A chara, – The Vatican and most of the Irish hierarchy are eloquent in their denunciations of child sex abuse. They are, of course, right to denounce it. Increasingly, too, the Irish bishops are willing to admit to “mistakes” on their part.
The Vatican by contrast took 40 years to make a public statement on the serial abuse committed by the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, an order much loved by John Paul II. But it didn’t ever apologise for its 40-year delay. Again, when Cardinal Law of Boston resigned he was profuse in his apologies for his “mistakes”. The Vatican’s response to Cardinal Law’s “mistakes” was to put him in charge of Santa Maria Maggiore and give him a central role in the funeral of John Paul II. Local bishops may admit to “mistakes” but clearly the Vatican doesn’t. It promotes the “errant”.
The bishops have moved further than the Vatican. But neither has yet acknowledged the truth. What was done by Irish bishops and by the Vatican (protecting the church at the expense of children) was not just a mistake. It was wrongdoing. In Catholic teaching you don’t just apologise for wrongdoing, you repent. To my knowledge, only one bishop, Willie Walsh, has made an act of penitence for the church’s sins. I await the “mea culpa”. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – If helping to conceal the activities of Catholic priest paedophiles is a civil crime, when are we going to see bishops and other clergy being arrested, charged and tried in the courts? Never, I suggest. And what about withholding information? Is that not a civil crime? After all, if I commit a crime, eg, rob a bank or carry out an assault, and someone else helps me to evade justice, is that person not subject to arrest, charge, trial and conviction, if proven guilty?
It is all very fine to have Enda Kenny and Éamon Gilmore engaged in a war of words with the Vatican, but this State has not yet reached the level of confidence and maturity to face the Catholic hierarchy in a head-on collision to decide who is afraid of whom and who is in charge of dispensing justice in this state.
A bishop in handcuffs? Perhaps that is a vista too appalling for an Irish Government to contemplate.
The issue of the “seal of confession” is merely a smokescreen used by the clergy to distract from their own misbehaviour, by appealing to people’s emotions, thereby suggesting that what happens in a confession box will be an open secret. Church and State will one day be separate, but will that be any good to those who were sexually abused in the recent and medium past? – Is mise,
Sir, – Enda Kenny and the Government are absolutely right to stand by their original statement regarding the Vatican. The Catholic Church has done a huge amount of damage to our to our country since its foundation – in particular in the area of child abuse. – Yours, etc,