Speaking For The Church

Not only has the role of the Catholic Church changed dramatically in Ireland's increasingly secularised society, the traditional notions of respect have also been overthrown. A priest can no longer expect to be saluted by passers-by as he walks along the street: it is more likely he could be subjected to verbal abuse. "There is a lot of anger out there," says Father Martin Clarke, whose recent appointment as spokesperson for the Bishops Conference is soon to be formally announced. Members of the religious in general are being targeted for offences committed by a minority. According to Father Clarke, this current anti-clerical feeling is widespread. "A priest after Mass at the Pro Cathedral, saying goodbye to the President or the American ambassador, and a group of kids standing across the street might shout `pervert' or other abuse at him . . ." The Irish Bishops Conference is one of the oldest in the world and the role of spokesman has, since it was first introduced in 1975, previously been filled by a bishop. Father Clarke is the first without that rank. He is also the first person to be appointed in a full-time capacity.

It is a difficult period for the church, the number of vocations is seriously down, faith is under pressure.

Father Clarke is a realist: he is also a former lawyer and worked as a solicitor in a busy Dublin practice for six years. Law has sharpened his analytical skills and his ability to think on his feet under pressure. Thirteen years spent as director of the Catholic Youth Council, meanwhile, brought him into daily contact with all the major social issues including homelessness, crime and drugs. He is more informed about the real Ireland than most lay people whose lives, whatever their liberal pretensions, are far more sheltered than they would admit.

Recent revelations have shocked the Catholic Church as much as the Irish public: he agrees that many of the older priests and bishops are deeply distressed. "You must never forget the victims," he says. "All these revelations have traumatised the Church but our primary concern must be for the victims. Guidelines and procedures have been put in place by the Church. Helplines and counselling services have been established for the victims by CORI, Conference of Religious in Ireland. And civil compensation claims are being dealt with at present."

It is a weekday morning at the Church of St Nicholas of Myra on Francis Street, in the heart of the old city of Dublin. It could be a scene from a television documentary. Traffic passes by outside while the morning service draws to a close. Many members of the congregation remain inside to say the Rosary. Most are elderly. Preparations are also being made for a funeral. The hearse has arrived. Completed in 1834, the present day St Nicholas's stands on the site once occupied by a Franciscan church dating from 1235. Father Clarke points to the large Lourdes grotto outside the church, it looks as if it could be made into a wonderful stable, the perfect setting for an outdoor Christmas crib.

He smiles at it and then mentions having at times noticed on returning home at night, people sleeping in the grotto. Reality undercuts most of his observations. Pleasant small-talk ranks among his social skills, but he knows exactly what he wants to say and exactly what needs to be said.

A calm, professional, efficient individual, he is neither saintly nor trendy. Instead, his demeanour is that of a social worker or counsellor - both roles are central elements in his work. He is also an organiser: he has already arranged about 25 pilgrimages abroad, some to the World Youth Day meeting with the Pope also to Taize in the south of France. But his responses are those of a lawyer, and of someone who has always enjoyed debating. His modest rooms appear to contain the overflow of his office. Stacks of files and newspapers dominate. A blue-haired troll dressed as a priest shares the cluttered mantelpiece with a laughing Buddha. Among the soft toys gathered on a chair by the window is a large white penguin . . . Born in Dublin in December 1946, Martin Clarke is the youngest of a family of five born to Peter Clarke, a career civil servant, and his wife, Greta Lysaght. The Clarkes lived in Booterstown and the young Martin attended Willow Park and later moved on to Blackrock College as his two older brothers had done before him. He loved - and continues to love - his old school and admits to being irritated by people who dismiss is as "snobby place interested only in rugby". Playing rugby never appealed to him: "I was an interested spectator. Blackrock College is about far more than rugby. It has always been concerned for the pastoral welfare of students."

Founded in 1860, Blackrock College celebrated its centenary while he was a schoolboy there. "I'm very proud of having been there. If I'd children, I'd send them there." At school, he enjoyed English, French and particularly Latin. "Latin was to prove very helpful, not only for going into the Church but for law as well." ON leaving Blackrock, he first went to California for a year on a rotary scholarship. But by 17, already knew he wanted to be a priest. Law was not a career choice as much as something to have in reserve. "I knew I had a vocation, I was drawn to the priesthood. It's something you can't explain . . . it's like falling in love. It's irrational but it's very real, magnetic. I was pulled towards it." His parents, however, advised caution. By then, one of his older brothers had spent a year at Clonliffe before deciding he did not have a vocation, so the Clarkes were concerned about Martin following the same path.

The young Martin Clarke arrived at University College, Dublin and began studying law. While doing his BCL degree, he was also apprenticed to a solicitor's office - "it was an active apprenticeship" - and completed the law society's professional course, then in the Four Courts. (About this time, he remembers a young law lecturer, the then Mary Bourke, pointing out that this was a crazy way to train lawyers.)

A month before Clarke qualified as a solicitor, his mother died of cancer. She was in her early fifties. It was 1970.

Throughout the early to mid 1970s, Martin's professional and social life went well: "I was happy, I was fulfilled." Most involved in conveyancing and property work, he says he enjoyed being a lawyer. "Lawyers are maligned people. There is great camaraderie. In law, you are, almost always, working with a colleague. In the priesthood, very often, you're working solo."

His social interests included sailing and performing with the Rathmines and Rathgar musical society. Of his singing voice, he says, "I was a chorus performer," and adds, "I was a sort of baritone." Opera remains an interest - "all the classical composers, I wouldn't select one over the other". Yet, as he says, "this thing wouldn't go away". In the summer of 1976 he attended a friend's ordination. It was time for Clarke to inform his colleagues at the law firm of Eugene F. Collins, where he was by then a partner, that he had other plans.

"They took it well, it was not as if I was going to a rival practice." At 29, he began to study at Clonliffe College. For a while he was attending lectures during the mornings and back at his desk in the afternoon, finishing up his cases. Six months before he was ordained, his father died. At 33, Clarke was a relative late starter. He says he does not regret this. His experience working as a lawyer gave him a personal credibility. "I don't think I was making a sacrifice by leaving the law: I was doing what I felt called to do."

Archbishop Dermot Ryan ordained him in 1980 in the Church of the Assumption in Booterstown. Although the church was built in 1812, it was the first ordination to take place there. The new Father Clarke was appointed as a curate to the parish of Celbridge and Straffan in Co Kildare. It is an old parish, embracing a mixed community of stud farms and rural poverty. It was to be his only experience of a parish to date. Three years after ordaining him, Archbishop Ryan summoned Father Clarke to a meeting, the outcome of which was his appointment as director of the Catholic Youth Council. Founded in 1944, the council supports and services youth ministry and youth work in the greater Dublin area. It is partly funded by the National Lottery and runs regional youth services, leadership training courses, arts projects, outdoor activities and projects geared towards helping disadvantaged youth. There is a total staff of 250, including 50 professional youth workers, looking after the interests of about 180,000 young people.

"The resources for youth work in Ireland are still very limited compared with the out-of-school needs of young people," he says. Although remarking that young people are better educated and more affluent than ever before, he is conscious that "many of them are discontented with life and find it difficult to cope with a very competitive culture. The great cry of young people is often that of loneliness and low self esteem."

Of the pressures facing priests in Ireland now, he says: "Nowadays it's not enough for a young priest to be a nice guy - he needs to be theologically equipped to cope with a fast-changing Ireland and imbued with an authentic personal faith and spirituality. Otherwise, he may find it difficult to survive in the priesthood."

The culture has changed. "Ireland is a very different country to the one it was, say, 30 years ago," he says. When he entered Clonliffe College in 1976, "there were about 90 in the college, with about 10 or 12 being ordained each year". At the moment there are about 12 in the whole college spread over seven years. This year, there were two ordinations in Dublin for a diocese of more than 1.1 million. The same trend is reflected around the country. "If this trend continues, the Church will not be able to sustain the present level of service," he says.

While he never campaigns, he does stress the diversity of Catholicism. It is, he says, a capacious church, with huge variety and room for a wide range of views, spirituality and approaches to spirituality. "Everything is changing now. And I think now is the time for lay-people to take a more active role in the life of the Church."

As for the traditional differences between rural Catholicism and its urban equivalent, he says: "They are flattening out. Now the urban issues are reaching the rural areas as well. Take the drugs problem, it's there in small-town Ireland as much as it is in Dublin."

Many commentators appear to enjoy describing his new appointment as possibly the definitive poisoned-chalice. His attitude is one of excitement: "I look forward to engaging with the media. I hope not just to be reacting to questions from the media but also to be proactively communicating good news stories about the Church."

Ireland appears to have become a pragmatic, materialist, cynical society: "That's the challenge," says Father Clarke. Faced with such a challenge, can Christianity survive? "The day Christianity evaporates, will be the day the human race will evaporate."