The Moral Revolt of Irish Priests, by Giacomo Galeazzi, Vatican Insider, October 2, 2011

The Moral Revolt of Irish Priests

By Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican Insider
October 2, 2011

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/news/detail/articolo/irlanda-ireland-pedofilia-paedophilia-preti-priest-sacerdotes-8568/

IRISH CATHOLICS IN CHURCH

The Association of Catholic priests has made an appeal to Rome against bishops who covered up abuse and asks for a comparison of opinions on celibacy

A fight against abuse, priestly celibacy and transparency in the Church. In Ireland, the Association of Catholic priests will meet between 4 and 5 October to draft a memorandum of requests to be addressed to the Holy. Amongst its speakers, there will be three priests who are emblems of the protest against the Church hierarchies: the Austrian Helmut Schüller, the American Bernard Survil and the Irishman Tony Flannery. The Church hierarchy is being accused primarily of coming up with an inadequate solution to the urgent paedophilia crisis in the clergy. Added to this, is the appeal to the Vatican to review the rule of obligatory celibacy for priests.

Other items on the agenda include working towards "a full implementation of the vision on the Second Vatican Council's teachings, with a particular focus on the importance of individual conscience, on the status and the active participation of all baptized Catholics, and on the task of creating a Church where all believers are treated equally. Further items to be focused on are the restructuring of the Church's governing system, so that all our gifts can be brought together, the wisdom and experience of the entire community of faithful, women and men, encouraging a culture of discussion and transparency, particularly in the nomination of ecclesiastical leaders; a re-evaluation of the Catholic teachings on sexuality, in recognition of the deep mystery of human sexuality."

The Association of Catholic Priests' initiative is the third attempt to coordinate the thoughts and actions of Irish priests since the Sixties. Indeed, the Association of Irish Priests ran out of steam at the beginning of the '70s pressuring the Country's bishops to establish the National Conference of Priests of Ireland in 1975. This was closed in 2007 after being ignored for years by the hierarchy. Today, there is hope for a greater success, also given the difficult situation the Irish Church has been in as a result of the massive sexual abuse scandal involving members of the clergy and other figures linked to the Church. Brendan Hoban, one of the Association's founders, explained that its intention was not to represent all Irish priests, but only those who formed part of its programme; and it would appear that these individuals are more than expected.

The organization intends to have "a forum and a voice to reflect, discuss and comment on Church related topics and Irish society today." One of its objectives is to contest the new English translation of the missal. A translation which, Hoban affirms, is "excessively complex and too Latinate", and written with very little previous consultation. A translation which no one seems to want: "It is an example of the Church trying to straighten out things that are of little importance rather than dealing with issues that really matter." Many priests in Ireland feel bitterness and disappointment with regards to the current situation in the Irish Church, but have also expressed their hope for the future."

The clergy is becoming aware of the necessity for a serious and genuine dialogue for the sake of change. With regards to the cover up of paedophilia cases, the Association of priests was inspired by a 2.600 page report issued in May 2009 by the inquiry commission on the abuse of minors, which condemned the abuse suffered by many children who were being hosted by bodies that were financed by the State and managed mainly by the Catholic Church. The report is based on statements given by victims and individuals who had worked in more than 250 of these institutions. It also claims that the cases of molestation and rape were "endemic", especially in youth institutes.

"A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and whimsical punishment, permeated the majority of institutions, all of them hosting males. Every day, children lived in fear, not knowing when they were going to be abused next," the text condemned. The report revealed that inspectors from the department of education rarely visited the institutions, managers were warned of these visits in advance and they generally did not speak with the children guests.

The inquiry commission in charge of investigating into the abuse of minors was set up on 23 May 2000 and had three main tasks: "to listen to the declarations of abuse from individuals who claimed they had suffered abuse during their childhood in the institutions from 1940 or before up until today; to conduct an inquiry into the abuse against minors in the institutions during that period, and if it transpired that they had taken place, determine the causes, the nature, the circumstances and the degree of abuse; to prepare and publish reports on the results of the inquiry and on the recommendations for dealing with the effects of this abuse." The institutions referred to are schools, professional schools, reformatories, orphanages, hospitals, children's homes and any other establishment where the individuals looking after children were not family members. In total, 30.000 children were hosted and the remaining institutions stopped functioning during the '90s.

In November 2009, the Archbishop of Dublin asked to be pardoned for covering up cases of pederasty which took place over the years in the Irish Church. "No excuse will ever be enough" to apologise for the sexual abuse against children and adolescents by priests in Dublin's Archdiocese," Monsignor Diarmuid Martin said when commenting on the conclusions of the Murphy Report, an inquiry into the Archdiocese's concealment of over 300 cases of abuse committed by more than 40 priests over a period of about 30 years. The Report published by the Irish Government's Department of Justice, reveals how the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities covered up cases of abuse for decades, with the help of civil authorities. Concretely, the report accuses Dublin's archbishops and auxiliary bishops of archiving abuse complaints against priests, during the '60s, '70s and '80s, so that they never reached the courts. It has also been stated that police authorities kept the complaints within the Diocese instead of launching investigations into them. Monsignor Martin affirmed that even though the report "gives a sense of the seriousness of the crimes that took place, it cannot show the suffering and the trauma experienced by the children involved, neither can it express their families' suffering. No words can express how I feel."

The Report accuses ecclesiastical authorities of "not applying most of their own canonical laws" in the treatment of the abuse cases: "in the mid 20th century, canonical law seemed to have fallen into disuse." Monsignor Martin said it was "discouraging" to see that while Church leaders did not recognise the serious nature of the abuse, "almost all of the parents that went to inform the diocese about what had happened, understood the horror of the events very clearly." The main objective was almost always that of "gaining assurance that what had happened to their children or to them did not happen to other children." Cardinal Séan Brady, President of the Irish Episcopal Conference, Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, stated he was ashamed and hurt by the results of the inquiry."