Ireland

In the Beginning Are Words

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, Pope Benedict, repentance, Responsibility, Vatican 9 Comments Tags: , , ,

Although words are not everything, they are a beginning, especially if they reveal the heart. Perhaps we can take some hope from these words of Pope Benedict: 

In terms of what we today can discover in this message, attacks against the Pope or the Church do not only come from outside; rather the sufferings of the Church come from within, from the sins that exist in the Church. This too has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way: the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from enemies on the outside, but is born from the sin within the church, the Church therefore has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the need for justice. Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice. 

Grace is not cheap; it costs the death of Christ, and our participation in it means that we too must die, in one way or another, and death is rarely pleasant.

 

Archbishop Diarmuid of Martin of Dublin said that when he read through the reports of abuse, he threw them on the floor in despair. He sees that true repentance had not occurred in the Church in Ireland. 

Why am I discouraged?  The most obvious reason is the drip-by-drip never-ending revelation about child sexual abuse and the disastrous way it was handled.   There are still strong forces which would prefer that the truth did not emerge.  The truth will make us free, even when that truth is uncomfortable.  There are signs of subconscious denial on the part of many about the extent of the abuse which occurred within the Church of Jesus Christ in Ireland and how it was covered up.  There are other signs of rejection of a sense of responsibility for what had happened.  There are worrying signs that despite solid regulations and norms these are not being followed with the rigour required.

 

Renewal of the Church requires participation and responsible participation.  I have spoken about the need for accountability regarding the scandal of sexual abuse.  I am struck by the level of disassociation by people from any sense of responsibility.  While people rightly question the concept of collective responsibility, this does not mean that one is not responsible for one’s personal share in the decisions of the collective structures to which one was part.

 

I am surprised at the manner in which Church academics and Church publicists can today calmly act as pundits on the roots of the sexual abuse scandals in the Church as if they were totally extraneous to the scandal.  Where did responsibility lie for a culture of seminary institutions which produced both those who abused and those who mismanaged the abuse?  Where were the pundit-publicists while a Church culture failed to recognise what was happening?  

Where indeed? With the bishops and who cardinals blamed the Freemasons, the Jews, the New York Times, the tort attorneys, the psychologists, the victims – Anything to avoid the hard road of self-knowledge, repentance, and conversion.

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A Papal Disappointment

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, repentance, Responsibility, Vatican 7 Comments Tags: , ,

Benedict’s letter on sexual abuse, addressed to the Church in Ireland, has disappointed almost everyone.

Confession that is a requirement of repentance involves confessing the whole truth and a desire to make reparation.

Benedict makes some dubious assertions, half-truths at best. He claims that a misunderstanding of Vatican II led to a neglect of the penal aspects of the code of canon law. This may have happened, but what explains the toleration of abuse before Vatican II? From the American cases I have read the usual response of a bishop before Vatican II was to pawn an abusive priest off on an unsuspecting bishop, who was then stuck with him

The sexual liberation of the 1960s seems to have led to an increase of abuse cases; but this may be an illusion of reporting. Victims in older cases may have died and the files of abusive priests were generally destroyed on the death of the abuser. And terrible abuse occurred before the 1960s, and later abuser were trained in pre-1960s seminaries.

Benedict acknowledges the failures of the bishops – but proposes no consequences for them. Cardinal Law remains a cardinal and serves on important dicasteries – all of these at the pleasure of the pope.

And Benedict totally ignores any Vatican responsibility in the toleration of abuse.

At the very least, it was clear that the bureaucratic requirements of sending as case to the Vatican were daunting to many bishops. The Vatican returned cases so that every i would be dotted and every t crossed. Bishops got the clear impression that the Vatican did not want to see these cases. Was the impression mistaken?

Cases were also surrounded by pontifical secrecy. That is, anyone who revealed any aspect of the trial would be excommunicated. The Vatican now claims this was not intended to prevent church authorities from reporting abuse to state agencies. But it certainly had that effect. Again, American (and other) bishops and chancery officials got the impression that the Vatican did not want them to make abuse cases public. Was this impression inadvertent and mistaken? I do not think so. The Vatican’s desire to maintain a bella figura is well know, and I have not seen one scrap of evidence that bishops were ever asked if they had fulfilled their legal duty (in some states) to report abuse. In fact, Msgr. Scicluna’s recent remarks make it clear that the Vatican does not want bishops to report abusive priests to state authorities unless the bishops are legally required to do so.

The Code of Canon Law also has no consideration for victims. This was a lack, and I have seen no attempts to correct it.

In the most generous interpretation, the Vatican inadvertently contributed to the toleration of sexual abuse. Benedict should have acknowledged at least that, but he did not do so. Either he is maintaining a willful blindness about the Vatican’s own responsibility in tolerating abuse, or he fears that acknowledging responsibility would open up the Vatican to lawsuits.

There has been no full confession; therefore there is no true repentance.

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Ireland and the Pope

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, Vatican 9 Comments Tags: , ,

Pope Benedict and the Irish bishops have issued a communiqué. 

For his part, the Holy Father observed that the sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image. 

 The Holy Father also pointed to the more general crisis of faith affecting the Church and he linked that to the lack of respect for the human person and how the weakening of faith has been a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors.

 Good words, but only words.

 Although Benedict has acted more strongly against priest-abusers than any pope since Pius V, he has not really acted against bishops who have abused or against bishops who have tolerated abuse. 

Bishops who have committed sexual abuse remain bishops: they could be laicized, like Bishop Fernando Lugo of Paraguay was when he was elected president But these criminal bishops remain bishops “in good standing” in the Church. 

Cardinal Law was given a luxurious post in Rome and sits on my important committees. A few Irish bishops have been forced to resign because of public outrage, but of all the bishops who have tolerated sexual abuse, only a handful have suffered any consequences beyond having to issue apologies written by their lawyers. 

Having read hundreds of cases, I wonder whether many of the abusers are atheists, in fact whether some of the bishops are atheists. It is hard to imagine a believer who thought he would stand before the judgment of God who would enact, tolerate, and enable such blasphemous sacrileges. 

It would not be the first time the clergy and hierarchy was riddled with unbelief –  the weakness of faith in the French clergy of the 18th century was unmasked by the Revolution.

 

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The Truth That Is Too Hard To Bear

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland 1 Comment Tags: , ,

The situation was similar in the U.S. Rudy Kos in Dallas thought the hierarchy would protect him as it had protected the other molesters with whom he shared rectories. 

Brendan O’Connor in The Independent: 

It is now clear that one of the functions served by the Catholic Church in Ireland was that of a club. It was a national club for paedophiles. Clearly, for decades in Ireland, those in the know were aware that if you had certain sick inclinations, the Catholic Church was the place for you. Not only would it offer you access to little boys and girls, not only would it put you in a position of trust with gullible families, but you would also be protected if anything went wrong. So you had the physical access. And you also had reasonable cover because of the special status innocent parents and God-fearing children afforded you. This meant you were unlikely to be questioned or complained about.

But on top of all that you had a whole structure in place that would protect you at all costs, that would move you out of any situation that became dangerous for you or where anything threatened your ability to access children. You would be sent to fresh hunting grounds if there was any hint of trouble or if word got around that people should keep their kids away from you. And the icing on the cake was that this structure, this hierarchy that would protect you above all other considerations, inspired fear and awe among everyone from gardai to government. So your habit was fed and you were untouchable.

What wouldn’t a paedophile pay for a lifetime subscription to this club? No wonder the Church was a magnet for sickos. And you were surrounded by patsies in the form of good priests and good Catholics who gave your whole game a gilt-edged reputation.

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Is Anger Ever Justified?

in anger, clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland 5 Comments Tags: , ,

The late Father Richard Neuhaus of First Things was upset by my book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. He thought that there was no justification for the level of anger I felt. He preferred the detached, scholarly approach that Nicholas Cafardi took in Before Dallas: The U.S. Bishops’ Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children. Cafardi discussed the canonical approaches to handling abuse. 

The Irish people are getting a dose of reality as they are learning of the reality of the abuse that archbishops and popes let go on. I have read hundreds of cases like Mary Raferty reports in the Irish Times:

THERE IS one searing, indelible image to be found in the pages of the Dublin diocesan report on clerical child abuse. It is of Fr Noel Reynolds, who admitted sexually abusing dozens of children, towering over a small girl as he brutally inserts an object into her vagina and then her back passage.

That object is his crucifix.

The report details how this man was left as parish priest of Glendalough (and in charge of the local primary school) for almost three years after parents had complained about him to former archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell during the 1990s.

And Neuhaus wondered why I was angry. Such matters are so distasteful. Matters of public policy are much more refined and suitable to be discussed by clerics who fo not like to be troubled by what has gone on in the church they serve.

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Are there Exceptions to the Law against Lying?

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, Moral Theology, Vatican, Voluntarism 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

The question of lying is a vexed one in moral theology. 

Lying is wrong. But in every situation? 

The classic modern example: the Nazis come to you and ask if you know where the hidden Jews are. You do, but you lie and save a life. 

But it is never right to do evil that good may come of it (see St. Paul). 

Are there exceptions to the moral law? Is the moral law simply a matter of God’s will from which he can exempt us? Are the voluntarists right?

 Or is lying like theft? 

The world is given by God not to individual man but to mankind to support life. God respects the arrangements about property that we make, but it is not an act of theft for a starving man to take bread from someone who does not need it and refuses to give it to him. 

In 1946 German children were freezing to death. Was it allowed to steal coal from trains?

In his New Year’s Eve sermon, Cardinal Frings reassures a cold and hungry population that, in God’s eyes, there’s no real harm in stealing a bit of coal.

The Catholics of Cologne develop great fondness for their people’s cardinal. From now on his name enters the local dialect as a verb: “fringsen” means to steal coal. Ever since, the man of God is often invoked when the locals have to get the essentials of life by hook or by crook.

Frings applied the principal of the purpose of property and decided that to take coal to keep children from freezing to death was not theft.

What is a lie? Is it to utter a falsehood in any circumstance or is it to withhold the truth from someone who is not entitled to know it? Normally we are entitled to know the truth, but not always.

Archbishops thought that parents and police were not entitled to know the truth about abusive priests. They knew that the information would be used to protect children, but it would also hurt the careers and reputation of clerics. Nothing, in the Archbishops’ eyes, was more important than a priest. This is false. If the Archbishops had not told the truth to protect children from abusers, they would not have done wrong. But they told falsehoods to protect abusers who were hurting children.

 This is beyond comprehension, unless one has encountered the arrogant clericalism that sees the priest as the most important person in the universe, infinitely more important than the soul of an innocent child. That clericalism is still very much with us, despite all the public relations blather that bishop are pitting out at the insistence of their lawyer.

The Vatican did not bother to answer that the Irish Commission sent asking for clarification of official church documents. The Vatican bureaucrats couldn’t be bothered. The Irish Times reports

Letters sent by the Commission of Investigation to the Vatican and to the papal nuncio in Ireland seeking information were ignored, the report has disclosed.

The commission wrote to the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Pope Benedict had been head until April 2005, in September 2006.

It was asking for information on the document `Crimen Solicitationis’, which dealt with clerical sex abuse, as well as information on reports of clerical child sexual abuse conveyed to it by the Dublin archdiocese over the relevant period.

The Vatican did not reply. Instead it contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs stating that the commission had not gone through appropriate diplomatic channels.

The commission said that as a body independent of Government, it did not consider it appropriate for it to use diplomatic channels.

In February 2007, the commission wrote to the papal nuncio in Dublin asking that he forward to it all documents in his possession which might be relevant to it and which had not been or were not produced by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. It also requested that he confirm it if he had no such documents. The papal nuncio did not reply.

Earlier this year, the commission again wrote to the papal nuncio enclosing extracts from its draft report which referred to him and his office, as it was required to do. Again, there was no reply.

The silence of the grave.

 

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President Clinton and the Catholic Church

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, Moral Theology 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

President Clinton went to Georgetown Law. Apparently he picked up one element of Catholic doctrine and practice. 

About Lewinsky, he famously said “I did not have sex with that woman.”  But it all depends what you mean by sex. 

The Irish Times, in “Church Lied without Lying,” details the Catholic justification for and practice of such weaseliness, aka “mental reservation.”

Cardinal Desmond Connell had explained the concept to the commission as follows:

“Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realizing that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying. It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen. So mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.”

Example of how they experienced the use of such ‘mental reservaton’ by Church authorities in Dublin were supplied to the commission by Mrs Collins and fellow abuse victim Andrew Madden.

In Mrs Collins’s case, the Dublin archdiocese said in a 1997 press statement that it had co-operated with gardai where her complaint of abuse was concerned. She was upset by it as she had reason to believe otherwise. Her support priest Fr James Norman made inquiries and later told gardaí he that when he did so, the archdiocese replied “we never said we co-operated fully” – placing emphasis on the word ‘fully’ – with the gardaí.

In Mr Madden’s case, Cardinal Connell emphasised he did not lie to the media about the use of diocesan funds for the compensation of clerical child sexual abuse victims.

He explained to Mr Madden he had told journalists “that diocesan funds ARE (report’s emphasis) not used for such a purpose; that he had not said that diocesan funds WERE not used for such a purpose. By using the present tense he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past. According to Mr Madden, Cardinal Connell considered that there was an enormous difference between the two.”

In May 1995, Cardinal Connell denied that diocesan funds were used in paying compensation to abuse victims. When it emerged on RTÉ in September that year that Ivan Payne was loaned €30,000 by the archdiocese to pay compensation to Mr Madden, Cardinal Connell still insisted this was not compensation by the archdiocese. He threatened to sue RTÉ, but did not do so.

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God Hardened Their Hearts

in clergy sex abuse scandal, clericalism, Ireland, Uncategorized 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

Father Gerald Fitzgerald in the 1950s and 1960s warned American bishops and Pope John XXIII and Paul Vi about abusers. A sample of his opinions: 

In a 1957 letter to an unnamed archbishop, Fitzgerald said, “These men, Your Excellency, are devils and the wrath of God is upon them and if I were a bishop I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary layization [sic].” The letter, addressed to “Most dear Cofounder,” was apparently to Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne of Santa Fe, N.M., who was considered a cofounder of the Paraclete facility at Jemez Springs and a good friend of Fitzgerald.

Later in the same letter, in language that revealed deep passion, he wrote: “It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the island retreat — but even an island is too good for these vipers of whom the Gentle Master said it were better they had not been born — this is an indirect way of saying damned, is it not?”

The response: Fitzgerald was removed as head of the order he had funded, which was then run by abusers and suspected murderers.

Father Edward Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, in 1946 returned to teh land of his birth and  warned the Irish about their reform schools. The Irish also would not listen.

But Fr. Flanagan was unhappy with what he found in Ireland. He was dismayed at the state of Ireland’s reform schools and blasted them as “a scandal, un-Christlike, and wrong.” And he said the Christian Brothers, founded by Edmund Rice, had lost its way.

Speaking to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork’s Savoy Cinema he said, “You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. You can do something about it.” He called Ireland’s penal institutions “a disgrace to the nation,” and later said “I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character.”

Flanagan  added

What you need over there [in Ireland] is to have someone shake you loose from your smugness and satisfaction and set an example by punishing those who are guilty of cruelty, ignorance and neglect of their duties in high places . . . I wonder what God’s judgment will be with reference to those who hold the deposit of faith and who fail in their God-given stewardship of little children.”

However, his words fell on stony ground. He wasn’t simply ignored. He was taken to pieces by the Irish establishment. The then-Minister for Justice Gerald Boland said in the Dáil that he was “not disposed to take any notice of what Monsignor Flanagan said while he was in this country, because his statements were so exaggerated that I did not think people would attach any importance.”

A hardened heart is deaf to the words of God; it is a stone which the Holy Spirit cannot touch – and many Catholics have this heart, and think that carrying outteh pope’s commands and obeying canon law assures their salvation as they let children be abused and tortured.

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