Dr Martin Should Not Despair - Mary Kenny

Irish Catholic
March 8, 2012

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/dr-martin-should-not-despair-mary-kenny

I sometimes worry a little about Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Is he taking his worries too much to heart?

(In the Church of the Middle Ages, older women used to go around giving advice to ecclesiastics, including the Pope, so if I may, I will exercise that traditional prerogative.)

He said last Sunday that the Catholic Church in Ireland is "at breaking point". He emphasised that this was, in great part, due to the clerical scandals, and he went on to stress that they are not over, and indeed, he opined that the story will never be over in our lifetimes.

I know how seriously he took the evidence of these clerical scandals.

I know how "sickened" he was to read some of the reports that were put before him. Meeting the victims was an extremely upsetting experience for him.

And we all perfectly understand why he seems sometimes on the brink of despair.

Speaking for myself, anger as well. I sometimes feel that if I could get hold of some of these abusers, I'd feel like having them horsewhipped.

Apart from the damage they have done to their victims, they have come pretty darn close to destroying the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Dr Martin carries the cares and consequences of this catastrophe upon his shoulders, and small wonder he feels the Irish church is almost broken.

And yet, he should not despair. The Church may be hobbled, but the Faith is not broken. The Faith is still there, on deposit, and it only needs to be lifted up again through grace -- and good leadership.

The controversial writer Eoghan Harris often alludes to the importance of "good authority" in the conduct of human affairs, a principle which derives from Aristotle.

Because we have reacted against 'authoritarianism' -- the dictatorial use of authority which calls for mindless obedience and squashes dissidence -- we think 'authority' is a bad concept.

But good authority, which is earned through respect and leadership, is absolutely necessary. No human organisation can succeed without it.

To Archbishop Martin falls the responsibility of assuming this 'good authority', to restore the Church by building on the Faith.

He must be firm about the errors of the past, but he can, and should, look to the future with hope.

Death of an ardent Catholic

Lord St John of Fawsley, who died this week aged 82, was best known in Britain as an expert on the British constitution, and as a former member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet.

He nicknamed her Attila the Hen and she famously announced to the cabinet that he took longer to change his costume than she did -- he was something of a dandy.

Half-Irish (his mother was Kitty O'Connor) and half-Greek by parentage, Norman St John Stevas, as he was known before his ennoblement, was an ardent Catholic, and wrote a very good book about the encyclical Humanae Vitae, simply called On Human Life.

If you ever see it in a book sale, or in a library, get it: it is the clearest and most logical treatise on that famously controversial encyclical, which, after much agonising, came out against artificial contraception.

I thought Humanae Vitae came to the wrong conclusion when it first appeared in 1968 (and the papal advisers were within an ace of sanctioning the Pill, in particular, since that contraceptive did not constitute a physical barrier between spouses).

Only some years later did I read Norman's book, and it struck me as brilliant.

It also brought home how poetic and romantic Humanae Vitae was, with its lofty ideals about the beauty of conjugal love.

Norman -- whom I knew slightly and he was always kind to me -- was colourful and witty. Someone once said to him: "Norman, you're such a name-dropper." He replied: "Funny, that's just what the Queen Mother said to me yesterday!"

He always described himself as "unmarried" and it was assumed by others that he was a gay man.

Yet he always insisted he was a celibate, and, indeed, chaste.

Sometimes the theatricality of his lifestyle overshadowed the fact that he was very knowledgeable, clever and, in the political field, quite sensible.

Maggie fired him for being a "wet" -- not solidly Tory enough.

Bless his memory.