The 2012 Eucharistic Congress should be deferred as a mark of respect to the victims of clerical abuse, a Catholic commentator has suggested. Oliver Maloney, retired director general of RTE¨ suggested the deferment as one concrete action in the absence of more meaningful action by the Church in response to the abuse crisis. If not, he added, ''the lay faithful might consider boycotting it''.
Response
Offering his response to the Murphy Report in the current edition of The Furrow, Mr Maloney also suggests that ''an investigation similar in scope and authority to Murphy be carried out in every diocese'' and, further, ''a nationwide petition might be launched to demand that the Government remove from the Papal Nuncio the titular status of Dean of the Diplomatic Corps''.
The Vatican, he asserts, ''by its non-cooperation with the Murphy Commission, has relinquished any entitlement to such preferment''.
''The unpalatable truth is that the Vatican created a parallel universe in which obedience and conformity were paramount,'' he writes, adding that in so doing it ''places lay Catholics in the impossible position of trying to defend the indefensible.''
Another consequence of the Vatican demand for obedience, he writes is the appointment of bishops ''by a warped criteria''.
''Is it any wonder,'' he asks, ''that so many of our bishops are inherently unsuitable for their positions [and] some are not prepared to face up to the consequences of their actions or failure to act?''
Of the ''decent majority of ordained'' he asks: ''How long will they continue to allow themselves to be cowed and silenced by an oppressive minority?''
Anticipating some of the responses to his words, Oliver Maloney writes that ''there will be those who might find these comments disrespectful. That is not my intent.
They simply reflect a view that there must always be critical engagement with the exercise of power in every human community, at whatever level.''
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