This perspective was printed in yesterday’s Belfast-published Newsletter. Canon Ian Ellis, Editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette was amongst those quoted by Sam McBride who examines the growing rift between church and state
The report states:
Arguably Northern Ireland may not even exist had Ulster’s Protestants not feared that a united Ireland would mean ‘Rome rule’ and a suppression of their faith.
Those fears were reinforced when, in the years following partition, the links between the Roman Catholic Church and the southern state were given legal grounding in the new republic’s constitution.
For the overwhelming majority in the new southern state, to be Irish was to be Catholic and it was the church’s unifying influence which played a key role in bringing stability to the post-civil war republic.
But over recent decades there has been a dramatic weakening of the Catholic church’s position in Ireland as booming business saw many decide for Mammon over God while a constant flow of church sex scandals shook the faith of the faithful.
Though unconnected, there is a certain irony that the Catholic church – the fear of which motivated many northern Protestants to work in support of the Union – is at its weakest in the Republic at the same point when Northern Ireland’s place within the UK appears to be more secure than at any time since its creation.
The position of the Catholic church in public life reached its nadir last Wednesday when taoiseach Enda Kenny dramatically denounced the Vatican’s attempts to ‘manage’ the “rape and torture of children” and to uphold its power and reputation, following the latest in a series of inquiries into church sex abuse and subsequent cover-ups.
The Cloyne Report into sex abuse by priests in the Cloyne Dioceses showed that as recently as 2008 child sex abuse was being covered up by the church hierarchy.
Newry-born bishop John Magee, one of the most senior officials in the Vatican until returning to Ireland in 1987 to become bishop of Cloyne, had refused to pass on to the Garda reports of priests sexually abusing children.
The bishop, who stepped down last year, has not been seen since the publication of the report on July 11 and is rumoured to have fled abroad.
Such is the level of public anger towards the church hierarchy in the Republic that Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin actually praised the taoiseach for his righteous anger about the church’s immoral actions and savaged what he described as a “cabal” among his colleagues who are refusing to accept that children must be protected.
Michael Kelly, deputy editor of The Irish Catholic newspaper, says that Cardinal Sean Brady does not have a moral authority to continue leading the Catholic church in Ireland and that Archbishop Martin is the only man who is capable of reforming the church from within.
“Diarmuid Martin is the only person who can credibly lead the Catholic church in Ireland in any kind of future,” he says.
“The authorities in Rome, in some ways, get how serious it is, but I’m not entirely sure that they care that much any more. I think in some ways the Vatican has given up on Ireland. They view it as three million Catholics in a global church of almost 1.2 billion. Frankly, I think they are just prepared to let it be.
“In fairness to them, since 2001 they have tried, in Rome, to get much better norms and protections in place. The hierarchy here get it to a certain extent but one of the problems is that they are so divided.
“You have [Archbishop] Diarmuid Martin in Dublin and about three other bishops who are very supportive of him and I think the rest are very resistant to change.”
Mr Kelly says that radical measures are called for, such is the level of the rot within the church.
“I think the one thing that the Vatican can do now to show that it does actually care about what is going on here is to dismiss every bishop in Ireland with the exception of Diarmuid Martin and some of the younger ones who’ve been appointed in the past couple of years.
“I think any bishop who was in place before 1996 should be dismissed immediately. I think they were complicit in a culture of cover-up which has brought the Catholic church to its knees and almost brought it to the edge of the cliff.”
He says that ordinary Catholics are becoming increasingly exasperated as they see a church, which has repeatedly assured them that it has changed, find itself at the centre of yet another scandal and cover-up.
There are anecdotal reports of an upsurge in non-denominational ‘community churches’, house churches and attendance at Protestant churches.
There have also been some calls for a radical over-throw of the Catholic church’s authority with lay-people undertaking to administer the church.
But Mr Kelly says that he does not believe there is any serious prospect of an ‘Irish national church’ which cedes from Rome as most Catholics have a deep-seated desire to be part of a church which has the history of the Roman Catholic Church and are “comfortable” with its centralism.
However, he adds: “I think the days of the old saying that Catholics should pray, pay and obey are long gone. Catholics will not be content to put up with unaccountable structures.”
Already, Cardinal Brady is seeing his authority challenged in one Northern Ireland parish.
In Aughnacloy, the local parish priest was removed from ministry last year while an investigation was carried out into abuse allegations.
However, despite a PSNI investigation clearing him of wrong-doing, the priest was not re-instated.
Now local parishioners are demanding that he be re-instated and have said that they will withhold parish collections from Armagh, a situation which would have been difficult to imagine in years gone by.
There are also growing calls for priests to be allowed to marry, as some believe that it is the enforced celibacy which has led to so many priests engaging in illegal sexual conduct.
Those calls for reform have even extended to Catholics calling for women to be admitted to the priesthood. Both come at a time when so few are entering training for the priesthood that the 200-year-old Catholic training seminary of Maynooth is reportedly on the verge of closure.
However, Mr Kelly is positive about the growing separation of church and state, something which he believes will give each a “freedom” which is healthy.
Canon Ian Ellis, editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette, says that he believes the taoiseach’s strong words to the Vatican will have had support from Catholics and Protestants alike.
And, he says, Protestant churches such as the Church of Ireland have learnt from the abuse scandals in the Catholic church, putting in place procedures which aim to protect children.
“The Church of Ireland has seen quite a number of Roman Catholics joining its ranks, including clergy, but I don’t think this is simply as a result of the child sexual abuse issue,” he says.
“I think many Roman Catholics find the Church of Ireland attractive because it is less dogmatic and less authoritative in general terms.
“The church is its people first and foremost, not its clergy and bishops first. I think this is a lesson that Rome is learning and I think that because people relate first to their local parishes rather than to their dioceses, the church will find great strength in time of crisis.
“I think Archbishop Martin has given an exemplary lead on the whole issue of safeguarding children in the church. I am a member of a committee on which he also serves and I know him to be a person of the utmost integrity and courage.”
But, while the focus has been on child abuse within the Catholic church, there have been other examples of abuse and, at best, confusion as to how to deal with it.