Commenting on the troubles of another community is always perilous and I tiptoe into this subject with some trepidation, begging my Irish readers for indulgence if I misunderstand their situation in any way. Still, the recalling of the Apostolic Nuncio makes this a matter of international significance and I hope that the thoughts of Timothy Joseph Patrick Finigan whose family settled in east London after the famine will not be entirely useless.
Back in 1992, when I was an assistant priest at Our Lady and St Philip Neri in Sydenham, I used to take Holy Communion each week to an elderly, devout and kindly Irish lady who always insisted that I stay for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. One week when I visited, she had the newspaper on the table with the recently broken story of Bishop Casey. I thought that I should gently broach the subject with her to offer some consolation. I will never forget the confusion, sadness, and sheer incomprehension on her face. She loved Christ, she loved her faith and she loved the Church. She just could not cope with the scandal.
Nineteen years on, the Casey affair has all but been forgotten as wave after wave of far more ghastly revelations have humiliated the Catholic Church in Ireland and given rise to a torrent of anti-clericalism of such ferocity that the Holy See has now felt it necessary to recall the Apostolic Nuncio. My goodness! I wonder what either Michael Collins or Éamon de Valera would have thought if you ever suggested that would happen.
As my dear mother used to drum into us: “two wrongs don’t make a right.” The anger at priests who have abused their sacred trust to harm children, and the proper indignation and contempt for the failure of Bishops to protect children does not justify the threat to criminalise priests for keeping the seal of confession (more about that here soon) or for the Prime Minister to engage in opportunistic grandstanding, lazily dragging in the Holy Father’s words, ripped cynically out of context to support an insulting attack on the Holy See.
It must be awful being a priest in Ireland at the moment. This week I will have the chance to talk to a young Irish priest on vacation in England and get his perspective. It is ironic to think that it must be a relief for him to be in the territory of the Crown for a couple of weeks. Fr Ray Blake and Fr Sean Finnegan (500 and 500b) have posted their own reflections on the situation which are well worth reading.
Against the background of the anti-Catholic hysteria that has greeted the Cloyne Report, the statement of Fr Lombardi is sober and statesmanlike. We do not excuse the abuse of little ones, nor the complicity of Bishops in failing to prevent it. It is quite proper that complacency, status-seeking, or cover-up should be a thing of the past. But it will not help children if the good work of so many Irish priests and nuns in the care of children over the years, the efforts of parish youth workers, and the Church’s support of the family should be ground into the dust in the name of protecting children.
My dear readers, let us pray for the Church in Ireland: first of all for the victims of abuse. But let us also pray for her priests. I know that some of them have gone for the silly, modernistic reaction that has failed dismally everywhere else, and is itself a part of the problem. (Fr Sean Finnegan puts it well in his 500b post.) Nevertheless, as Fr Sean acknowledges, on the whole these are surely good men trying to rescue the mission of the Church to bring Christ to a suffering people. At their hour of need, they should be sure of the love and support of Catholics around the world.
I headed up this post with a video of the hymn Hail Glorious St Patrick since his intercession is much needed. The third verse (not in the video) chimes in with the Holy Father's Letter to the Catholics of Ireland:
In the war against sin, in the fight for the faith,
Dear saint, may thy children resist unto death;
May their strength be in meekness, in penance, in prayer,
Their banner the cross which they glory to bear.
7 comments:
Excellent post, Father. The Cloyne Report has been communicated disgracefully in the media --- very few journalists and media commentators appear to have even read it.
One cannot reasonably and logically discuss this report now, in the middle of such impassioned fury. The passing of time will allow for a more objective and critical analysis.
Shane.
'The Taoiseach has accurately reflected the dismay and anger felt by many, many Catholics in Ireland. However, all of us, particularly political and religious leaders, have a responsibility now to take time to pause and reflect on the implications of the Cloyne report and the implications of the non implementation of guidelines and principles to which we have all signed up.'
+Noel Treanor, Bishop of Down and Connor (22/07/11).
This extract from the Confession of St Patrick may be of some relevance to aspects of the present crisis in Ireland:
27 'They brought up against me after thirty years an occurrence I had confessed before becoming a deacon. On account of the anxiety in my sorrowful mind, I laid before my close friend what I had perpetrated on a day - nay, rather in one hour - in my boyhood because I was not yet proof against sin. God knows - I do not - whether I was fifteen years old at the time, and I did not then believe in the living God, nor had I believed, since my infancy; but I remained in death and unbelief until I was severely rebuked, and in truth I was humbled every day by hunger and nakedness.'
Is it at all possible that one of the reasons for the tirade was to goad Rome into some kind of action? Which it has.
Were I in Ireland (as were some of my near ancestors) it would seem to me that, among the hierarchy, it is business as usual and I would be feeling very let down.
Maybe that's why there is general misunderstanding and incomprehension and I fear that the passing of time may leave it too late for Iris Catholicism to recover.
I may have missed it, but what has come out of the Visitation?
I am not advocating an episcopal blood-letting, rather one or two judicious actions from the Vatican pour encourager les autres
@ Father Finigan
SOS Vatican recalls envoy to Ireland after child abuse report http://uk.news.yahoo.com/vatican-recalls-envoy-ireland-child-abuse-report-092952343.html 999
Four years ago when I took Holy Communion with my son Michael on St Patrick's Day, during my first visit to St Mary's University College, Twickenham, Father Gerry Devlin's sermon taught me something that I didn't know, St Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland & NIGERIA too.
In the mid 1980's when Nelson Mandela was still residing in the segregation unit of a South African prison, I was appointed as the site surveyor for the Unity Project in the London Borough of Southwark. Pelican House was the site office for this Housing Works, Direct Labour Contract. I immediately added the Nigerian born UB 40 film producer Faith Isiakpere (later Channel 4 & BBC Black Britain too) to the team, and after completion of the building work I introduced Ezra Attia's interior designer Elaine Tomlinson to the project. Both of these black professionals were Addey & Stanhope Old Scholars like me and Adam Afriye the Windsor MP. The last I heard after Faith Isiakpere had completed The Children of Africa film with Mr Mandela, Stevie Wonder and Isaac Hayes etc was that he was working with UNICEF in South Africa.
As an idealistic newly qualified RICS surveyor just returning from a period of retreat at Mount Meleray in Ireland, the dream that I had the night before I started the UNITY project could only be interpreted and described as a BIG DREAM.
A SINNER'S DREAM OF MARY
When I was out a wandering upon the hills so green.
I spied myself a vision of a bright celestial Queen.
(Refrain)
A rosary,a rosary with rainbows all around.
A blood red cross she gave to me upon that hallowed ground.
She wore a crown of silver and in her arms she bore.
A child who was the future of mans peace and not of war.
(Refrain)
A rosary,a rosary with rainbows all around.
A blood red cross she gave to me upon that hallowed ground.
Corpus Christi woman was the lady that I saw.
Build inside she said to me mans inner self once more.
(Refrain)
A rosary,a rosary with rainbows all around.
A blood red cross she gave to me upon that hallowed ground.
ONE RACE THE HUMAN RACE SHOULD REMEMBER THAT THE DEFENDER'S OF IRELAND'S TRUE FAITH HAVE INSPIRED THE WORLD INSIDE 'n' OUT.
Our Lady of the Rosary ( http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2011/05/visit-to-tomb-of-blessed-john-paul-ii.html ) pray for us!
PAPA VERO ORA PRO NOBIS!
Yours sincerely
Roy Hobson aka Our Lady's "Vesper" ON-LINE +
ROY HOBSON FRICES1990, FRICS1984,Grad Dipl QS
Very welcome words, Father, with your characteristic balance and objectivity. The unrelenting media pogrom is very wearying, with what passes for the intellegentsia (i.e. the liberal establishment) in full and shrill warcry, and our sorry excuses for politicians jumping on the bandwagon, from the Great Helmsman down. The renowned political journalist, John Healy (RIP), used to comment on this as: "There goes the mob, I'm its leader, I must follow". I'd normally hesitate to even glance in the direction of the "Irish Independent" (roughly equivalent to the Daily Mail, but worse) except that my attention was drawn to the following article via Fr. Gabriel Burke's website:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-enda-kenny-leads-the-paisleyite-lynch-mob-2828363.html
Mr. Myers is a polemicist. He was formerly of the Irish Times for many years until a dispute some years ago forced him out - unfortunately to the "Indo". However he has an unerring eye for hypocrisy, and I think he hits the current outbreak bang-on centre.
It can have its lighter side. Last night, over a pint in my local after a good session in the gym I was engaged in conversation by someone who recognised me from the church choir and genuinely wanted to talk about the Church. I was bone weary but quickly realised he was a decent sort, if extremely confused. All the usual came out, the Dark Ages, the Inquisition ("oh really, which one?" says I - "Duh..."). Anyway, I ended up staying for a bit longer than I had intended but we had a good conversation and the upshot is that I'm lending him Rodney Stark's book "The Victory of Reason".
Brick by brick, as someone says :)
I don't see anti-Catholic hysteria in this but a blaze of righteous indignation against an Institution that has been infected with perversion and conspiracy. The Institution, as a society of humans, looks shamefully close to a ring of facilitation. From some points of view, it is not merely a question of an individual pervert here, a weak administrator here but a large-scale, widespread action or inaction by the Institution as a society of humans. Even ++Martin, seemingly a man of honest courage, speaks in private and public but can or will do nothing.
Would anybody wish to see such a ring of facilitation running 90% of schools (with instances of paedophile managers threatening the principal with witholding of pay if they do not hand over the children) or giving them special exemptions of law beyond what is granted to any other Institution?
I don't want you to think that I cannot look with the eyes of faith on the Church of Christ. I just want you to see things as these others may see them. Their eyes are not the eyes of faith but that is partly because those eyes are blinded by tears.
Two wrongs don't make a right but we should do the right as a reply to the wrong, not just dismiss it.
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