Irish Catholic Church allowed abuse – wants cash

After the Ryan and Murphy reports, were published, shock and anger reverberated throughout Ireland and the world. Questions of how the people of Ireland have failed children so grievously were raised in the media, while the Catholic hierarchy engaged in defence and obfuscation. And then the furore died down, and people went back to worrying about the recession.

Few read the Ryan and Murphy reports and understandably so. No one wants to believe that members of the Church behaved so violently, or that the Church itself was not interested in stopping the violence. The fact that children were the victims made the horror complete.

Those priests, nuns and monks are part of our society – brothers, cousins, uncles and friends of the family. Every one had someone in the church. No one wants to know that a respected academic put a child rapist in the boot of his car and drove him to another parish. Or that the former Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland was appointed even after it was revealed that he used ‘mental reservation’ during subsequent investigations. According to Desmond Connell, mental reservation is

Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying. It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen. So, mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying. [PDF link]

Misleading without lying. It is a sin of omission, but maybe a canon lawyer could explain it away.

It seemed that with the Ryan and Murphy reports published, nothing worse could have possibly happened. But what is, perhaps, just as bad is the attitude from certain members of the clergy. It was with contempt that I read last week that the princes of the church suggested that parishioners pay the compensation claims:

A SECOND bishop has raised the prospect of asking parishioners to help pay compensation and legal bills arising out of clerical child abuse. The Bishop of Ferns Denis Brennan provoked outrage among abuse victims yesterday by his appeal for parishioners to pay €60,000 a year between them for 20 years towards compensation bills. Last night, a spokesman for Bishop of Killaloe Willie Walsh said he would consider following the controversial lead of Bishop Brennan, should it become necessary. [source]

The mere consideration of such a request shows just how far removed from reality Catholic clergy truly is. Bishop Brennan even attempted the classic Catholic guilt trip:

” ‘I did not cause the problem’ is not the response of the Christian.”

This is particularly apt, considering that in Catholic dogma, intentions and actions have equal weight – oh, and considering the fact that “I did not cause the problem” has been the self-justifying tool of those who chose to protect their own power and status, as opposed to protect children.

The church owes a lot of money to survivors of abuse. Asking parishioners to contribute to paying these bills is despicable, but not unexpected. The princes of the church covered up abuse, indemnified the church against prosecution, and converted many assets into trusts to protect their wealth.

The Church is wealthy, but the wealth has been acquired relatively recently. After the relaxing of the Penal Laws in the latter half of the eighteen century, the Catholic Church was left in ruins. The hierarchy had been scattered and its assets stripped.

In the past hundred and sixty years, the Catholic Church in Ireland has amassed considerable wealth. The princes of the church live in palaces. Religious orders own hospitals, schools, churches, cathedrals, historic buildings and thousands of acres of land all over the country. All of this was paid for by the people, penny by penny. All of this is also something that the Church will not part with easily.

This institution is responsible for many crimes, and it should also be held responsible for payment to its victims. The Church could sell fixed assets, or ask the Vatican to stump up the cash. Asking parishioners, though, should not be an option.