The central failure in Cloyne under former Bishop John Magee wasn't so much blind obedience to the Vatican, but defiance of it.
If it wasn't clear already, recent events have conclusively driven
home the following observation: Right now, people with a beef against
the Vatican smell blood in the water . . .
Consider what we've seen in just the last 10 days: On Monday the
Vatican recalled its ambassador in Ireland for consultations, following a
blistering July 20 attack from Taoiseach Enda Kenny against the
''dysfunction, disconnection and elitism, the narcissism, which
dominates the culture of the Vatican to this day''.
Mr Kenny was
reacting to a recent Government report on the Cloyne diocese, which
found that allegations of sexual abuse were being mishandled as recently
as 2009.
Some in Ireland have floated the idea of extending criminal
liability for failure to report abuse even to the Sacrament of
Confession.
China is pressing ahead with the illicit ordination of Catholic
bishops in defiance of papal authority, including the Leshan diocese in
late June and the Shantou diocese in mid-July.
Abandoning their normal
''one step forward, one step back'' diplomacy, Chinese authorities
issued a statement this week blasting the ''unreasonable'' and
''brutal'' Vatican response in declaring the bishops excommunicated.
(The statement also insisted the bishops are ''devout in their faith'',
which, as renowned sinologist Fr Bernardo Cervellera has observed,
amounts to the ironic twist of having their Catholic orthodoxy certified
by an officially atheistic state.)
Even in Italy, critics are coming out of the woodwork.
This week,
Pietro Orlandi demanded that the Vatican open its secret archives to
reveal the truth about the 1983 disappearance of his sister Emanuela,
which remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of contemporary
Italian life.
At the time, the Orlandi family lived inside the Vatican
City state as employees.
Recently a former member of the Italian mob
asserted that the Vatican owed the mob 20 billion lire (roughly €8.6m),
and Emanuela was taken in an attempt to compel repayment.
Pietro Orlandi
told the Italian daily La Stampa he finds that suggestion perfectly
credible, and wants senior Vatican officials to come clean.
If Pope Benedict XVI, currently summering at Castel Gandolfo, feels a
migraine headache coming on, it's not hard to understand why.
Criticism
What's new isn't the criticism itself.
Important currents in Ireland
have long resented what they see as clerical privilege and the vestiges
of theocracy, the Chinese have always feared a Catholic Church whose
loyalties run more to Rome than Beijing, and conspiratorially-minded
Italians generally believe the Vatican capable of anything.
The novelty
is instead the brazenness of these outbursts, which suggest a sense of a
wounded foe.
Of course, one can take different views of the merits of each case.
In Ireland, one could argue that the central failure in Cloyne under
former Bishop John Magee wasn't so much blind obedience to the Vatican,
but defiance of it.
Beginning in 2001, Rome took a harder line on abuse
cases, requiring that accusations be forwarded to the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith and advising bishops to cooperate with police
and prosecutors.
Obviously that's not the path Dr Magee followed, perhaps because, as a
former private secretary to three Popes, he felt free to do as he
liked.
In that sense, the Cloyne story may be less about a
Vatican-orchestrated cover-up, and more about a lack of oversight for
bishops.
It's also possible to point out that there was a Government report on
Cloyne partly because the Catholic Church in Ireland conducted its own
investigation in 2008.
The Church's National Board for Safeguarding
Children was bitterly critical of Bishop Magee at the time, so much so
that his aides actually threatened to sue.
One might thus contend that
Cloyne proves the Church's new safeguards, however belated, actually
work.
Risk free
Finally, one can also detect the whiff of politics in Mr Kenny's
remarks.
In Ireland these days, taking on the Vatican is a fairly
risk-free investment for anyone seeking public support.
In China, it seems clear that wherever one stands on procedures for
selecting bishops, government policy isn't about a principled defence of
the local Church so much as maintaining the state's monopoly on power.
Chinese officials may well have calculated that now is the time to press
ahead, since recent blows to the Vatican's moral authority suggest that
Western governments may be less inclined to come to its defence under
the rubric of religious freedom.
In Italy, one could certainly question how much stock to put in the
testimony of former Mafiosi -- especially guys who seem interested in
becoming jailhouse celebrities.
Setting aside the rights and wrongs, however, the bottom line is that
in a growing number of cultural settings, the lid has been ripped off
accumulated frustrations. The question now becomes, how will the Vatican
respond?
Will officials suck it up, concluding that however exaggerated or
unfair they may feel some of this criticism to be, their accent has to
be on generosity - understanding why people feel hurt, and trying to
meet them halfway?
Objectivity
That seemed the tone of a July 21 statement from the Vatican
spokesperson, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, on Ireland.
While insisting
that the debate must have the ''necessary objectivity,'' Fr Lombardi
said the Vatican wants to do everything possible to ''restore trust''
between Church and society.
Pointedly, he avoided any tit-for-tat with
the Irish PM.
Of course, Fr Lombardi is a legendarily gentle soul whose own
statements always come off as rational and measured.
It's sometimes not
entirely clear, however, to what extent he's able to speak for a broader
climate of opinion in the Vatican.
The other option is succumbing to a ''they're out to get us''
mentality, inducing officials to batten the hatches and shut down lines
of conversation.
Especially at a time when Pope Benedict XVI has called for a ''New
Evangelisation'' of the secular world, a great deal may hinge on which
way the winds blow.
Perhaps one unintended result of this ferment may be
a sense of direction for the recently launched Pontifical Council for
Promoting the New Evangelisation, which from the beginning has seemed to
some observers like a noble cause in search of a job description.
With its 'A-list' membership, including some of the premier
heavyweights in the Catholic world, perhaps the new council can take
lead in developing a patient, humble response to criticism, seeing that
as a prerequisite to any successful missionary endeavour.