microphone was pushed in his face, was indicative of his own despair of the awful revelations about a Church which he has devoted himself to. What television viewers saw was a caricature of two rural clergymen. A Fr Ted caricature that fits well with a media that apportions blame in on direction only, for heinous crimes against children. For what it is worth, it should be stated and restated that both are among the most decent of people; thoughtful and generous men of charity, of humanity and of humility. An example, if one is needed, was the time that Fr Tom learned that the life of a young person with leukemia could be saved if only a matching bone marrow donor could be found. After volunteering for the blood tests, it was found, to great surprise, that his blood matched. Confronted with the reality that he could give that greatest of gifts, the gift of life, he never hesitated. Despite being filled with all the misgivings and fears of the physical operation, Tom was unwavering and did what he knew was right. His was an act of selfless generosity, an act that could be forgotten by many but will always be remembered by a grateful few. Bishop Walsh has been a symbol of light; a Church leader and moderniser firmly grounded in his community who has not been afraid of giving personal leadership on issues fraught with difficulty. Not only did he face down public scorn in his home place by confronting the issue of traveler accommodation but Bishop Willie, as he is affectionately known, has challenged the papal ban that refuses women the right to ordination. Going further than any of his contemporaries, Bishop Willie has expressed remorse at the Church’s exclusion of homosexuals and divorcees and even challenged a Vatican ruling that refuses the Eucharist to Protestants. More than a month ago Bishop Willie spoke of Ireland’s Catholic bishops owing “a debt of gratitude to journalists for investigating and exposing' the abuse scandals highlighted in the Ryan report. Their credentials are in no doubt, neither of these two men are to blame in any way for the horrendous abuse of children as outlined in the Murphy report into clerical abuse in Dublin. Nor are they guilty by association, an implication that could be drawn from the media circus that assembled at the opening of a tiny and otherwise insignificant chapel. Murphy Report To be clear, the Murphy report reveals a Church that was more concerned with its reputation and position in society than the welfare of children. More to the point, it reveals a state with no interest in justice. According to this report, hundreds of children were sexually abused by Catholic priests over a period of thirty years. When some of the victims, or their parents, reported these crimes the state agencies conspired with the Church to ignore and cover up allegations. In other words, the Irish state; the Government, the Gardai and others, rather than cherishing all of the children equally, as envisaged by the Proclamation of 1916, actually failed its most vulnerable citizens. Senior members of the Garda refused to properly investigate allegations made against priests of sexual molestation and rape. Such gross dereliction of duty should be enough to see prosecutions and appropriate sentencing. The Government reacted by sending Micheal Martin off to Rome to meet the Pope. The Taoiseach commented that people have to reflect on the position and ensure that the moral authority of the Church… in Ireland needs to be reinforced and re-established. Not a word about the inaction and indifference of successive Taoisigh and Ministers who could have acted against this abuse but refused. There is no doubt that there was a time when the Church’s influence was detrimental to the development of a modern society. That influence waned as the wealthy people of this State, including those in Government, turned towards mammon, economic growth and the so-called Celtic Tiger. Today Ireland is as secular as other European countries. It would be appropriate then for RTE, the media and society in general to expose all of those who conspired to condemn vulnerable children to such an horrendous start in life. What is so shocking about the Murphy report is not just that clerical abuse was widespread within the Church but that it was systematically covered up by the State. In dealing with this awful criminality the State was not some neutral bystander, in fact it was a complicit actor. The public humiliation of two good men by the national broadcaster does nothing to inform the Irish people of that fact.
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