Conscience must be made central to partnership Bill (Contribution)

The Civil Partnership Bill – before the Dáil this week – forces citizens to collude in things they believe to be morally wrong

NO CHURCH-STATE controversy in recent times has raised so many difficult political and moral issues compared with those raised by the proposed Civil Partnership Bill.

These include:

• the nature of the family and its status in the Irish Constitution;
• the rights and obligations of citizens arising from the fact that they live together in a mutually supportive and stable partnership, or plan to do so;
• the rights and obligations of legislators when legislating on laws which touch on fundamental constitutional or moral issues;
• the right of citizens to make conscientious objections on the basis of their moral convictions or religious beliefs;
• and, finally, the rights and obligations, if any, of ordained ministers of the Catholic Church either individually (bishops and priests) or as a body (through the bishops’ conference) to express publicly their views on any proposed legislation.

All of these issues touch on the nature of democracy, more specifically on the question of the role of conscience in democracy – and, by implication, the rights of the church with regard to its obligation to form the conscience of its adherents.

When the Irish Bishops’ Conference issued its statement recently on the proposed legislation, there was an outcry from a handful of members of the Oireachtas. A tiny but very vocal minority were outraged at the audacity of the bishops to express any opinion on this or, presumably, on any other matter.

They effectively claimed that the church – in particular, in the wake of the Ferns, the Ryan and the Murphy reports – should remain silent.

This, of course, would leave the way free for that tiny but vocal minority of secularists to impose their views on the whole of society, views that are repugnant to the sincere convictions of most citizens.

These same citizens are being increasingly intimidated by a media that has adopted these “liberal-progressive” views. Is this democracy, Irish style?

Citizens may disagree on the nature of marriage and the morality of sexual relations outside marriage.

But they cannot be indifferent, since, apart from personal moral wellbeing, the wellbeing of society as a whole is at stake. In addition, the Bill touches on the Constitution and its recognition of the privileged role of marriage due to its unique significance for the common good of society.

Even though the Bill avoids the actual term, it fundamentally redefines the well-known legal definition of marriage as the “voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others” (recently cited by Baroness Deech, the chairwoman of the Bar Standards Board, professor of law at Gresham College, London).

This definition seems to be at the basis of the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (see The Irish Times , June 26th, 2010) rejecting the claims of same-sex couples to a right to marry.

One may disagree with the usual legal definition but this is such a fundamental issue that citizens must be free to make up their own minds in the debate.

And here, I would argue, members of the Oireachtas have the primordial right as citizens and legislators to be free of the Party Whip and to follow their conscience. Conscience is the only bulwark against the totalitarian tendencies of all states.

This finds recognition in the present German Basic Law (or constitution), which, to avoid a repetition of totalitarianism of the Nazi period, when the conscience of citizens was mercilessly crushed, insists those elected to parliament “ . . . shall be representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or instructions, and responsible only to their conscience” (Art 38.1).

As a result, the German parliament, like Westminster, allows a free vote on contentious moral issues. By asking for a free vote in the Dáil on the proposed Bill, the Irish bishops in their recent statement did nothing less than reiterate this basic democratic principle.

I have elsewhere argued that Irish democracy has been neutered by the inordinately dominant role played by the party whip. Though necessary in many instances in order to expedite business in parliament, the way the party whip is invoked in the Oireachtas effectively eliminates the need for real debate in parliament. It reduces parliament to rubber-stamping decisions which have been taken in secret.

Legislators are thereby deprived of their right to exercise their own responsibility for the common good as legislators acting according to their own conscience. The overuse of the party whip effectively “banishes conscience to the bathroom” (to quote Vaclav Havel in a similar context) and so undermines democracy.

But the proposed Bill goes a step further. It effectively deprives all citizens of their right of conscientious objection to the provisions of the Bill, should it become law.

All appeals – including those from two Church of Ireland bishops – to make provisions in the Bill for citizens to follow their conscience have been rejected.

Should the Bill become law, people such as registrars, photographers or those responsible for parish halls, etc, will be forced to co-operate in acts they consider in good conscience to be morally wrong.

In sum, the refusal to include a conscience clause in the proposed Civil Partnership Bill undermines the primacy of conscience which is the bedrock of democracy.

The imposition of the party whip for the vote on this particular Bill (and on other similar Bills) is contrary to the right and duty of TDs and Senators to act as legislators in the full sense of the term, responsible to their conscience.

SIC: IT

Pope launches team to 're-evangelise' the West

Benedict XVI announced the creation of a new Vatican department dedicated to tackling what he called "a grave crisis in the sense of the Christian faith and the role of the Church."

He expressed deep concerns that previously staunch Catholic countries in Europe and North America were facing "the eclipse of a sense of God".

Tens of thousands of worshippers are deserting the Church over issues such as clerical sex abuse and the ban on married priests.

"I have decided to create a new body with the aim of promoting a renewed evangelism," in countries that are going through "progressive secularisation of society", the 83-year-old Pope said.

The new department, to be called The Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation, will try to reinvigorate belief among Catholics in rich, developed countries – or, in the pontiff's words, "find the right means to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel."

It is expected to be led by an Italian archbishop, Rino Fisichella, who as head of the Pontifical Academy for Life is the Vatican's top bioethics official.

Congregations in the West have fallen dramatically and faith in the Church has been hard hit by a series of high-profile scandals involving the sexual abuse of children by paedophile priests.

The Vatican, together with senior Church leaders in individual countries, has been accused of ignoring or actively covering up sex abuse cases in the United States, Australia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Austria.

The Pope himself has been accused of turning a blind eye to paedophile priest cases when he was Archbishop of Munich and then head of the Vatican's office for doctrinal enforcement.

The Pope made an official visit to Portugal last month, but barely 20 per cent of the population in the formerly staunchly Catholic country regularly attends church and the average age of priests is 62.

Austria – once seen as a bulwark against the Protestant Reformation and a stronghold of Catholicism in central Europe – is witnessing a particularly strong push for a more liberal Church, partly in response to the paedophile sex abuse scandal.

The Austrian Church has estimated that up to 80,000 of the country's 5.5 million Catholics could leave the church this year a new record.

In Britain there are about six million Catholics – one in ten of the population – but only around a million say they go to Mass every Sunday.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the President of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said he looked forward to co-operating with the new body.

"This initiative identifies a challenge with which many in the Catholic Church, and many in other Christian communities, are familiar," he said.

SIC: TCUK

We should not be surprised by resilience of the church (Contribution)

The church is much more robust than many commentators would have us believe.

IN THE midst of significant failures of leadership in our civic, political, fiscal and religious institutions, people have become cynical and disillusioned.

The dominant view abroad is that this disillusionment is most acute within the Catholic Church.

The supposition is that the “we” members of the church have lost confidence and trust in the “they” who are the leadership.

Commentators who are expert on “we” declare the church to be in terminal decline, a slump that is irredeemable. Such a view does not reflect how things actually are on the ground and the health of the church is much more robust than many commentators would have us believe.

The church has always numbered saints and sinners among its members. Sin has the unerring capacity to damage the Body of Christ and its virulent repercussions throughout the church cannot be ignored. But sin does not have the last say. Christ has conquered sin by His death and resurrection. Through the gift of His Spirit, the church continues to renew and reform; at grassroots level it is very much alive and planning for its future.

On June 8th last, in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, Cardinal Seán Brady and Bishop Gerard Clifford commissioned some 300 lay women and men who had undergone training to take up new leadership roles within the newly created pastoral areas throughout the archdiocese.

Cardinal Brady announced the new “diocesan aim” and promulgated the diocesan pastoral council constitution that will guide the unfolding of the pastoral plan. The membership of this council reflects all the states of life within the church but the vast majority are lay people.

The new pastoral areas will have clerical and lay leadership acting in unison as co-responsible for the pastoral life of their areas.

This is as it should be.

Other developments show how vibrant the church is in the cross-Border archdiocese of Armagh. More than 100 people completed a year’s study of theology at centres in Drogheda and in Armagh. Stringent child safeguarding reforms have been applied across the diocese with a host of volunteer laity acting in child-protection roles.

We should not be at all surprised by the resilience of the church. The life of the church is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit and there is a divine guarantee she will not be left orphaned. However, church structures exist to serve and to protect the life of the church. They are not cast in stone and are subject to the laws of change and decay as is any human institution. Venerable structures that have been central to how the Irish church operated are no longer viable because these were heavily dependent on priests and religious whose numbers are in steep decline.

Just as new school trusts, largely under lay stewardship, have emerged to care for Catholic education, similar new realities will emerge to strengthen the life of faith in our dioceses and parishes. The creation of new pastoral areas is one such new structure.

The Swiss theologian Hans Urs Balthasar characterised the laity as a “sleeping giant” who needed to awaken and take up its rightful role within the life of the church.

We are on the threshold of that awakening.

Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Rome in May 2009, reminded his clergy that laity must no longer be viewed as “collaborators” of the clergy but truly recognised as “co-responsible” for the life of the church.

We see the working out of that truth in the developments taking place in Armagh.

It augurs well for the future of the church in Armagh and in Ireland.

SIC: IT

Pope Benedict XVI to 're-evangelise' West

THE Pope yesterday announced he is to create a new Vatican office to fight secularisation and "re-evangelise" the West.

This was a tacit acknowledgment that his attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe have not succeeded and need a new boost.

He said parts of the world were still missionary territory, where the Catholic Church was relatively unknown.

But in other parts of the world, such as Europe, Christianity had existed for centuries yet "the process of secularisation has produced a serious crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and role of the church".

The new pontifical council, he said, would "promote a renewed evangelisation" in countries where the church has long existed "but which are living a progressive secularisation of society and a sort of 'eclipse of the sense of God'."

The Pope did not say who would head the new office, but Italian media have said he would tap Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who as head of the Pontifical Academy for Life is the Vatican's top bioethics official.

He created a minor uproar last year when he defended Brazilian doctors who aborted the twin fetuses of a nine-year-old child who was raped by her stepfather.

Also yesterday, the resignation of a church-appointed child abuse commission in Belgium left the Vatican reeling from widening pedophile scandals on both sides of the Atlantic.

A war of words broke out between the Vatican and Brussels after the Pope condemned as deplorable the seizure by police of the commission's files, and the detention of nine bishops for an entire day last week.

The Pope spoke out again yesterday, warning an Austrian cardinal against repeating accusations that an Italian cardinal covered up child abuse claims.

The crisis enveloping the church deepened yesterday when the US Supreme Court opened the way for the Vatican to be sued by the victims of pedophile priests.

The Vatican had wanted the court to throw out a lawsuit seeking to hold it responsible for the crimes of a priest who was moved from Ireland to Chicago, then to Portland, Oregon, to escape prosecution.

Yesterday, the court rejected the Vatican's argument that, as a sovereign state, it had immunity from prosecution in the US.

In Belgium last Thursday, police seized 475 case files from the offices of a commission of inquiry into child abuse as they stepped up their investigation after suspicions that senior church figures were being protected from the law.

Police also seized computer files from the home of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who led the church in Belgium for 20 years and faced allegations that he ignored claims of abuse.

Peter Adriaenssens, a respected child psychiatrist who was brought in to chair the commission this year, was furious that his team's documents were seized.

"We were used as bait," he said, suggesting that accusers had come forward confident in the anonymity afforded by his commission. "Why would they raid our offices? That can only be because they assume that we withhold information, or that we would manipulate things," he said.

In a sign of the tension felt in the Vatican, it issued a blunt statement yesterday in which it effectively said the Pope had censured Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, who last month publicly accused another cardinal of covering up abuse.

Cardinal Schonborn accused Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano of having blocked an investigation into abuse by former Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who stepped down as archbishop of Vienna in 1995.

SIC: TAAUS

Child abuse scandals plaguing the Vatican have deepened on both sides of the Atlantic

THE resignation of a church-appointed child abuse commission in Belgium has left the Vatican reeling from widening pedophile scandals.

A war of words broke out between the Vatican and Brussels after the Pope condemned as deplorable the seizure by police of the commission's files, and the detention of nine bishops for an entire day last week.

Pope Benedict XVI spoke out again yesterday, warning an Austrian cardinal against repeating accusations that a senior Italian cardinal covered up child abuse claims at the highest level.

The crisis enveloping the global Roman Catholic Church deepened overnight when the US Supreme Court opened the way for the Vatican to be sued by the victims of pedophile priests.

The Vatican had wanted the court to throw out a lawsuit seeking to hold it responsible for the crimes of a priest who was moved from Ireland to Chicago, and then to Portland, to escape prosecution. However the court rejected the Vatican's argument that, as a sovereign state, it enjoyed immunity from prosecution in the US.

A similar church-versus-state conflict is unfolding in Belgium. A commission of inquiry into child abuse, set up by the Catholic Church there in 2000, has long suffered from allegations of inertia.

It focused on about 30 cases and tried to resolve them between the parties involved rather than hand over details for prosecution.

Peter Adriaenssens, a respected child psychiatrist, was brought in to chair the commission this year, to restore confidence. But the panel was overwhelmed with hundreds of fresh allegations after the resignation in April of Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the Bishop of Bruges, for abusing a boy over several years.

Police last week seized 475 case files from the commission offices, as they stepped up their own investigation after suspicions that senior church figures were being protected from the law.

Such was police mistrust of the church inquiry, and the atmosphere of paranoia surrounding the affair, that they drilled into the tombs of two cardinals then used a camera to look for documents, although none were found.

Plaster was removed from alcoves in St Rumbold's cathedral in the town of Mechelen, to the north of Brussels, after allegations from a former inquiry commission member that documents could be hidden there, a Belgian newspaper reported. Again, nothing was found. Police also seized computer files from the home of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who led the Catholic Church in Belgium for 20 years and faced allegations that he ignored claims of abuse.

Mr Adriaenssens, 53, a part-time professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, was furious that his team's documents were seized. “We were used as bait,” he said, suggesting that accusers had come forward confident in the anonymity afforded by his commission.

“Why would they raid our offices? That can only be because they assume that we withhold information, or that we would manipulate things,” he said.

Some Belgian politicians are angry at criticism of the police raids that was voiced by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state and a close aide of the Pope, who said that the “sequestration” of the bishops for the duration of the operation was unprecedented, even under communist regimes.

Kris Peeters, the Minister-President of Flanders, said: “It is a pity that such kinds of expression are made, but I understand it is a very emotional case.”

The resignation of the Adriaenssens commission leaves no buffer between the church and the police - but raises a legal question mark over whether any of the documents which were seized could be used in court because of the way information was given to the church commission under condition of anonymity.

In a sign of the tension felt in the Vatican, it issued an unusually blunt statement yesterday in which it effectively said that the Pope had censured Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, who last month publicly accused another cardinal of covering up abuse.

“Regarding accusations against a cardinal, we remind everyone that, in the church, only the Pope has the authority to accuse a cardinal,” said the statement - a rare case of the church making its internal bickering public.

It added that church officials had to “show due respect” for each other. Cardinal Schon-born accused Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano of having blocked an investigation into abuse by former Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who stepped down as Archbishop of Vienna in 1995.

He died in 2003 never having admitted guilt or faced any charges.

SIC: TAAUS

Belgian files complaint over church sex abuse raid

A Belgian man who says he was sexually abused by a priest filed a complaint with Brussels prosecutors Tuesday after his confidential testimony to a church-appointed panel was seized by Belgian police.

Jan Hertogen, a 63-year-old sociologist, said he told his story to the panel on the condition it would not be passed to authorities.

He said the police raids — which also targeted a Catholic cathedral, church offices and a crypt — were an invasion of his privacy.

"After all those years, I told my story to the (sex-abuse panel) insisting it not be shared," he said, adding that he was now willing to speak to the media because he was so distressed at the victims' loss of privacy.

Hertogen wants all 475 men and boys who contacted the panel with allegations of abuse to complain to the Brussels prosecutor's office and register as "injured parties."

That would allow alleged victims access to information about any prosecutions resulting from the June 24 raids, which sparked a storm of protest by the Vatican after files were confiscated, bishops detained and holes drilled into a prelate's tomb to search for documents.

The Belgian police are investigating clerical sexual abuse after the country's longest serving bishop stepped down in April, confessing he had sexually molested a boy.

Several other men and boys had said they had previously told Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who retired in January, about abuse but their complaints had not been investigated.

His home was among the targets of the raids.

The Catholic Church says it had the right to investigate allegations alongside police and the head of the panel accused prosecutors of using them as "bait" to lure frightened victims into the open. Pope Benedict XVI called the raids "deplorable."

But in a sign the row may be abating, Belgian officials will meet a papal envoy within days to discuss the raids, said foreign ministry spokesman Bart Ouvry.

He did not give a date for the meeting between Archbishop Giacinto Berloco and Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere.

SIC: AP

Premier Keneally 'did not mean homosexuals are sinners'

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally is under fire for using the scripture quote "Jesus sat with the sinners and saints" during discussions about same-sex adoption legislation before Parliament.

Ms Keneally was forced to clarify later that she did not mean to compare homosexuals to sinners, according to reports in the Herald-Sun and the Sydney Morning Herald.

"That's not all what I meant to say," she is cited saying by AAP.

"My point is this - is that Jesus loved all. He loved all and he accepted all. And for me that is the strongest message that comes out of the gospel."

She would give "in principle support" for the same-sex adoption Bill introduced to Parliament last week by independent MP and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, the reports said.

"My religious views do not play a part in the legislation that I, as the leader of the Labor Party, bring before the government," the Sydney Morning Herald quotes her saying.

"But I think it's fair for people to say: 'You're a practising Catholic, a practising Christian. How do you reconcile the view you are putting forward publicly with the faith that you profess to hold?'

"When I see gay and lesbian people giving that unselfish love to a child, that's something that I - not just as a Christian and a Catholic but as the leader of this state - want to support."

Separately, in Mexico City, the archdiocese said even if the country's Supreme Court upholds the legalising of adoption by gay couples, it would still be immoral in the eyes of the Church.

"We are respectful, although we do not agree on the moral point of view," the Catholic News Agency reports from Archdiocese of Mexico City spokesman Father Hugo Valdemar.

Children have a right to grow up in a home consisting of a father and a mother, he said, in order to ensure their comprehensive development.

SIC: CTHAUS

New Archbishop for Jakarta

Pope Benedict has accepted the resignation of Jakarta Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja SJ and announced his succession by Coadjutor Bishop Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo.

Cardinal Darmaatjadja had reached the age limit of 75, the Vatican Information Service reports.

He had been archbishop of Jakarta since his installation on January 11, 1996.

SIC: CTHAS

Pope: communion with Peter, guarantee of freedom for the bishops and the faithful

The communion with the Pope guarantees the freedom of churches and bishops from "local, national and international power" and of all the faithful “in the sense of full adherence to truth and authentic tradition”, so that the People of God may be preserved from mistakes regarding faith and morals".

On the day dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, Benedict XVI has reaffirmed this principle and the true meaning of the "primacy" of the bishop of Rome.

His words were heard by 38 archbishops who have come from every continent to receive the pallium – which the Pope explained during the Angelus, "symbolizes both the communion with the Bishop of Rome, and the mission to nurture with love the one flock of Christ”.

Also present, a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which for years has taken part in the celebration of two apostles, just as a Catholic delegation goes to Istanbul for the Feast of Saint Andrew, founder of that Church.

The "Freedom of the Church”, guaranteed by Christ to Peter, is tied to communion with the successor of Peter. In the two millennia of Christian history the faithful "have never been lacking in trials, which in some periods and places have assumed the character of real persecution.

These, however, despite the suffering they cause, are not the greatest danger for the Church. In fact it suffers greatest damage from what pollutes the Christian faith and life of its members and its communities, eroding the integrity of the Mystical Body, weakening its ability to prophesy and witness, tarnishing the beauty of its face".

"This reality - continued the Pope - This reality is already attested in the Pauline Epistle. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, for example, responds to some problems of divisions, inconsistencies, of infidelity to the Gospel which seriously threaten the Church. But the Second Letter to Timothy – of which we heard an excerpt - speaks about the dangers of the "last days", identifying them with negative attitudes that belong to the world and can infect the Christian community: selfishness, vanity, pride, love of money, etc (cf. 3.1 to 5 ).

The theme of the Freedom of the Church, Benedict XVI then stated, "also has a particular relevance to the rite of the imposition of the pallium. "The communion with Peter and his successors, in fact, is the guarantee of freedom for the Church's Pastors and the Communities entrusted to them."

“Historically, union with the Apostolic See, ensures the particular Churches and Episcopal Conferences freedom with respect to local, national or supranational powers, that can sometimes hinder the mission of the ecclesial Church. Furthermore, and most essentially, the Petrine ministry is a guarantee of freedom in the sense of full adherence to truth and authentic tradition, so that the People of God may be preserved from mistakes concerning faith and morals. Hence the fact that each year the new Metropolitans come to Rome to receive the pallium from the hands of the Pope, must be understood in its proper meaning, as a gesture of communion, and the issue of freedom of the Church gives us a particularly important key for interpretation. This is evident in the case of churches marked by persecution, or subject to political interference or other hardships. But this is no less relevant in the case of communities that suffer the influence of misleading doctrines or ideological tendencies and practices contrary to the Gospel".

A final point drawn by the Pope from today's readings and “in particular from Christ's promise that the powers of hell shall not prevail against his Church. These words may also have a significant ecumenical value, since, as I mentioned earlier, one of the typical effects of the Devil is division within the Church community. The divisions are in fact symptoms of the power of sin, which continues to act in members of the Church even after redemption. But the word of Christ is clear: " Non praevalebunt – it will not prevail" (Matt. 16:18).

The unity of the Church is rooted in its union with Christ, and the cause of full Christian unity - always to be sought and renewed from generation to generation - is well supported by his prayer and his promise.

In the fight against the spirit of evil, God has given us in Jesus the 'Advocate', defender, and after his Easter, "another Paraclete" (Jn 14:16), the Holy Spirit, which remains with us always and leads the Church into the fullness of truth (cf. Jn 14:16; 16:13), which is also the fullness of charity and unity. With these feelings of confident hope, I am pleased to greet the delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which, in the beautiful custom of reciprocal visits, participates in the celebrations of the patron saints of Rome.

Together we thank God for progress in ecumenical relations between Catholics and Orthodox, and we renew our commitment to generously reciprocate to God's grace, which leads us to full communion”.

During the rite, Benedict XVI "imposed" the pallium - a strip of white wool with six black silk crosses, resembling the wounds of Jesus - on 38 archbishops, including Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas, of Lingayen-Dagupan (Philippines), Mgr. Francis Kallarakal of Verapoly (India), Mgr. Hyginus Kim Hee-Joong, Kwangju (Korea) and Mgr. Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon, of Hanoi (Vietnam).

SIC: AN

New drive for vocations in Tuam

A new vocations drive by the Archdiocese of Tuam – territorially the most extensive diocese in the Irish Catholic Church – aims to attract greater numbers of young men to the priesthood.

Launching the campaign, ‘One Life, One Call, One Response’ Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary, reflected on the reality of his own vocation and encouraged others to give positive consideration when they hear God’s calling to the priesthood.

Despite the negative reports of recent times, in launching the vocations material on priesthood, as a people of God we are declaring that we are very much open for business, he said, adding “we encourage, pray for and welcome vocations to priesthood”.

Archbishop Neary acknowledged the failures of the Catholic Church in Ireland regarding the sex abuse scandals saying the “inadequate handling of these serious matters has been rightly exposed”.

“All of us are deeply conscious of the failures, infidelities and crimes of which some priests are guilty,” he added.

The number of priests is in serious decline, with the average age of the Irish Catholic priest today put at 63.

Each must retire at 75.

SIC: IT

Catholic Communications Office clarification concerning references to Pope Benedict XVI in today’s Irish Examiner interview with Mr Eamon Gilmore TD,

In an interview with Mr Eamon Gilmore TD, Leader of the Labour Party, published today by the Irish Examiner, the paper’s political correspondent Shaun Connolly writes that Eamon Gilmore urges:

“… Pope Benedict XVI to ‘temper’ statements such as claiming that ‘saving’ humanity from homosexuality was as important as protecting the rain forests. ‘We have many examples of where there is not only discrimination against gay people, but there has been nasty homophobic bullying and assaults on gay people and I think opinions like that give comfort to that.’”

Mr Gilmore seems to be referring to an address by Pope Benedict to cardinals, bishops and priests delivered on 22 December 2008, which was subsequently interpreted incorrectly by some media outlets. The fact is that homosexuality was not referred to anywhere in this text.

For a leader of a political party to misrepresent remarks made by the Holy Father on such a profound subject as human sexuality, is regrettable. Mr Gilmore’s comments are also highly offensive to Catholics and anyone with an interest in the truth. The truth is that the Catholic Church teaches and Pope Benedict XVI has consistently affirmed that ‘men and women with homosexual tendencies must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.’ (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, 3 June 2003).

In the text referred to by Mr Gilmore, Pope Benedict XVI in fact said that the Church: “has a responsibility towards creation, and must also publicly assert this responsibility. In so doing, she must not only defend earth, water and air as gifts of creation belonging to all. She must also protect man from self destruction…. If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. What is involved here is faith in the Creator and a readiness to listen to the ‘language’ of creation. To disregard this would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God’s own work.” A reading of the aforementioned text will confirm this.

The prominence given to the interview by the Irish Examiner, with its page one article headline ‘Gilmore: Pope’s words comfort anti-gay thugs’, completely misrepresents the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and the message of the Bible on this matter. It also implies a completely unsubstantiated connection between this teaching and behaviour of ‘anti-gay thugs’ which is condemned and abhorred by the Church.

It is a serious, unacceptable and unfounded distortion of the truth for anyone to suggest that support for Christian marriage is contributing to “homophobic bullying and assaults on gay people.” Catholics and other Christians who uphold the Christian tradition of the Scriptures on this matter deserve truth and accuracy from elected representatives and by the media.

SIC: ICBC

Martin defends church's right to speak out on civil partnership

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has defended the Catholic Church’s right to speak out against the Civil Partnership Bill, following criticism by Government Ministers.

The Dáil is expected on Thursday to deal with the final stages of the legislation providing civil partnership for same-sex couples.

All parties have formally supported the legislation although individual TDs and Senators have expressed criticism.

Dr Martin did not name the legislation or identify the Ministers but said the church had a “right and obligation to express concerns” about the way those with responsibility in politics, the economy and society “respond to the fundamental mandate of care for citizens and the common good”.

He added: “This is a non-negotiable for the church, even when that message might not meet with agreement and acceptance.”

In a homily at Knock shrine to St Joseph’s Young Priests’ Society, the archbishop said: “Listening recently to some comments which seemed to express unease at the fact the Irish bishops would address the political community on a fundamental question affecting society, I was struck to find in my diary just one year earlier, politicians complaining that the bishops had not been speaking publicly in support of a Yes vote on the Lisbon Treaty. True pluralism respects constructive voices whether they are welcome or not.”

Two weeks ago in a statement following their summer meeting the bishops strongly criticised the legislation, and called for a free vote for TDs and Senators.

The bishops also believed provisions of the legislation which could expose civil registrars to sanctions if they refused to deal with civil partnerships were unconstitutional.

Minister for the Environment John Gormley said at the time he was “taken aback” by the comments, that the legislation had been “checked inside and out” and was not unconstitutional.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said the Bill had been carefully drafted so as not to undermine the position of marriage. He said there was no proposal to allow a free vote on “this important legislation”.

The last free vote in the Dáil is believed to have been in the early 1970s when a Bill to legalise contraception was voted down. Then taoiseach Liam Cosgrave voted against his own minister for justice’s legislation.

In his homily Dr Martin said the church had to live with Ireland’s changed culture. Referring to the church’s role in society, he said “mistakes were made in the past, people’s lives have been wrecked by the manner in which the church was governed yet the church has and will continue to have a vital role to play in Irish society”.

The phrase “‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s’ is much more than a soundbyte”, he said. The church “has no role or desire to replace Caesar or in substituting itself for the political forum”, but there were limitations to politics.

“In a democratic system politicians are answerable to those who elected them.”

SIC: IT

Banned biblical banner back to Croker

A RELIGIOUS banner synonymous with GAA matches will be back in Croke Park, despite being refused entry last weekend.

Frank Hogan the evangelist who has been unfurling his John 3:7 banner at GAA matches for the past 20 years, said he was dismayed at not being allowed to bring it inside the stadium during Sunday's Leinster football semi-final clash between Dublin and Meath.

However, the 72-year-old shopkeeper from Co Limerick has since received reassurances that both he and his banner are welcome at the GAA's headquarters.

Mr Hogan -- known affectionately as 'John' to GAA fans across Ireland -- said he was walking towards his seat last Sunday when "a well-dressed and well-spoken" Croke Park official stopped him.

"He said, 'You can go in but the sign has to stay outside'," said Mr Hogan, who left the stadium and returned home.

However, Croke Park's stadium director Peter McKenna said last night he wasn't aware that Mr Hogan's banner had been refused entry.

He added that Mr Hogan would always be welcome in the stadium.

SIC: II

Prayer To The Sacred Heart

Hail!

O Sacred Heart of Jesus,

living and quickening source of eternal life,

infinite treasure of the Divinity,

and burning furnace of divine love.

Thou art my refuge and my sanctuary,

O my amiable Savior.

Consume my heart with that burning fire with which Thine is ever inflamed.

Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Thy love,

and let my heart be so united with Thine,

that our wills may be one,

and mine in all things,

be conformed to Thine.

May Thy divine will be equally the standard and rule

of all my desires

and of all my actions.

Amen.

Belgium trumps Vatican on chuch abuse probes

Belgium insisted Monday in a dispute with the Vatican over credibility that Belgian law enforcement authorities — not the potentially biased Catholic Church — will investigate sexual abuse cases involving clergy.

A panel created by Belgian bishops 12 years ago to look into abuse cases disbanded on Monday, saying last week's seizure of its 500 case files rendered its existence pointless.

Its chief, Peter Adriaenssens, accused authorities of betraying the trust of hundreds of victims and using his group to tap into information and testimony from abuse victims.

"We were bait," said Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist.

He urged Belgian authorities to clarify to abuse victims — many of whom talked after being promised anonymity — "what is going to happen" to the allegations they made to his church-appointed commission.

Belgium's government doesn't appear to be concerned about having pushed the panel to the sidelines, despite an outburst from the Vatican that Thursday's police raid was an unprecedented intrusion into church affairs.

"I respect Peter Adriaenssens, but his commission was created by the Church," Glenn Audenaert, head of Belgium's judiciary police, said after last week's police raids.

"That commission cannot start a prosecution. Only the justice department can."

In Belgium, it has been doing that with unusual force.

On Thursday, scores of police officers seized documents, computers, DVDs and CDs at the Belgian archbishop's residence in Mechlin, north of Brussels, and detained a dozen Belgian bishops who were meeting there.

Also detained for nine hours and told to surrender his cell phone was the Vatican's envoy to Belgium.

Using power tools, police also opened up a prelate's crypt in Mechlin's St. Rombout Cathedral looking for documents.

Simultaneously, police carted off 500 sexual abuse case files against Belgian clergy from the office of Adriaenssens' panel in Leuven, just east of Brussels.

As the Adriaenssens' commission stepped down, it said it was now up to Belgian bishops "to care for victims and follow-up their complaints" of sexual abuse.

Rik Torfs, a canon law expert, says the Catholic Church has a poor record of doing that.

"It has failed badly in its treatment of many of these cases," he said. "The church always found their fate less important than its own prestige. In that sense, today's papal protests are unimpressive."

The commission Adriaenssens led was founded in 1998 to investigate sexual abuse by clergy.

For long a do-nothing group with fast changing leaders, its case load in its first 10 years of existence never exceeded 30.

What accelerated matters was the April 24 resignation of Belgium's longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe.

He stepped down after admitting sexually abusing a young boy both when he was a priest and archbishop casting a vast cloud over former Archbishop Godfried Danneels who retired last January.

The resignation came after reports of hundreds of abuse cases worldwide exposing cover-ups by bishops and evidence of long-standing Vatican inaction to stop it.

Since Adriaenssens took charge of the abuse investigation panel in April, its case load rose to 475 as hundreds of men — now in their 60s and 70s — have come forward.

Only 100 agreed that their cases could be relayed to justice officials.

Adriaenssens said his panel had planned to issue a report to the Belgian bishops in October.

SIC: AP

A brief history of the Roman Missal

The Roman Missal is a book containing the prayers, chants, and instructions for the celebration of Mass in the Roman Catholic Church.

In the earliest centuries of the Catholic Church, there were no books containing prescribed prayers, texts or other instructions for celebration of faith.

At first, collections of prayers developed gradually for use in particular locations, and those collections were contained in booklets.

Over centuries these were combined into larger collections.

Eventually large, organized collections of prayers were assembled into "sacramentaries."

These contained some, but not all, of the prayers of the Mass.

The earliest of these sacramentaries were attributed to Pope Leo I, "Leo the Great" (440-461), and Pope Gelasius (492-496).

The first true liturgical books which could be called "missals" were found in monasteries beginning around the 12th and 13th centuries.

A missal contained not only the prayers but the biblical readings, the chants and the rubrics for the celebration of Mass.

Because the faith of the church comes through prayer, there was a need for consistency in the words used during Mass.

However, it was not until after the Council of Trent when Pope Pius V in 1570 published an edition of the Missale Romanum that the text was in mandatory use throughout the Latin Church.

Once translated and approved by Vatican officials, it was published in modern languages for use in churches all over the world.

Since that time, to accommodate the ongoing evolution and development of the Liturgy -- words spoken during holy services -- at least eight new editions of the Missale Romanum have been published.

The most recent was released in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.

SIC: SCCom

Vatican Admits to ‘Errors’ in Management of Real-Estate Assets

The Vatican today admitted to possible “errors” in the church’s handling of its real-estate assets, responding for the first time to a corruption investigation that has involved a top Roman Catholic cardinal.

Prosecutors are probing whether Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe sold church property to former Infrastructure Minister Pietro Lunardi for a fraction of its market price in exchange for subsidies, Italian newspapers including Corriere della Sera have reported.

Between 2001 and 2006, Sepe led the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Vatican body that controls the Church’s real-estate holdings worth $11 billion and funds missionary work.

Sepe, who now is archbishop of Naples, told reporters on June 21 that he “always acted according to his conscience and only in the best interests of the Church.” He denies any wrongdoing.

“Managing such a fortune is naturally a very hard and complex task, requiring one to defer to experts in the field, and like in all financial operations one can be exposed to errors in assessment and fluctuations in the international market,” the Vatican said in a statement posted on its website.

The Vatican on June 21 added a link on its website that outlined the procedures necessary for obtaining documents to the congregation’s archive.

SIC: BW

Deep Divisions in Traditional Anglican Communion Erupt over Pope's offer of Unity

The former Rector of St. John the Evangelist, Canon Stanley Sinclair, has been expelled from the cathedral and excommunicated from his parish and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada based in Victoria, BC because he refuses to accept the Pope's offer of unity being promoted by the Traditional Anglican Communion.

Canon Sinclair was summarily dismissed from his post by The The Very Rev. Shane B. Janzen, who accused Canon Sinclair of "sowing discord", and "going behind my back to spread false information, fear and disunity."

In a letter to Sinclair, which VOL has obtained, Shane described himself as "appalled" and said Sinclair was "duplicitous" and accused him of "shredding his ministry, breaking friendship" and that "a clergyman of your years and maturity should have acted differently. I hope the ends justify the means," he said in a final blast at the priest.

In his response to Janzen, Sinclair said the church he has known has been taken from him and wrote, "It seems best to me that in the light of the excommunication, I should resign accordingly from the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, and express to you, to the Dean and Chapter and the membership of the parish the love and regard we have for all of you."

Janzen said he had contacted Archbishop James Eugene Provence (APCK) over the Ordinariate who said it was personal. "I faced the prospect of having no church connection, because of the terms of the Ordinariate, I also called an old friend, APCK Archbishop Robert Morse. Like all those clergy who have left the Anglican (Episcopal) Church, a period of discernment and consideration of the options preceded any notification of the diocesan, pending a decision.

"I have not urged anyone to leave St. John's, nor do I have any plans whatsoever. I had every intention of informing you well in advance of any decision on my part."

Janzen said the stress he and many have felt since the publication of Anglicanorum Coetibus has been profound.

"In our estimation, and that of many others, our Church as we know it is being taken away from us, though for the noblest motives. We may be mistaken, but this is our earnest conviction."

"I never intended the hurt of anyone, and I still regard the publication of the Pro/Con as a necessary independent act. I am sorry that this was perceived as a personal attack or act of treachery."

Reaction to the Dean's sacking of Sinclair was swift and condemnatory. One parishioner wrote, "I did not join Saint John's to be a Roman Catholic."

"The meeting after Church was akin to union meetings I have experienced in logging camps; intimidation ruled, stand up and vote; it was not right. After reading the documents, especially the one dated March 12, 2010 to [Cardinal] Joseph Levada; I read what I sensed at the meeting, I am dealing with a stacked deck, this deal was done long before any lay people could vote. Synod in July will be no different.

"I am much troubled how a man of God could write a letter like you wrote to Father Stan. The man you first served under and then excommunicated, that is not the wisdom of God at work. Father Stan was thrown under the bus; did he not help build this Church?

"The Anglican Ordinariate will be a shadow of its former self. I believe the shepherds to be thinking not of the flock but of themselves. I believe our shepherd has misled us and God only knows why."

The parishioner concluded his blast saying that it made no sense why the powers that be at Saint John's would do this to what was started with five members in the congregation. [Is this about progress? power? acknowledgment? career decision? money?]

"It is with a very heavy heart that my family and I bid you and the Church goodbye; we can no longer attend Saint John's."

Prominent Lay Reader, Dr. Geoffrey D. T. Shaw summarized events leading to the parish schism.

"Several years ago our House of Bishops signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church committing us to uphold the doctrines and dogma of the RC Church - without consultation with the clergy or laity. That was a breach of the various constitutions to which we belong.

"The Primate Archbishop Hepworth visited the church to answer questions of concern to members of the parish. The answers to these questions were not satisfactory and later were found to be misleading. The Dean announced from the pulpit that a vote would take place by the parish. Prior to the Synod of the Traditional Anglican Communion where our delegates would be sent to take part in a vote on acceptance of the terms of the Apostolic Constitution.

"A petition was drafted in strict accordance with the Societies Act, B.C. The parish council was asked to arrange a Special General meeting at which two motions would be tabled for a vote. 13 signatories of members of the parish were obtained.

"The petition was handed to the Dean Rev. Shane Janzen at a coffee break of parish members following Mass several weeks ago. The Dean approached some of the elderly Signatories and chastised them for adding their signatures. This intimidating tactic resulted in them saying they did not understand what they were signing.

"As Allan Singleton-Wood was the person who delivered the petition to him, he sent a letter to him with a copy to all signatories and members of the parish council accusing Singleton-Wood of telling untruths and falsifying information on the document. He resigned as a lay reader.

"It became increasingly apparent through conflicting statements by the Dean that we were not receiving an accurate picture of the bishops' plan for our church. Because of the absence of proper information, Canon Sinclair drafted a document of "Pros and Cons" of the offer by Rome and sent this to all members of the congregation. It was a very balanced document.

"At Mass the following week Canon Sinclair suffered the humiliation of a strong rebuke from the pulpit for producing a document from which the Dean dissociated himself.

"Canon Sinclair had a telephone discussion with Archbishop Provence, an old friend from a US Anglican Catholic Diocese. The Archbishop reassured him that if members of the church were left with "nowhere to go" he would help in any way he can with pastoral care.

"Singleton-Wood resigned from the parish. He explained to the Dean that he wished to remain an Anglican Catholic and does not intend to become a Roman Catholic. The Dean's letter of response informed him that he would also be removed as a member of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Traditional Anglican Communion (this despite the fact that the Synod of the TAC has not yet had its meeting on whether or not to "go to Rome."

In a Parish Newsletter, The Dean accused Canon Sinclair of lies and duplicity and distributing false information.

The Bishop invited him to lunch and made an offer to rescind the excommunication and reinstate his license on the condition that he withheld any further discussions with other churches until after the Synod.

Canon Sinclair refused and sent a letter to the Bishop accepting the excommunication. The Dean announced a formal meeting of the Parish to take place yesterday, 20th June.

At that meeting it was announced, despite Canon Sinclair's refusal to concede to the Bishop's request, that a reconciliation had taken place and that Canon Sinclair's license had been restored.

"When the bishops signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church they agreed to teach us the RC Catechism, its doctrines and dogma commencing immediately. It also bound us all to uphold RC Canon Law (even though we were already bound by TAC Canon Law. The bishops were at that time bound by the constitutions of the TAC, ACCC and the constitution of the Parish of St John's. Those constitutions were seriously breached by this agreement and were further breached by making these decisions without consultation with the clergy and laity. The Apostolic Constitution will logically make those constitutions obsolete."

In the US, at least one ACA/TAC diocese has said it would not accept Rome's offer setting the stage for schism within the Continuing Anglican church body throughout North America.

SIC: VO

Abuse victims can sue Vatican, court rules

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for St. Paul lawyer Jeff Anderson to sue Pope Benedict on behalf of sex-abuse victims when it refused Monday to hear the Vatican's appeal of an Oregon lawsuit.

Anderson, who specializes in filing abuse suits against the Roman Catholic Church, called the decision "the biggest breakthrough in the movement's history."

"This is huge. Really, really huge," he said.

"We've kicked down the iron gates that they've been hiding behind for all these years."

In declining to hear the case, the court upheld an appeals court ruling that the Vatican can be sued for sexual abuse if church officials knowingly reassign priests who have been accused of such acts in their previous parishes.

The Vatican appeal had argued that the U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over the Rome-based church.

Anderson predicted that now he can eventually depose Pope Benedict.

"I won't start with him; I'm going to work my way up," he said. "But this ruling gives me the ability to depose anybody within the organization who has knowledge about the events."

Before becoming pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger oversaw the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office that disciplines priests for abusive acts.

SNAP (Survivors Network of the Those Abused by Priests) issued a statement saying that the Supreme Court's decision "gives hope to hundreds of thousands of clergy sex abuse victims across the globe who know lies remain under wraps at the Vatican and will only be unearthed through persistent action by secular justice officials and systems."

The suit that led to the appeal was filed in 2002 by Anderson in Oregon for an unnamed 49-year-old man who alleges he was sexually abused as a teenager by a priest who had been reassigned after being accused of similar abuses in parishes in Chicago and Ireland.

SIC: STCom

Pope to set agenda before going on summer holiday

Pope Benedict XVI has a number of important decision to make this week, before he sets off on his annual summer holiday.

A new evangelization council is to be set up, headed by Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, to combat the increasing religious apathy of the West.

The pope is also set to meet with former German bishop Walter Mixa, who resigned from his post in April after admitting that he had slapped teenagers and helped himself to orphanage funds 30 years ago.

Mixa has since claimed that he was under pressure when he resigned from his position as bishop of Augsburg and has asked for his job back.

SIC: ET

Belfast bouncer on threshold of new calling... as a vicar

A WOMAN who worked as a bouncer at a Belfast pub was ordained last weekend as a deacon at a ceremony in Durham Cathedral.

Cambridge graduate Julia Candy has been called to the ministry of the Church of England and will train to become a vicar.

The 30-year-old, from Whitley Bay, will be based at Durham St Giles, not far from where she lives with her husband, 25-year-old Guy Bennett-Hunter.

She supported herself while studying for her PhD in psychology at Queen's University in the Northern Irish capital by working as part of the security team in a bar.

Dr Candy said: "During the week, it was mainly students but at the weekend there were some real characters.

"There would be a mixture of Protestants and Catholics, so sometimes the troubles would spill over.

"But being a woman, I would usually have to deal with other females fighting about a man rather than 400 years of political unrest."

Dr Candy based her research on the development of national identity and sectarian attitudes amongst Northern Irish children.

She experienced some scary moments, especially when she met with those who had been or continue to be involved in paramilitary activities.

She said: "I was in a taxi from a Catholic area and as we went down a staunchly Loyalist area, there was a group of youths causing trouble.

"They started pelting the taxi with stones and a brick came through the side window where I was sitting.

"I just screamed and we had to skidaddle out of there pretty quickly."

Dr Candy, who attended Modern High School, North Shields, before studying for a degree in social and political science at King College, Cambridge, also ran a youth club on the notorious Shankill Road, in Belfast.

She hopes to offer her skills to young people in Durham by setting up a youth club and drama group during her time at St Giles' Church.

She said: "Young people feel like they are forgotten about and that they can offer nothing to society so they are dispossessed.

"They feel like nobodies but they are really special and have a lot of offer. They need to fee that they are taken seriously and listened to."

Dr Candy, who was one of the members of the public standing on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, last year with a placard that said "Humanity is underrated", is one of seven people ordained on Sunday.

The others are former Army captain Simon Cake, Phil Smith, Tom Glover, James Menzies, Sheila Day and Susan Chew.

SIC: TNE

Archbishop Michael Neary launches new vocations initiative in the Archdiocese of Tuam ‘One Life, One Call, One Response’

Background

Archbishop Michael Neary, Archbishop of Tuam, will launch this evening a new online initiative and accompanying literature to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the Archdiocese of Tuam.

The theme of this initiative is ‘One Life, One Call, One Response’ and it will take place in Knock House Hotel at 8.00pm, the eve of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.

It is now ten years since the previous campaign ‘Towards the Goal’ was launched by the Archdiocese of Tuam in 2000. This evening’s launch will include the promotion of posters, leaflets, prayer cards and a new website so as to encourage vocations throughout the Archdiocese.

As part of this vocations initiative, Archbishop Neary, in a brief video recording in Irish and English, reflects on the reality of his own vocation and encourages others to give positive consideration when they hear God’s calling to the priesthood.

Archbishop Neary’s video is now available on a new website www.onelifeonecalloneresponse.com which will be officially launched this evening and is dedicated to promoting and hosting information on vocations in the Archdiocese of Tuam.

Archbishop Neary’s video is also available on www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZmK9igD-2U

The Vocations Committee of the Archdiocese of Tuam will promote this new vocations initiative and literature at the annual vocations promotion on Reek Sunday, which takes place this year in four weeks time on 25 July 2010.

Address by Archbishop Michael Neary at the launch of a new vocations initiative by the Archdiocese of Tuam, Knock House Hotel, Knock, Co Mayo 28 June 2010:

• “Because we are a people formed, nurtured and sent on mission by the Eucharist, Vocation must be at the heart and core of who we are and what we are” – Archbishop Neary

• “In an age of anger and anxiety people look for and are entitled to find certain characteristics in their priest…..their priest be a man of joy, to be a man for others…and for their priests to be men of prayer. – Archbishop Neary

Words of Welcome

Welcome to everybody here today to the launch of the new online campaign and special literature for the promotion of vocations, One Life, One Call, One Response.

Welcome to the lay-faithful, religious and priests. A special welcome to the Carmelite Sisters who have a special link with our vocations committee and are continually praying for priests.

Welcome to parish representatives and members of the Diocesan Youth Council, the Council for the Laity, Saint Joseph’s Young Priests Society, Diocesan Pastoral Council and various representatives from the media.

Theme – One Life, One Call, One Response

The theme of the launch is One Life, One Call, One Response. An African proverb states that when a tree falls it makes a great noise, but when a forest grows, it grows silently.

All of us are deeply conscious of the failures, infidelities and crimes of which some priests are guilty.

That, and the sometimes inadequate handling of these serious matters has been rightly exposed and has received considerable coverage.

Yet in-spite of all of that priests will be found standing shoulder to shoulder with families and individuals who carry their crosses on life’s journey, whether it be death, tragedy, illness or separation.

The priest accompanying them remains with them in the gardens of their Gethsemane. He is there at many key moments of profound sadness and joy in people’s lives. Here in our own Archdiocese of Tuam our priests have been doing just that, providing a generous and supportive service which, in many ways, is heroic.

The relationship between a people and their priest may be experienced in a very striking way on the occasion of the death of the priest, the celebration of a Silver or Golden Jubilee or the transfer of a priest to another area.

Eucharist / Priesthood / Vocation at the heart of Catholic Identity

Because we are a people formed, nurtured and sent on mission by the Eucharist, Vocation must be at the heart and core of who we are and what we are.

The Eucharist which is central to our Catholic identity requires the priest.

The priest is never a man on his own.

As priests we emerge from, are supported, challenged and corrected by the people with whom we work and whom we endeavour to serve.

The need for good committed prayerful priests is becoming more urgent.

Praying for and Encouraging Vocations

Despite the negative reports of recent times, in launching the Vocations material on priesthood, as a people of God we are declaring that we are very much open for business.

We encourage, pray for and welcome vocations to priesthood.

Facing the future and vocation promotion with courage

Here in the Archdiocese of Tuam we have so many dedicated, outstanding and hardworking priests, who have given so generously of their lives in service of Jesus Christ.

In launching this material we are committing ourselves to a form of evangelisation, preparing the soil for the sowing of the vocations seed.

One of the great obstacles facing us in this respect is discouragement but we must remember that discouragement never comes from the Lord.

God with us – working in and through our efforts

In the parable of the sowing of the seed in the gospels Jesus teaches us that all truly fruitful things begin in this world with what is small and hidden.

Now is a particularly appropriate time to launch out into the deep, realising that we cannot do this on our own, the Lord is with us and will provide the catch in terms of vocations.

Characteristics of the Priest

In an age of anger and anxiety people look for and are entitled to find certain characteristics in their priest.

Firstly they readily expect that their priest be a man of joy, a joy emanating from the fact that he is in contact with the God who created him to life, called him and to whom he endeavours to respond generously.

Secondly, people expect the priest to be a man for others. This inevitably involves us along the road to Calvary and crucifixion. The words which we use at consecration: “This is my body, given for you”.

Thirdly, people expect us to be men of prayer. If those three dimensions of priesthood are inter-related in our lives then others characteristics will emerge like courage, perseverance and passion.

Design and Preparation

As we launch the material I would like to welcome Quantum Universal who designed the material and initially launched “Towards the Goal” ten years ago.

I thank Marion Mulhall for her dedicated work, advice on design, ideas and promotion.

Marion works tirelessly in promoting priesthood through so many initiatives with worldpriest.com

Contributors

To all who contributed to the material.

Canon Colm Kilcoyne for his help and advice with the text, Fathers Stephen Farragher, Ray Flaherty, Seán Cunningham and Shane Sullivan for their availability for the photographs and for the literature.

The many people, baptised faithful, religious and clergy who contributed testimonials on the priesthood both in the brochure and on the website.

Vocations Committee Work and Seminarians

A special word of thanks to the Vocations Committee, chaired by the Diocesan Secretary, Fr Fintan Monahan, to Fr Stephen Farragher, Tod Nolan, Krzysztof Sikora, Patrick Burke and Francis Mitchell who are involved in the schools promotion programme and the Reek Sunday promotion, to the Carmelite Sisters with whom the Vocations Committee have a special prayer link.

To our seminarians, Eugene O’ Boyle and Shane Sullivan who please God will be ordained for our diocese in two years time, to Seán Flynn who has just finished Second Philosophy and Dominic Allen First Philosophy, and Aidan Gallagher who has completed is pre-seminary year in Valladolid.

Appreciation, Greeting, blessing

Thanks to Mary Connolly, our Diocesan Liturgical Resource Officer for taking charge of the prayer and liturgy tonight, to Liam Horan of Slí Nua Communications who designed the new Diocesan Website and acted as MC for the evening.

To the media people for coming and for their kindness in supporting various events in season and out of season and to Knock House Hotel, a very suitable location for this launch.

I hope that you all have a pleasant evening, a safe journey home and thanks again for your encouragement and support in joining us this evening.

I now formally launch this new literature, One Life, One Call, One Response and pray God’s blessing on it that it will bear a rich harvest of fruit in abundance and plenty.

SIC: ICBC

Made in his own image: The Catholic Church faces another scandal

Joseph Ratzinger is having a terrible year.

But as the Catholic Church faces yet another scandal, blame is falling on its most popular figure of modern times, Pope John Paul II.

There is a cruel paradox in the career of the man who, in September, will become only the second pope in history to visit Britain.

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in April 2005, he set about purifying the Catholic Church and returning it to its core values.

He also pledged to get his charismatic predecessor, John Paul II, canonised as quickly as possible.

But as a new church scandal exploded last week, hard on the heels of the paedophilia storm, this one involving allegations of massive corruption at the heart of the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict's papal career risks being eclipsed by the dark shadow of John Paul's legacy.

Nobody doubts that the Pope would like the church to be a cleaner, leaner, quieter, purer institution, purged of paedophile priests and greedy careerists; he said as much again last week.

But this man, who proposes himself as a new broom and wags his finger at those who take a permissive, typically Italian view of venality, has been at the heart of the church for half a lifetime. All these people are his old colleagues. If this is Sodom, he has been a citizen in good standing for 40 years.

Take the man at the centre of the latest storm, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe. Aged 67, he was born on the outskirts of Naples and was raised speaking the gritty local dialect, incomprehensible to outsiders.

Referred to by Italian newspapers as "l'impresario di Dio", "God's wheeler-dealer", today he is the much-beloved archbishop of the same city: an impressively fat, prosperous looking prelate, who likes nothing better than immersing himself in his crowds of Neapolitan fans, slapping backs and kissing babies.

Neapolitans affectionately call their archbishop "O'guapo", local slang for "the boss" – the kindly mafia capo whom people go to with their problems instead of phoning the police.

But although no one is accusing him of complicity with the city's fearsome Camorra mafia (Roberto Saviano, author of Gomorrah, a book about the Camorra, leapt to his defence), the crimes of which he is accused are of a type which any mafioso would understand.

Sepe, who is still very young for a cardinal, received spectacular promotions from John Paul II which climaxed when he was given the job of running the church's Jubilee celebrations in 2000.

A showman after the late-Pope's heart, he threw a carnival such as Rome has not seen since the days of Nero, and was rewarded for his success with the juicy job of running a church agency called Propaganda Fide, with a Roman property portfolio said to be worth €9bn (£6bn).

Now prosecutors claim that he sold property from that portfolio to a top politician at half its market value in return for his agency receiving special favours from the government. In classic clientelismo style: you scratch the politician's back, and he scratches yours.

Except that in this case the alleged perpetrator was one of the most illustrious figures in the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict, Vatican watchers say, spotted Cardinal Sepe's frailties early on, which is why, in 2006, he unceremoniously removed him from Propaganda Fide – a job that an incumbent would normally expect to hold indefinitely – and packed him off home to Naples.

The cardinal denies that version of what happened as flatly as he denies the corruption charges.

Last week he said of the change in his fortunes: "The Holy Father asked me with great insistence to stay in Rome, but my heart was beating for Naples." But apropos of his legal difficulties, he also speaks darkly of enemies "who wanted to strike me, both inside and outside the church".

It is hard to think of two men of God more different than Sepe and Ratzinger: the meaty, glad-handing Mediterranean man of the people, and the ascetic, book-loving Bavarian introvert.

In a church regulated according to the Pope's wishes, it's also hard to imagine a man like Sepe obtaining much preferment.

But the uncomfortable fact for Benedict is that the two men have one vital thing in common: both of them were chosen and promoted by John Paul II.

And it is over his ambiguous legacy that an epic battle is now being fought behind the closed doors of the Vatican.

He may be physically slight, but this Pope is no pushover.

Once, when a CNN reporter pursued him with an awkward question, he slapped him on the wrist rather than answer.

As John Paul II's "enforcer of the faith" for nearly 30 years, he was ruthless in purging anyone and everyone with whom he disagreed – liberal theologians, those who lobbied the cause of gays in the church, the propounders of liberation theology, and easy-going Catholics who wanted the church to get on closer terms with other faiths.

Anyone who he thought was trying to muddy the pure waters of faith with modern ideas was in deep trouble.

Since becoming Pope, he has kept up the hard line, favouring the return of Latin and of priests who turn their back on the congregation during Mass, the end of guitar-strumming populism, and the fashioning of a church that might have fewer members but is purer and less contaminated by the secular world.

But Pope Benedict is meeting fierce resistance from within the church, in particular from some senior churchmen like Cardinal Sepe – those most lavishly favoured by John Paul II. Skeletons are tumbling out of the cupboard.

First it was the nightmare of priestly paedophilia: early this year, lawyers acting for US victims of paedophile priests accused Benedict of having been complicit in the cover-up of the crimes, and of having shown no sympathy for the victims.

Since then, the Pope has been rowing back hard. En route by air to Lisbon last month he made the announcement that indicated a radical change of tack on the paedophilia crisis. During the flight, he told reporters: "Today the greatest persecution of the church does not come from outside, but from the sin inside the church itself. The church thus has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice."

He has subsequently reinforced the message and, for the first time, offered humble apologies to the victims. He seems to be winning the public relations battle. But if we believe him to be sincere, he now finds himself in a very difficult situation.

He is, according to one Vatican expert, "surrounded by people who share his politics and his conservative theology, but who don't share his views about paedophilia".

He will also have to come clean about how his own views have changed. And he has so far shown no sign of being prepared to take either of those steps.

The Pope is a sort of monarch, but his power is severely constrained by the men who were his colleagues when he was still a cardinal.

Within the Curia, the church's governing body, Benedict is surrounded by old men like himself who have been together for many decades.

All of them, we can assume, have plenty of dirt on all the others.

All these men share broad agreement on the big doctrinal issues facing the church.

Arch-conservatives all, like John Paul II, they are united in believing that no concessions should be made to the changing times – no movement on abortion, contraception, stem cells and the other "sanctity of life" issues; nor on the stigma attached to homosexuality, the rules on celibacy or the ban on women priests.

They are also united in believing that the church is under siege from the godless compulsions of modern consumer society.

The church's enemies, they agree, are without.

But on the question of priestly paedophilia, several are very vulnerable.

One of them, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, has been one of the most powerful men in the church for decades.

From 1990 to 2006, this fleshy son of a Piedmontese politician was Pope John Paul II's secretary of state, the most important post in the Vatican below the pontiff.

Relieved of that job by Benedict he is now, aged 82, dean of the College of Cardinals and still has great power. But he has been tainted by the current scandal.

Particularly problematic are his relations with a veritable monster of the modern church, the late Mexican prelate, Marcial Maciel.

Maciel was the founder of a highly conservative order called the Legion of Christ, but it has gradually emerged over the years – particularly since his death in 2008 – that he was much else besides: a morphine addict for decades who sexually abused his own seminarians, fathered several children by two mistresses, and then went on to abuse and rape those children.

Yet Maciel was greatly favoured by John Paul II, remaining persona grata at the Vatican until nearly the end of his life, and Sodano, like other senior members of the Curia (though not Ratzinger) received large cash gifts from him.

Sodano repaid Maciel generously by killing a Vatican investigation into his misdeeds in 1998.

Another close ally of Benedict, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the man who replaced Sodano as secretary of state and is much mocked in Vatican circles for his alleged lack of brain- power, has also been badly tarnished by his friendship with Maciel.

In 2004, when he was Archbishop of Genoa, he wrote a preface to a book-length interview with Maciel entitled "My Life is Christ", in which he praised "the frankness of one who lives his mission ... with his sights and his heart fixed on Christ Jesus".

Benedict is not tainted in the same way. But although he obtained Maciel's removal from the Legion of Christ in 2006, critics accuse him of featherbedding this dreadful man right to the end.

Jason Berry, the American Catholic journalist, who has done most to expose Maciel's crimes over the years, argues that until Benedict sacks Sodano and Bertone, the Maciel shadow will still hang heavy on him.

The problem for the current Pope is that he was there, in the inner circle, throughout the years that Maciel was John Paul II's favourite.

And – according to the damaging testimony of a former cardinal – he also went along with the prevailing attitude of his fellow cardinals towards priestly paedophilia in general.

It emerged in April that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a Colombian who for 10 years was in charge of the Vatican department that supervises the clergy, wrote in 2001 with gushing approval to the Bishop of Bayeux, who went to jail rather than give French authorities information about a priest who had raped a minor.

"I congratulate you for not turning in a priest to the civil administration," he wrote. "I am delighted to have a colleague ... who ... has preferred prison to turning in his son-priest."

The Vatican confirmed the authenticity of the letter, which had been posted on a French website.

But then Castrillon Hoyos himself added a crucial detail.

In a radio interview he said the letter was the outcome of a high-level meeting of cardinals at which Ratzinger had been present.

"It was a meeting of cardinals," he told RCN radio. "Therefore the current Pope, who at the time was a cardinal, was present."

If the Pope wants to purge paedophilia from the church he must confront the compromised figures within the Curia and dismiss them.

But whether that is politically possible is an open question. Sodano, Bertone and friends will fight like tigers to retain their privileges. There is also the question of whether Benedict has the personal, managerial talents to pull it off.

When I asked one German expert on the Vatican for his assessment, he merely laughed. "No he doesn't," he said. "He's just a professor!"

When Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope five years ago, he was seen as a figure who would guarantee continuity after the 26-year reign of the Polish Pope.

After all, it was John Paul II who had persuaded Ratzinger to leave his job as Archbishop of Munich and come to Rome to be his chief doctrinal advisor.

With the death of John Paul, the Catholic Church lost its greatest communicator, the man who had travelled more than any pope in history, who inspired eastern Europe's revolt against Communism and enjoyed enormous popularity even among non-Catholics.

At his funeral thousands chorused, "Santo subito!" – "Make him a saint immediately!"

He is not a saint yet, but he is on the fast track.

And, in death, he remains a focus of devotion.

Nobody expected Cardinal Ratzinger to be able to replicate that performance, this introverted, book-loving German with his grand piano, cats and fondness for archaic vestments.

But he was seen as the right man to protect Wojtyla's heritage and steer him safely towards sainthood.

Instead the chickens of John Paul's papacy are coming home to roost – the poisonous legacy of Maciel, one of whose brutalised sons spoke about his bizarre and hideous childhood for the first time last week, and all the other paedophile cases that festered during his long reign.

And now the alleged venality of Cardinal Sepe has added more pollution to the air.

Both Maciel and Sepe were highly favoured by Pope John Paul II.

Their worldliness resonated with the extrovert ex-actor and footballer; for him they brought vitality and energy into the church, not to mention a great deal of money.

And he didn't care to look too closely at what else they brought.

Pope Benedict XVI would like the Catholic Church to be very different from the one that ballooned out of all proportion under John Paul, purer, more beautiful, more austere.

But far from moulding the church in his own image, he now risks having his own heritage fatally compromised by the sins of the Holy Father.

Tasked with fostering John Paul's legacy, he risks being flattened by it.

SIC: TIUK