The God Squad

The Irish Times – Friday, December 4, 2009
MICHAEL O’REGAN

FIANNA FÁIL backbencher Mary O’Rourke has disagreed with the Taoiseach’s defence of the Vatican and papal nuncio who refused to co-operate with the Dublin diocesan report.

Ms O’Rourke, a former minister, referred to the “sheer discourtesy of a body called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or something with an equally convoluted title”.

She added: “This wonderful doctrine body, wherever it is, does not reply to letters.

“Consider the discourtesy of it, and the discourtesy of the head of the Vatican, parading around Ireland in his wonderful glitzy clothes, but not replying to letters and not seeing fit to talk to his counterpart . . . whoever that is. It is just not good enough.’’

In the Dáil on Tuesday, the Taoiseach said it was “not unreasonable’’ to assume the Holy See and the nuncio believed the matter was more properly addressed through diplomatic channels.

During the resumed debate on the report yesterday, Ms O’Rourke said she was struck by an article by Maureen Gaffney in The Irish Times in which she spoke about the church’s archaic rules on contraception. “Who pays heed to them? The church, however, clings to them as if they were a totem pole of wonderful knowledge.” .

There were also archaic rules, she said, under which the church denied marriage to a person wishing to remarry after a State divorce.

“The church persists with an opaque and impenetrable system of annulment, which one can secure after something like 95 years and all sorts of tribunals of inquiry and so forth.”

Ms O’Rourke said the church was “doomed to failure and we are doomed too’’ unless it started to have an affinity again with ordinary people and their ordinary, everyday problems.

Labour’s Michael D Higgins said he found it “absurd that the papal nuncio could serve as the dean of the diplomatic corps when, in an institutional sense, his predecessors have refused to answer matters of concern within Ireland”. The convention in a number of other places was for the longest-serving ambassador to serve as dean, he added.

Mr Higgins quoted from a church document which said that the whole process of formation of candidates for the priesthood and religious life should foster an integration of human sexuality and the development of healthy human relationships within the context of celibate living. He said he would like to see any research “which suggests one could achieve the objective of such a balance while meeting the requirements of celibate living”.

Mr Higgins added: “It is a matter for the organisation itself. However, I would be dishonest if I did not say it was an issue it must examine as a source point of what is contained in the report.’’ He said “many people who have a spiritual life” had been affected by the report.

“There are many priests and nuns who are dealing every day, at this time of a broken economy, with distressed communities and people in poverty and isolation, and their work has been badly affected by this behaviour.”

Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte said little had changed within the institutional church.

He added that he had heard Marie Collins, a victim, say as much when she outlined her bitter disappointment with the response of the bishops, some of whom had not even bothered to read the report.

“The media seems to dictate the changing episcopal response. They seem to be measuring what they can get away with,” he added.

“They seem to misunderstand the earthquake they have set off in society. The Vatican is silent. The papal nuncio is contemptuous.

“Whatever happens, it is the end of the age of deference.”