Pre-2003 Bishops Should All Quit Fr Twomey, by Michael Kelly, Irish Catholic, July 21, 2011

"Pre-2003 Bishops Should All Quit" - Fr Twomey

By Michael Kelly
Irish Catholic
July 21, 2011

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/pre-2003-bishops-should-all-quit-fr-twomey

Senior theologian Fr Vincent Twomey has called on Cardinal Sean Brady and all Irish bishops appointed before 2003 to quit to make way for much-needed reform and renewal in Irish Catholicism.

Fr Twomey (left), retired professor of moral theology at Maynooth, said he felt that all bishops appointed before Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was sent to Dublin as coadjutor archbishop in 2003 should resign.

''We need new leaders, we need new bishops,'' he said this week, admitting he was ''incandescent with rage'' at the extent of abuse and subsequent mishandling in the Diocese of Cloyne.

Fr Twomey's radical proposal would mean that only seven of Ireland's current 28 members of the bishops' conference would remain on the episcopal bench and would give the Pope a free hand in reshaping the current creaking structures of the Church in Ireland.

The call comes as pressure is mounting on the State to withdraw proposals that could see priests imprisoned for preserving the seal of the confessional.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter has unveiled plans that would threaten priests who do not reveal information about alleged abuse they may hear in the confessional with imprisonment, breaching centuries of acknowledgement by civil authorities of the inviolability of the seal.

Archbishop Martin has appealed to the Government to take such concerns seriously. The confessional seal, he said, was ''something that belongs in the Catholic tradition for many, many centuries''.

''It's respected in the legislation of many countries and many republics. I think that that should not be overlooked,'' he said.

Ian Elliott, head of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) also appealed to the Government to avoid conflict on the issue insisting that an accommodation should be found to preserve the sacramental seal.

Writing in this newspaper, Dr Kurt Martens, Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington DC notes that ''if the seal of Confession is under siege, then so is one of the seven sacraments, and therefore the fundaments of the Church are touched upon.

Continued on #Page 2'Bishops should quit' -- Father Twomey

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''This is not purely an internal affair: the essence of religious freedom is likewise at stake, because the Church is threatened in her very essence of her existence,'' Dr Martens insists.

Meanwhile, The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), which represents hundreds of Irish priests, has insisted that the seal must be preserved.

Fr P.J. Madden, spokesman for the ACP, has warned that the sacramental seal of Confession is ''above and beyond all else'' and should not be broken even if a penitent confesses to a crime.

Fr Madden said he would strongly urge and appeal to the penitent -- whether a priest or anyone else -- to confess a crime to the police and have the civil aspect dealt with, but that he did not approve of the idea of reporting what was said.

''If I'm breaking the law, then somebody has to find a way to address that for me, but in my own right, as a priest, what I understand is the seal of Confession is above and beyond all else,'' he said.

''The seal of Confession is a very sacred seal for lots of different reasons, way beyond this one single issue, however serious this one single issue is,'' Fr Madden insisted.