(UNITED KINGDOM)
NewsLetter [Belfast, UK]
March 15, 2025
By Alf McCreary
There was much media coverage some months ago about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby over his failure to deal adequately with the notorious Anglican child abuser John Smyth who was not formally reported to the police, and allowed to continue with his appalling activities. Smyth died unpunished before the law caught up with him.
Welby was right to resign but there are more senior Anglican figures who knew about Smyth and other abusers, and the story is far from over. It is being kept alive particularly by Channel 4 News which first outed Smyth, and more headline-making resignations may follow in the fulness of time.
This kind of scandal, of course, is not confined to one denomination, and a new book by Patsy McGarry, the distinguished former religion editor of the Irish Times, is a reminder of the widespread child sexual abuse in the Irish Roman Catholic Church in recent decades. These shocking revelations led to the virtual unravelling of the church itself.
There was much media coverage some months ago about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby over his failure to deal adequately with the notorious Anglican child abuser John Smyth who was not formally reported to the police, and allowed to continue with his appalling activities. Smyth died unpunished before the law caught up with him.
Welby was right to resign but there are more senior Anglican figures who knew about Smyth and other abusers, and the story is far from over. It is being kept alive particularly by Channel 4 News which first outed Smyth, and more headline-making resignations may follow in the fulness of time.
This kind of scandal, of course, is not confined to one denomination, and a new book by Patsy McGarry, the distinguished former religion editor of the Irish Times, is a reminder of the widespread child sexual abuse in the Irish Roman Catholic Church in recent decades. These shocking revelations led to the virtual unravelling of the church itself.
This is a timely and important book titled ‘Well, Holy God’ by a very good journalist who played a significant role in exposing the evils within the Irish Catholic Church and also the desperate and unedifying attempts by senior clerical figures – some at the highest levels – to cover up the wrongs in order to protect the reputation of the institution at all costs.
Mr McGarry gives an almost blow-by-blow account of the way in which successive senior clerics failed to realise that in modern Ireland, with a strongly investigative media, the continuing attempts by the Catholic Church to shape society to meet its own ends was blatantly anachronistic.
Sadly the institution had to be dragged reluctantly amid its self-centred protests into the 21st century to face the harsh truths and judgments of a society which had already been liberated from Catholic clerical domination and where people were able to think for themselves.
Mr McGarry also gives a very moving account of the disgraceful way in which young single mothers were treated by priests and nuns, and the horrors of the Magdalene Laundries and other Catholic-run institutions.
He also reminds us of the way in which so-called “fallen women” with a child born out of wedlock were treated so harshly and unlovingly by the Catholic Church, and by many of the laity.
They included an aunt of his, and her story so sensitively told by the author reminded me of the painful challenges of my own background in being born out of wedlock in Northern Ireland at a time when children like me were cruelly referred to as “illegitimate” – how could any human being be described as illegitimate?
There is much more to Mr McGarry’s book as he describes elegantly his Catholic upbringing in rural County Roscommon, which was not unlike mine in a Presbyterian family in South Armagh.
His flowing narrative, including the discrimination suffered by many Protestants in the new Irish State, is also a sad reminder of the post-partition apartheid on this island which sowed the seeds of so much misunderstanding, including that of the present day.
The extensive Catholic child sex abuse scandals in the north are also a depressing matter of record, but Protestants up here who read this book will learn much about the extent of the scandals and the human misery which they created across the border.
Patsy McGarry also reveals the strenuous physical and other challenges of his religion brief, including the coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland in 2018, and he is critical of the Drumcree stand-offs where he argues that the main institutions involved were clearly unable to stop the situation spiralling out of control.
One of the ironies of the book is that Mr McGarry grew up as a devout believer who wanted to be a priest but later lost his faith and vocation long before he helped to bring the child sex and other abuses in the Catholic Church to light.
He admits frankly: “I arrived at the foothills of adulthood … a priest without a Church, a believer without a God.”
All the more credit to him therefore for producing a forensic and searingly honest book which is required reading by anyone from north or south who wants to learn more about the real Ireland of today.
l ‘Well, Holy God, My Life as an Irish, Catholic, Agnostic Correspondent’ by Patsy McGarry is published by Merrion Press and costs £17.99.
l Alf McCreary is a former religion correspondent and longstanding writer for the Belfast Telegraph. He is also author of ‘Keeping the Faith’, published by Messenger Publications