A CHILLING sense of witnessing the end of an era was as sharp as the cold Armagh air yesterday as the body of Cahal Daly was laid to rest.It was articulated by his successor, Cardinal Sean Brady, who said that the clerical child abuse scandals had brought the Catholic Church in Ireland to a defining moment in its history.
A notable absentee, Cardinal Desmond Connell, would have winced on hearing his fellow Prince of the Church castigate not only the horrific rapes by paedophile priests of the little ones in their care, but also "the shameful mismanagement" of church leaders in covering-up the litany of abuse chronicled in the damning reports into the diocese of Ferns, industrial schools run by religious orders and the Archdiocese of Dublin.
The revelations of these scandals have wrought such damage on those who were abused, Cardinal Brady readily acknowledged, adding in his quivering Cavan accent, that they caused "justified anger and outrage on the part of the faithful and damaged trust profoundly in the integrity of the leaders of the Church".
In a caustic condemnation of the secretive and arrogant clericalism that has choked the Irish Church since at least the middle of the 19th century, Cardinal Brady, speaking as Pope Benedict's representative, prescribed that "the only way to authentic renewal is that of humble service to God's people".
Observing the procession of aged men in their ceremonial robes, chatting among themselves as if at a clerical old boys' reunion, I had an acute sense that the Catholic laity, be they of pious disposition or a la carte-minded, must mobilise to take control away from the ordained ministers who betrayed them and chart a new reform path for their Church.
The People of God, as the Church was defined by the Second Vatican Council, need to dismantle the clericalist pyramid of command structures that have dominated the mind-set since the First Vatican Council in 1870.
That council lumbered the centralised system from Rome with the unverifiable dogma of papal infallibility and embedded a culture of unquestioning loyalty by a docile laity to a command system from the top down of Pope, cardinals, archbishops and bishops, not forgetting the Irish tradition of the infallibility of the parish priest.
The laity in Ireland must speak out now and demand a more democratic rather than medievalist church. Otherwise they will be expected to follow the paternalistic route which Pope Benedict plans to anno-unce in his pre-Lenten pastoral letter to the Irish that will be interpreted as the mandate for church governance that is to be implemented by the two principal leaders of the Irish Church, Cardinal Brady and the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin.
Both Brady and Martin are fine leaders -- and they undoubtedly have a central role to play -- but they operate within the limited parameters of Rome's refusal to redefine its outmoded and unscientific code of sexual morality that still demands a celibate male clergy and bans the use of condoms, the admission to the sacraments to divorced Catholics, the right of women to choose abortion and the admission to the ministry of married men and of women, whether single or married.
Over the past few weeks I have been enthused by the volume of support I have received from readers for my call for a national synod or assembly of the Irish Church composed not just of the hierarchy and the clergy but also of lay folk, men and especially women.
However, I was acutely disappointed to hear Archbishop Martin suggest that such a body is most unlikely to be envisaged by Pope Benedict in his pastoral letter on the situation of the Irish Church.
Grave times require more radical solutions than Rome and Maynooth, both decreeing behind closed doors of secrecy, are offering. The kind of national synod or assembly would not be moulded by canon law as was enshrined from the Synod of Thurles in 1850 or the Synod of Maynooth in 1956.
It would be an outline by 'the People of God' of their blueprint for a national Church that would embody the needs of the Irish Catholic people, especially the young.
The model would not be the traditional ecclesiastical model which has proved itself to be a failed entity, but could instead be based on the New Ireland Forum and the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.
Open debate on issues such as how bishops should be elected and how schools are managed, acceptance of pluralism of differing viewpoints and consensual decision-making, would be its foundation stones.
It would remain in apostolic communion with Rome but it would not be a vassal of Roman diktat.
It would truly be the start of a new era for the Irish Church.
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