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	John Cooney: the Bishops' Pathological Addictions Won't Save Them By John Cooney Irish Independent December 24, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/john-cooney-the-bishops-pathological-addictions-wont-save-them-1988237.html To avoid such a messy end, Bishops Drennan, Walsh and Field should follow Murray and Moriarty by announcing their intention to go quietly THE clericalist system in the Catholic Church onto which three Irish bishops are desperately clinging this Christmas was once famously described by the great theologian Bernard Haring as "ecclesiagenic pathology". Roughly translated, it means pathological addiction to the Church as an institution. It has been diagnosed in sociological studies of how auxiliaries and officials in diocesan offices of bishops operate. These studies identify a clerical type who sublimates his celibate existence by unstinting loyalty to an unaccountable Church administration in expectation of that system showing its appreciation of such loyal apprenticeship by conferring the purple robes of bishop on the dedicated 'Son of the Church'. "Ecclesiagenic pathology" -- or EP for short -- is at the core of the Murphy report's damning dissection of the cover-ups of the sexual abuse of innocent children and shielding from the criminal law of paedophile priests by successive archbishops, auxiliary bishops and clergy in the Archdiocese of Dublin. The only known cure for EP is resignation from office. Resignation offers permanent relief of the tormented 'ecclesiastocrat' from his addiction to power and pageantry. Its miraculous effect is attested to by monks. It took Donal Murray three tortuous weeks to gulp down a dose of the EP antidote prescription after the Murphy report condemned as "inexcusable" his lax investigation of the notorious but now convicted Fr Thomas Naughton. But even in quitting, Murray did not express any personal culpability but based his stepping down on the paramount principle of the welfare of children. It established the precedent of resignation being the penalty for a bishop found negligent in protecting children. Yesterday Jim Moriarty, the embattled Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, finally swallowed the anti-EP prescription bottle and went a step further than Murray in accepting the principle of collective responsibility for his inaction in not persuading his boss, Cardinal Desmond Connell, to look up the criminal file on "Fr Edmondus" in the secret diocesan file. Bishop Moriarty confessed that with the benefit of hindsight he now accepted that when a Dublin auxiliary Bishop from 1991-2002 he "should have challenged the prevailing culture". "I know that any action now on my part does not take away the suffering that people have endured," said a contrite Bishop Moriarty, again apologising to all the survivors and their families when announcing he had offered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI. Although this means that his P45 has to be processed before it is stamped by the Holy Father -- and he remains bishop until then -- Moriarty hoped his departure "honours the truth that the survivors have so bravely uncovered and opens the way to a better future for all concerned". Today is exactly the fourth week since the publication of Murphy. It is one week on since Rome authorised the demob-happy Murray's re-grading as an emeritus bishop. It is the day after Moriarty fast-tracked his resignation ahead of its inevitable acceptance in the papal Bolletino. However, EP's purple-coloured symptoms are still detectable like a blistering sore rash in the continued protestations of three other bishops named in the Murphy report, Martin Drennan, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field. They say they did no wrong while working in the service of the Archdiocese of Dublin and see no reason to get off the clerical pitch. THIS is clear clinical evidence of an even more advanced form of addiction than "ecclesiagenic pathology". It is an instance of a variant called "episcopalgenic pathology". Crudely, it is called: "No way am I derobing my episcopal frock." It is a dangerous strain of EP, one which, if prolonged, can only be cured by a robust intervention of arsenic from the Pope's own physician. Such a treatment is very painful indeed and one which can often inevitably result in fatality. To avoid such a messy end, Bishops Drennan, Walsh and Field should follow Murray and Moriarty by announcing their intention to go quietly. They are stuck in a cul-de-sac and should retreat with as much grace as they can. A sign of the sea change in attitudes to bishops is the call from the two reform crusaders editing 'The Irish Catholic' newspaper, Garry O'Sullivan and Michael Kelly, that now is the time for the rest of the bishops who have made any serious mistakes over the last 20 years to resign before the State investigates them. This would lead to the resignations of Bishop Seamus Hegarty of Derry, (formerly head of Raphoe) and Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe, who has admitted he made mistakes. Once again, we have to recall Dr Watson's advice to Sherlock Holmes as to why the dog has not barked in the night. That dog is the terrier of them all -- Cardinal Desmond Connell. His Eminence was at the top of what American canon lawyer Fr Tom Doyle has called the worst pile, internationally, of paedophile priest cover-ups. Cardinal Connell, who lied under the pretext of "mental reservation", should honour the birth of the Child Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem 2010 years ago by handing back his Red Hat and Scarlet robes to the Pope before retreating to a penitential monastery for his very own EP cure.
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