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	Why I Have a Problem with the Church Let's Start with the Arrogant Denial, Contempt and Neglect of Its Abuse Victims, Says Emer O'Kelly Irish Independent February 21, 2010 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/why-i-have-a-problem-with-the-church-2072622.html IRELAND -- ASMALL boy with a snub nose and a devilish grin has just finished serving Mass and benediction. He and his mate have had a silent competition in recent weeks to see who could swing the thurible the highest without tipping the smoking incense on to the altar floor. He's quietly confident that this morning's performance will declare him the winner. The priest has removed his vestments, and comes over to him. For a moment, the little boy is terrified the priest has copped on to the competition. But, "I've something to show you," the priest says, and takes the boy from the vestry to the space behind the altar. When he turns to the boy, his trousers are unzipped, and he takes the small right hand and he starts to groan, the sound a blasphemy in the empty church. The small boy is very silent for the rest of the day. He wets his bed that night. Those groans, and the little boy's nightmares, have been repeated thousands of times in thousands of places for thousands of people over the years, in a crescendo of shame on the one side, and a pit of despair and terror on the other. They should have been pounding in the heads of the men meeting in Rome during the week, rather than the florid Church claptrap of damage limitation ... and the obscene throwaway remark that the Pope "might" get around to meeting the Irish victims of his priests "at some time in the future". Yes, it's understandable that Pope Benedict should shrink in shame from having to look those men and women in the face, knowing what they have suffered, but the remark is still an obscene piece of cowardice. Yet there are people who write to this newspaper when I write of it, wanting to know what my problem is with the Roman Catholic Church. My problem is with people who think that we shouldn't spell out the details of what happened to the children at the hands of their tormenters, that it's better "left to the imagination". My problem is that people do not have the imagination: they don't hear and see the blasphemy of the abuse, its groans of perverted pleasure, and the agonised weeping of the violated children. My problem is losing count of the number of times Bishop Denis Brennan of Ferns said, "I understand," on Morning Ireland on Wednesday. My problem is with a member of the diplomatic corps -- Papal Nuncio Giuseppe Leanza -- still holding his office after refusing to attend when summoned to appear before an Oireachtas Committee, instead of being expelled as unacceptable to this sovereign State for his contempt of our parliamentary procedures. My problem is with my idiot fellow citizens thinking that the panoply of Vatican State that was paraded for the cameras on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week was merely a thoughtless public relations disaster for the Church of Rome. My problem is that it was a deliberate, carefully orchestrated gesture of contempt for anyone who dares criticise the masters of the Church of Rome. My problem is that, according to Bishop Joseph Duffy, Pope Benedict did all the listening, and the Irish bishops did all the talking. "He's a marvellous listener," we were told. My problem is that the Papal job should have been to issue furious orders of reparation and abasement, not to listen to a bunch of self-regarding, self-pitying human beings worrying about their ruined credibility and only about that. My problem is the warm welcome Benedict was photographed giving to Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway, instead of telling him briefly that he awaited his letter of resignation. My problem is with a Vatican statement which describes criminal cover-ups and assisting criminal perverts to evade the law as "errors of judgement". My problem is Benedict daring to speak of a "weakening of faith" as being the cause of the abuse of children. My problem is that it seemed to suggest that if children failed to say their prayers morning and evening, they should expect to be molested. My problem is the oblique Papal criticism of the man who frequently appears to be the only senior Irish Church figure deserving to wear a bishop's collar: Diarmuid Martin. The bishops, according to the Pope, must learn to "speak with one voice". They do, to condemn the dissenter in their ranks, Diarmuid Martin. My problem is that the Pope was implying that Dr Martin's dissenting voice should be silenced. My problem is that the unified voice of his fellows seems to be aimed at isolating Dr Martin's pastoral compassion for the tears of the abused, rather than perpetuating into old age even more abuse through arrogant denial and neglect of the men and women who first cried themselves to sleep in pain and terror when they were small children. My problem is that so many otherwise good people have such numbed sensibilities that they can go into a church without feeling sick. Those are some of my problems with the Catholic Church.
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