John Cooney: Old-style, secretive Church must be given the last rites
The slogan of 'A peasant Church for a peasant people' was created by the moulder of the highly centralised and secretive clericalist Catholic Church in Ireland, which is crumbling in the wake of the paedophile priest scandals.
It was the Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen, Ireland's first cardinal and pre-eminent churchman from the mid-19th Century until his death in 1878, who built the authoritarian church structures which his successor, Dr Diarmuid Martin, wants to shake up.
Cullen spearheaded 'a devotional revolution', based on novenas, pilgrimages, processions and the cult of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady, for a pious and docile faithful. Since the 1960s this form of piety has largely been abandoned but the mindset of an obedient laity still remains strong in the pews.
What historians call 'the Cullenisation of Ireland' produced a disciplined clericalist Irish Church that marched in total loyalty to Rome and 'cute hoor' acceptance of the authority of bishops by clergy and laity.
By mid-20th Century, Cullen's legacy reached its high point of awesome power under Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. From 1940 to his retirement in 1972, McQuaid, as 'the ruler of Catholic Ireland', imposed his iron will on Irish politics and society, while instilling fear in clergy and people.
Although Irish politics and society have joined the European secular mainstream in the four decades since McQuaid's death, this centralised culture of ecclesiastical secrecy of unaccountability to civic and criminal law was identified in the report by Judge Yvonne Murphy as the root cause of church cover-ups of paedophile priests.
The Murphy report dramatically showed that, from 1940 to late 1995, four successive archbishops of Dublin, McQuaid, Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Cardinal Desmond Connell, did not inform gardai of the rapes of innocent children by clerics. They placed the good standing of the Church above causing public scandal by exposing 'the sins of the Fathers'.
In the public revulsion and shame accompanying the state investigations into Ferns, the religious orders, and now the Archdiocese of Dublin, Irish society has been stunned by the collapse of the credibility and moral authority of bishops.
But the fallout has come up against a roadblock caused by the refusal of five bishops -- Donal Murray, Eamonn Walsh, Jim Moriarty, Martin Drennan and Raymond Field -- to resign. Their abdication of moral responsibility has widened the crisis for the Irish Church into a huge test of the papacy of Benedict XVI.
Astonishingly, at last Friday's summit in Rome with Cardinal Sean Brady and Archbishop Martin, Pope Benedict and his senior officials in the Vatican did not address the question of episcopal resignations.
The one possible saving grace in the communique issued in Pope Benedict's name read: "The Holy See takes very seriously the central issues raised by the report, including questions concerning the governance of local church leaders with ultimate responsibility for the pastoral care of children."
However, this passing-the-buck was followed by a deeply disappointing holding statement that caused further fury among victims of clerical abuse.
The statement said: "The Holy Father intends to address a pastoral letter to the faithful of Ireland in which he will clearly indicate the initiatives that are to be taken in response to the situation."
Over the weekend, it looked as if the question of resignations was parked, while we wait to hear from 'Godot' Benedict Ratzinger.
However, a new phase of debate has been prised open by Fr Vincent Twomey, a conservative moral theologian and former doctoral student of the German pontiff.
"The longer they dig their heels in and refuse to resign, the greater damage they are doing to the Church," Fr Twomey said. "They are causing great scandal."
Fr Twomey, the author of 'The End of Irish Catholicism?', wants a scaling-down of Ireland's 26 dioceses -- many of them rural and with the population of a Dublin parish -- and an immediate end to appointing mediocre bishops.
Another voice is that of Mayo's Fr Kevin Hegarty, who has echoed Fr Twomey's call for resignations of the five bishops but has extended this to church officials at the level of chancellor named in the report.
And more significantly, too, Fr Hegarty has raised the Church's rule of obligatory male priestly celibacy and suggested the need for a review of the Church's negative teachings on sexuality.
It is painfully obvious that the crisis in the Irish Church is not going to go away and that talk of medium-term plans of church reorganisation will not appease public opinion and the quest for justice for victims of clerical abuse.
With Bishop Donal Murray still in Rome defending his "inexcusable" handling of the Fr Thomas Naughton case, his immediate fate lies in the hands of the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, Cardinal Battista Re.
At this moment it is Cardinal Re who has the power to recommend Bishop Murray's resignation to Pope Benedict.
This he must do.
If his Holiness does not give the Bishop of Limerick his P45, the four others will try to cling on to office, and he might as well save himself the postal cost of sending his pastoral letter to Ireland in the new year.
Pace Cardinal Cullen, Ireland is no longer a peasant Church -- and it is fast discarding its Catholic membership.
- John Cooney
Irish Independent
