EPISCOPAL APOLOGIES

It is right and just that the Primate and others issued apologies. However, action is needed from the hierarchy and the State. Active listening to their needs and generous redress is the least due to survivors. All of us Catholics need clarity as to the overall dysfunction, how we are all to blame and the exact reforms and new narrative needed in response to decades of awful Reports and a growing crisis in the Catholic Church. Instead of the traditional policy of doubling down and refusing to own up to systemic wrongdoing, it would be a blessing in those dark times if our servant leaders stepped forward and involved us all in massive reform.

There were lots of pious words expressed in the apologies. However, there was no admission of the religious roots and patriarchal misogyny behind the abuse of women. There was no confession of the powerful influence and unjust control wielded by the Irish Hierarchy over faithful people in the early decades of the Republic. We await answers to the following questions. Who directed the religious brainwashing of Catholic people, society, doctors, gardai, teachers, civil servants, and politicians? Who denounced women from the altars? Who controlled aspects of education, healthcare, and social services within a shadow State? Who proclaimed Hell for the mortal sin of a sexual thought? What twisted ethos influenced some dedicated and obedient nuns to act without compassion in a system controlled by patriarchs? How are we Catholics now guilty as enablers when we had no vote within the clerical control group? Will future reports find us practising Catholics guilty of collusion with Catholic Catechism teachings that are homophobic and Canon Laws which continue to be unjust to women? Is walking away the best option when the Roman Curia appears totally irreformable?

Archbishop Eamon Martin apologised for the Church’s role. The word “Church” has different meanings. Did he mean the hierarchy as in pre-Vatican II usage or did he mean the People of God? Excellent foster parents, some families and many Legion of Mary volunteers were among the People of God who did great good rather than bad in those impoverished times. The People of God for much of McQuaid’s Ireland were programmed to pray, pay, obey, and never question in a patriarchal and misogynistic institution. Is that institution reformed and totally changed today? It is profoundly depressing for lay Catholics to observe that all roles are open to women in God’s wonderful world but denied to them by patriarchs in the Curia and hierarchy.

Bishop Paul Dempsey stated that the Church had a distorted view of sexuality. I presume he meant the hierarchy. They are loyal to the distorted view of sexuality and misogynistic traditions of the Ancient Fathers. Those men promoted the false teaching that Eve was the ruination of Adam and that shameful nudity was the Original Sexual Sin in Eden. Some taught that woman was of the devil and inferior to men. Gradually, they decreed that marriage intercourse was incompatible with celebration of the Mass. The abuse and injustice of enforced celibacy was then imposed on priests. Even married women had to be “churched”! Jesus wept.

Bishop Dempsey also stated that when the Church (?) fails to focus on Christ, all sorts of distorted practises emerge. That is nice holy talk about Christ, but the truth is that distortions arise when male eunuchs alone decide the narrative. Wholesome governance, leadership, ethos, teaching, and ministry in any Christian Church can only arise from healthy women and men with an equal voice and vote. There is a good chance that the common sense of baptized people will be the loving word of God and will not be warped, cruel or authoritarian.

In the wake of all the Reports and negative events in the Catholic Church since the tragedy of Humanae Vitae in 1968, there was no hopeful signal in the apologies or commentary of any plans by the bishops in regard to the major reforms that are long overdue. A central issue in the recent Report and a central issue for Catholics today is respect and justice for women. Unfortunately, the Roman Curia and the hierarchy do not appear to get that. In true Trumpian fashion, they double down on their clerical policy of apartheid for women under the “sweet soap” of complementarity. Polls have shown over many decades that Irish Catholics do not agree with the hierarchy in their refusal to grant equality and justice to women in the leadership, governance, teaching office and ministry of the Catholic Church.

We pray that the bishops will listen to lay people and good pastoral priests in their persistent cries for reform and a wholesome new narrative. There is much potential for good growth of the Kingdom of God when there is substantial reform of the largest Christian Church, agreed reunion of all churches and a New Christian Narrative for the 21st century.

Joe Mulvaney

Dundrum, Dublin 16

January 30th, 2021