The God Squad

The Irish Times – Monday, March 15, 2010
MARY RAFTERY

OPINION: When clerics are shown to have blatantly breached the principles they preach, they must accept the consequences and resign

THERE IS a phenomenon known as a religious conscience. It is an entirely different animal to the consciences which you and I as ordinary people are expected to have and to heed. Both types tell us – at least in theory – what is right and what is wrong. But the religious conscience marches to a different drum.

Its beat fills the ears of most bishops, priests and brothers, and it drowns out other sounds. It tells them that the most important determinants of what is right and what is wrong are the vows or promises which they made on ordination. Follow these, they are told, and you will inherit the kingdom of God.

All very fine, you might say. Surely no vow or promise could include an instruction to cover up the sexual abuse of a child by anyone? Nor be interpreted to prohibit the reporting of a crime to the police?

But strange as it might seem, it is in fact these vows – or at least one of them – which is a key reason why the Catholic Church has at its highest levels become so entangled in the deceitful web it has made to hide and protect the criminals in its midst.

What lies at the heart of the church’s failures is not, as many people assume, the vow of celibacy – it is, rather, that of obedience.

And obedience is writ large over the latest scandal to hit the church. Cardinal Seán Brady is at pains in his statement yesterday to emphasise that his involvement in the meetings at which victims of serial child rapist Brendan Smyth were asked to swear an oath of secrecy was “at the direction of bishop McKiernan”, his then boss as bishop of Kilmore. Later in the statement, he adds that “as instructed”, he passed all information to the bishop.

The strong implication in this that the cardinal is somehow relieved of his personal duty to act as a responsible citizen, to report a crime and to protect children, is breathtaking to those of us who live by and believe in the rules of the State.

But then, remember that different drum that promises obedience – it beats a tattoo that says obey your superior, subjugate your will to his, do not question or hint at distrust, and above all do not ever place your own views or opinions above his. As the Irish Catholic Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors tells us: “Obedience is really . . . a willingness to let go of one’s own agenda.”

It is clear from a reading of both the Murphy and Ryan reports that the culture of priests, brothers and nuns “turning a blind eye” to the abuse of children by their fellow religious stemmed directly from the vow of obedience and the emphasis placed on not questioning or challenging a superior – because, after all, how can you unquestioningly obey someone you have challenged? That this concept of obedience has had such a fundamentally corrupting influence on every level of church governance is a reality that priests, nuns and bishops have been slow to realise. But it is now on the point of imploding as a central tenet of a church whose supreme leader, Pope Benedict, has himself become implicated in the cover-up of child sex abuse when he was archbishop of Munich.

As far as Cardinal Brady is concerned, the path he must follow is clear. The Nuremberg “only following orders” defence did not work in 1945, and it should not be permitted to work now. Society has a right to expect that individuals should take responsibility for their own actions. Clerics constantly preach these kinds of messages at us, and are right to do so. It must then follow that when these same clerics – and especially the most senior among them – are shown to have blatantly breached the principles they preach, they must accept the consequences of their actions and resign their positions of responsibility and authority.

This, for the information of Bishop Christopher Jones, is why people become so exercised by the hypocrisy of the church, as opposed to the failings of other institutions.

It was Bishop Jones who whined in such plaintive tones at the bishops’ press conference in Maynooth last week, following their first get-together since their so-called “historic” meeting with the pope.

The other key reason people focus on the church and its appalling record of child abuse and cover-up is, of course, that this organisation retains central power over the running of our education system, through which it maintains contact with the vast majority of children in the country.

Take Bishop Jones, for example. He directly appoints the chair of the boards of management in virtually every school in his diocese of Elphin, which spreads from Athlone northwards across Roscommon and Sligo.

He has a veto over the appointment of each and every other member of the boards. He likewise chooses the interview boards for each teacher in the schools. And, last but not least, he is in charge of the ethos of his schools, which means that he controls the kind of instruction given to the children in what is right and what is wrong.

Given the views of Bishop Jones that we should cease focusing on the church and its failure to protect children against serial rapists like Brendan Smyth, it is entirely reasonable for the parents of children in the Elphin diocese (and elsewhere) to ask whether he is a suitable person to exercise such influence over the lives of thousands of youngsters through his control of the schools in his area.

In the religious world, people can vote with their feet and decide for themselves what, if any, church they wish to be part of, and how and when they wish to worship.

That is no one’s business but their own.

In the secular world, however, it is our clear duty as citizens to question whether a religious organisation whose Irish leader so palpably failed to protect children from a rapist should have any role whatsoever in the governance of our schools. It is a recurrent question. It will arise again and again as each scandal of church cover-up emerges.

The Irish State and Government can allow this poison to ooze out gradually, but relentlessly. Or it can intervene and engage in the now desperately needed process of extending the Murphy Commission inquiry process to each bishop and diocese in the State.

This was shown in Dublin to have been an efficient and cost-effective procedure. It is now beyond time to drag all the skeletons in the hierarchy’s cupboards into the daylight.