I am writing this on the morning after the Cloyne report, and out of
the perspective of almost forty years conducting parish missions around
the country.
Cloyne was always an unusual diocese, or to be more accurate, Cobh was.
In the era after Humanae Vitae, when on our missions we tried to soften
the rigid implementation of that teaching in the Irish Church, we met
more resistance in Cobh than anywhere else.
That Cathedral, with its
scrupulous and legalistic bishop (John Ahern) and those six priests
houses at the back, was easily the most clerical scene I witnessed in my
time.
Men like Tim Sheahan, John Thornhill, Pat Twomey and Denis Reidy
were clear and strong in their views, and were unwavering servants of
the official Church line on all things. So any dialogue was almost
impossible. Certainty was the order of the day.
Curiously, in the
seventies, I met with more anti-clericalism in Cobh than in any place
outside of Limerick or Dublin. It must be said that the atmosphere in
the rest of the diocese was very different, and there were many great
priests there, just as there are today, and my heart goes out to them
this morning.
Then John Magee was appointed bishop. Why was he appointed? He was clearly unsuitable, and was an imposition from Rome. Was it that they wanted to get rid of him over there, or that it was a reward for covering up the circumstances of John Paul I’s death.
I don’t know, but
it was a good example of the terrible policy of Episcopal appointments
pursued by John Paul II, which I see as being one of the main reasons
for the mess the Church finds itself in today.
He was never fully
accepted, and his manner and attitudes were foreign to many of the
priests and people. He gathered some kudos by promoting perpetual
adoration for a time.
But I remember an old priest, now long dead,
saying to me about 1990 that the diocese would reap a terrible whirlwind
from the policies of John Magee.
Of course there never was an easy relationship between John Magee and Denis O’Callaghan, because O’Callaghan felt that he should have got the mitre.
So it does not surprise me to learn that a big part of the
problems that was revealed yesterday had to do with a lack of
communication between the two.
O’Callaghan was too much into power and
position in the Church himself, as was obvious from his volte face as a
moral theologian after Humanae Vitae came out.
All in all, this sorry chapter highlights a lot of what is wrong with the official Church, and with the Vatican bureaucracy. Will anything be learned? I don’t know. The abuse victims have had their day, and that is good.
And the state would appear to be responding well. The sooner
the handling of everything around sexual abuse of children is dealt with
by the state the better; and that is why I am no fan of Church bodies
or guidelines dealing with it.
It would be much better if anyone who has
a complaint in this area did not go to a bishop or a priest, but went
to the civil authorities, and let them deal with it.
And if the law is
not sufficiently strong to handle the complexity of the cases, then let
it be changed. In that way there would be no confusion or cover-up.
In the meantime we priests struggle on.
And I would ask the people of
Cloyne diocese today to be conscious of their own priest, and what it
must be like for him.
Maybe a word of support or encouragement would
help.
Tony Flannery