Church must reform or perish
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TODAY'S meeting in Rome between Pope Benedict XVI and 24 Irish bishops is unique in its content and its format but above all in its significance. The future of the Catholic Church in Ireland could hinge on the exchanges and conclusions.
It is essential that all Irish people of good will, and especially the bishops themselves, should understand the crucial nature of the encounter and its background.
The bishops will account for themselves to the Pope on the uniquely painful question of the clerical sex abuse scandals and the cover-ups to which they led. There is no doubting the grief and contrition expressed by their spokesmen. Bishop Joseph Duffy of Clogher has said that they will acknowledge the "enormous injustice and cruelty" of sex abuse.
But such an acknowledgment is barely a first step. Like the religious orders, most members of the Hierarchy have been slow to accept, or even to understand, the need for public as well as private repentance, and for such recompense to the victims as may be possible, including episcopal resignations.
And only a handful have grasped a bigger point: that the public reaction -- dismay and horror -- to the Ryan and Murphy reports did not create a sudden crisis but brought to a head a crisis in gestation for decades.
The church enjoyed exceptional power in this country for far too long. It now stands in danger of losing all respect. And society stands in danger of being left ethically rudderless.
Little comfort can be found in the reaction to the appointment of Dr Diarmuid Martin as Archbishop of Dublin. Opposition to his attempted reforms has been intense.
By no coincidence, it mirrors the dislike for reform prevalent in the political system and at high levels in the civil service. Its consequences could be equally calamitous.
Like all Irish institutions, the church has lost respect and authority. And its choices are even more stark than those facing the other institutions.
It can apologise, bear the embarrassment of a few resignations, and carry on much as before. But that is the road to decline and worse. The alternative is unpalatable but necessary: root-and-branch reform, re-examination of every difficult question from lay participation in governance to the role of the church in education. Merely to mention these issues will shock traditionalists, but the alternative is scepticism, empty pews and, at the last, irrelevance.
Irish Independent
