Sacred cows (Contribution)

Diarmuid Martin

Our cuddly Dub Dalai Lama is adored by secular, says Will Hanafin, but ordinary Catholics must be sick of his whinging 

 

The Catholic Church is a beaten docket in Ireland but the man at the top, Dublin's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, is still on the side of the angels.

The Archbishop must be very special indeed, because he can work miracles -- even Vincent Browne likes him. Although that's not really about turning water into wine, more like watering down the whinger.

In the aftermath of Martin's frequent forays into the limelight with his agonised speeches, the liberal commentariat don't quite ask, "Is the Pope a Catholic?"

Instead, they muse, "Can the Archbishop really be one of them?"

Because Martin sports the same owlish big specs and spiky buzz-cut as the Tibetan spiritual leader, he risks being turned into a cuddly Dub Dalai Lama for our saggy liberals.

His sacred holy-cow status was confirmed recently when he had the dubious honour of being praised by President McAleese.

The Prez has been in the Aras for so long that she's a past master of the art of being effortlessly patronising. When she praises someone, it sounds like a messy child being rewarded for tidying up their bedroom.

At a Catholic conference in Rimini in August she said of Archbishop Martin: "We have a wonderful Archbishop, who is doing an amazing job, God bless him."

It's not just the President who holds Martin in high esteem. In most normal offices the human-resources department organises the occasional fire drill.

In the Morning Ireland office in RTE they must have DMDD ones, also known as 'Diarmuid Martin's Dismayed and Discouraged' drills. Every time he makes a speech in odd venues such as the Knights of Columbanus HQ, and mentions that he's a bit fed up, Morning Ireland goes straight into DMDD mode. Half an hour is cleared in the schedule.

David Quinn or Joe Little are dragooned for comment. A reporter combs through the speech like Horatio in CSI Miami would do with a dead body. Audio is secured of the Archbishop delivering his speech. Finally the editor of The Irish Catholic is enlisted to be quizzed about the Archbishop's speech. It's all very dramatic.

There's only one problem.

Now that he's gone down the path of appeasing the self-righteous, the Archbishop risks alienating his own. It's the Barack Obama dilemma.

Despite his best efforts, the current US president constantly finds himself more popular abroad than he is in the United States.

Obama does OK in those fantasy 'King of the World' type polls but in the real world, Americans believe he's a disaster in the day job. But, as Obama and the Democrats head for oblivion in next month's US mid-term elections, he can at least console himself with the thought that 90 per cent of Germans love him.

The Archbishop must feel a lot like Obama these days. He's stretching the patience of many ordinary Catholics with speeches implying they wouldn't know the Bible if they found it in a hotel-room drawer.

Speaking in Rimini at the annual meeting of the Catholic lay group Communion and Liberation -- the same event attended by McAleese -- he questioned whether Irish Catholics knew their Acts from their Ecclesiastes.

"School catechesis, despite the goodwill of teachers, does not produce young Catholics prepared to join in the Christian community. Sometimes, after 15 years of catechesis, young people remain theologically illiterate," he said.

I don't know about you, but I didn't think that they had a chapter called "You're all Stupid!" in How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Martin's Obama dilemma was highlighted by the reaction to the Rimini speech. He's blessed among liberals and non-church goers while pro-Church people have laid into him.

The editor of The Irish Catholic, Garry O'Sullivan, accused the Archbishop of "intellectual snobbery" and pointed out he hadn't earned a doctorate in either theology or philosophy.

Meow!

Garry O'Sullivan also lashed the Archbishop for calling for better standards of debate within the Church.

"How can we Catholics have a quality debate when our Archbishop, who has dismissed the democratic notion of a diocesan synod, regularly engages in megaphone criticism of his priests, his own youth ministry, the Catholic press, his fellow bishops; refusing interviews rather than allowing any intelligent questioning of himself or his current policies . . . for the Dublin Diocese."

I can't see Martin doing a cosy one-to-one with The Irish Catholic anytime soon!

While the guys in The Irish Catholic are going postal, Vincent Browne has taken quite a shine to the Archbishop, despite not being a card-carrying member of the Church.

Back in May, after another Martin DMDD speech, Browne wrote in The Irish Times that he wasn't a believer but he liked the cut of the Archbishop's jib.

"The address was very much founded on his faith in the person and 'teachings' of Jesus. Since that is a faith I do not share, I stand aside from that. But the courage, honesty, conviction and passion of Diarmuid Martin's address -- all features of his own character generally -- are very admirable."

The love-in didn't end there.

In August, Vinnie again wrote in The Irish Times to react to the Rimini speech during which Martin called Irish Catholics "theologically illiterate".

His take on it was that the Archbishop was a great guy because he didn't go to a fancy school.

"Diarmuid Martin was fortunate to have avoided the posh schools. That might have something to do with the fine, courageous fellow he has become."

Earth to Vinnie! Last time I checked, Martin was still a senior member of the hierarchy, and has no plans to fall on his crozier.

He also has little time for secular commentators either. Here's what he had to say about godless types recently. "In some ways, some expressions of Irish secularism have features which are still adolescent. It is a conflicting and reactionary secularism."

Martin spent many years working in the Vatican, before coming back to Dublin in 2003.

Increasingly, he sounds like the guy who discovered real coffee abroad in the Eighties and then complained for years about not being able to get an espresso here.

During the Rimini speech, Martin did more moaning than you'd hear on a premium line. He moaned about the lack of Catholic academies here like the ones they have in Germany. He also complained that there's no serious Catholic press, like the Catholic newspapers in France and Italy, and so on.

Perhaps the best response to his illiteracy jibe was this letter to the papers.

"When you look at the response to the scandal of child sex abuse by the Vatican, the permanent top of the class in theology, maybe we illiterates are better off."

SIC: II/IE