VATICAN OBSERVERS yesterday underlined two aspects of the “team” picked by the Holy See for the forthcoming apostolic visitation to Ireland.Firstly, this is a team of high-profile church heavyweights, many with specific experience of the clerical sex abuse problem, while secondly it comprises senior churchmen from the US, the UK and Canada, all from the “Anglophonic” world and thus more likely to be keenly attuned to the problems facing the Irish church in today’s world.
Vatican insiders argue that the choice of senior churchmen such as the Emeritus Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, and the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, both men with direct experience of the mishandling of the sex abuse crisis, is indicative of the seriousness of the Holy See’s approach.
Furthermore, a number of commentators pointed out that the fact that the nine-person team contains surnames such as Murphy-O’Connor, O’Malley, Prendergast, Collins, Dolan, McLaughlin, Tobin etc was an indication that the Holy See has tried to approach the visitation with a level of sensitivity, drawing the visitors from the Irish diaspora.
Commentators also point out that, while this autumn’s visitation has clearly been prompted by the inadequate response of the Irish hierarchy to the sex abuse crisis, other issues will also feature prominently in what has been called a “root and branch” inspection by HQ.
Teaching and formation in seminaries, the diocesan breakdown in Ireland, episcopal management skills (or lack of) and the overall response of the Irish church to the onslaught of Celtic Tiger-induced secularisation will also be part of the focus of this visitation.
In a sense, say commentators, the impact of an apostolic visitation is a bit like putting the entire local church into receivership with every aspect of its modus operandi due to come under the microscope.
Significantly, the Vatican’s press release yesterday states that the visitation will “begin in the four Metropolitan Archdioceses of Ireland (Armagh, Dublin, Cashel and Emly, and Tuam) and will then be extended to some other dioceses”.
In other words, the visitation does not stop here and seems likely to be extremely thorough.
Furthermore, most observers believe that the visitors will not limit their visitation to exchanges only with nuns, priests and bishops but will also actively seek out concerned lay opinion.
In that context, while the appointments of Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor to visit the archdiocese of Armagh and that of Cardinal O’Malley to visit the archdiocese of Dublin can be clearly linked to their “track record” in dealing with the sex abuse issue (Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor via the Nolan Commission and Cardinal O’Malley in the post-Law Boston clean-up), the appointments of the Canadian archbishops, Thomas Collins of Toronto and Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, are seen more in relation to the Irish church’s (poor) performance in a time of obvious secularisation.
While an apostolic visitation might have the appearance of a platoon of trouble-shooting heavyweights from HQ, the Irish hierarchy can take some comfort from the fact that yesterday’s Holy See announcement states that the visitors will take as “their points of reference” not only the Pontifical Motu Proprio, Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela of 2001 but also the Irish church’s own document, Safeguarding Children: Standards and Guidance Document for the Catholic Church in Ireland.
As for the timescale of the visitation, which is due to start in the autumn, many commentators believe that it could take at least one year for the first part of the visitation to be completed.
The most recent precedent for such a visitation is that carried out by the Holy See to the Legionaries of Christ, a visit which began in February 2009 and concluded in March of this year.
SIC: IT