Tag Archives: Archbishop Diarmuid Martin

Can Pope Francis restore faith in the Irish Church?

Articles, Church Renewal, Courage, Faith, Fear of Assembly, Francis, , , ,

Sean O’Conaill  April 2014

One year on from his election Pope Francis has already changed the image of the papacy, and modelled an entirely different style of leadership from that of his two predecessors.  Reflecting the amiability and simplicity of his namesake, St Francis of Assisi, he may even be setting out to respond to the same challenge that the Italian friar heard from Jesus:  to ‘rebuild my church’.

However,  Pope Francis is now in his late seventies – and many younger bishops appointed by his predecessors may well be wondering if this new wind from Rome will last long enough to oblige them to amend their own way of going.

So far no Irish bishop has become quite so accessible, so open, so eager to meet people and hear their stories and grievances.   Where Francis could meet with an atheist editor in Italy – and allow their exchange to be published – no Irish bishop will formally and openly meet with the leaders of the reformist Irish Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).  Where Francis could call a synod on the family, no Irish bishop yet shows any sign of responding to the call Francis makes to all bishops in Evangelii Gaudium 31 – ‘to encourage and develop the means of participation proposed in the Code of Canon Law’.

For example, not even Archbishop Martin of Dublin has projected the holding of a diocesan synod – something his predecessor had done in his final years in office.

And no Irish bishop has shown any sign of taking up another suggestion offered by Evangelii Gaudium – the pope’s advice to every bishop to be willing at times to be led by his own people.

FOA – fear of assembly – still grips Ireland’s bench of bishops in a vice – that fear of ‘stirring up a hornets’ nest’ by, for example, arranging regular open diocesan forums to respond to the missionary challenge issued from the heart of the church.

There can be no missionary revival led by men gripped more by fear than the confidence shown by the pope.  Where is the Irish bishop who will call all of his people to read and discuss Evangelii Gaudium and to feed back to him their vision of the future church, in a truly ‘developed’ diocesan synod?

And where is the Irish bishop who will commit himself to regular interface with a diocesan pastoral council – to respond, for example,  to questions such as those that arise out of Ian Elliott’s concerns for the integrity, independence and strength of the NBSCCC?

If co-responsibility is the challenge of the moment, no Irish bishop has yet risen to that challenge – or responded to the Pope’s clearly given invitation to all national bishops’ conferences to freely consider the particular needs of their own societies, and to be proactive in finding solutions – even at the cost of making mistakes.

Here’s Pope Francis again: “I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.”  (Evangelii Gaudium 27)

What are Irish bishops dreaming of these times?  Why can’t they tell us?  And listen to our dreams too?  Which of them will show the same confidence in the Irish people of God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit to lead us?

And when will they ever change the closeted style of their quarterly meetings in Maynooth – those funereal huddles to prepare statements so guarded that they merely add to the mountain of verbal ash that buries the embers of the Irish faith.

They speak now of St Columbanus and his impending 1400th anniversary.  They need to pray for his courage in venturing into another unknown land awaiting the Gospel – and step out, unguarded, onto the island of Ireland.

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The Church needs structural reform

Articles, Church Governance, Clericalism, Dysfunction, Equality of Dignity, Reform, Safeguarding, Survey, , , ,

Sean O’Conaill  © Reality  March 2011

It’s clear that our church cannot renew itself unless radical structural change takes place.

“Renewal and reform of the Church …. will only come from within the Church, that is from within a community of men and women who listen to the word of God, who come together to pray, who celebrate the Eucharist and are called to share in the very life of Christ himself … Renewal of the Church is not about … structural reform.”

These were the words of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin on November 20th, 2010. Fervently in agreement with the first sentence, I was stunned by the last. I simply could not understand why the archbishop seemed to believe at that time that our church could renew itself without radical structural reform.

To begin with, he himself has had to grapple with the consequences of church structures that give conflicting and irreconcilable responsibilities to bishops. The reputation of his four predecessors will forever be tarnished by the events related in the Murphy report. This clearly showed that until 1994 Dublin’s archbishops were unable to reconcile their obligation to care for the church’s most vulnerable members – children – with their other obligation to safeguard the clerical institution from scandal.

Hundreds of children suffered horrifically as a consequence, and this then became the greatest scandal of all. And this scandal was revealed not by church structures but by secular structures. The latter are far from perfect, but they are in one respect superior to the governing structures of the church: they allow for transparency and a separation of powers and responsibilities. This prevents the secrecy and concentration of power that gave us the abuse crisis – the organisational culture that the church still clings to.

The archbishop could of course argue in response that the independent National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) will prevent the events of 1975-2004 ever recurring. But the NBSCCC itself believes that further church reform is necessary. In its second annual report of April 30th, 2010, its chairman, John Morgan declared that a period of reflection is needed that should (in his words) “extend to trying to understand and examine what Church structures brought about the situation that has unfolded before us and how such structures must be changed”.

Almost certainly the NBSCCC is concerned about the culture of clericalism fostered by current church structures – a culture that conditions clergy to be in control and also conditions Catholic lay people to defer to that arrangement. This will remain a threat to the principle upon which all child safeguarding in the church must rest – the principle of the paramount interests of children. The hundreds of child protection personnel currently being trained by the NBSCCCC cannot do their job effectively until that principle is embedded in the church’s own organisational blueprint – canon law. And until lay people participate as of right in the governance of the church.

Furthermore, the widespread confidence that the NBSC has managed to create in its own integrity and independence could still easily be lost. If church structures are not changed to make them far more transparent, clericalism could dictate that the bishops who appoint the executive board of the NBSCCC would appoint compliant lay people who would be prepared to ditch the paramountcy principle for the sake of ‘harmony’ – taking us back to the era of the cover-up.

A key weakness in the church’s governing structures is the total absence of a canonical mechanism for removing a dysfunctional bishop. Of the four Irish bishops who have resigned in the wake of the abuse crisis, none was removed by an internal church process. Bishops Comiskey, Magee and Murray resigned in the wake of the public revelation of their failures, and the outcry that followed. Bishop Moriarty resigned because in his own view he had failed to challenge the culture of cover-up that had failed the children of Dublin. In all cases it is clear that had it not been for factors external to the church’s governing system those bishops would still be in place.

Dublin is currently fortunate to have Dr Martin in charge. But what would happen to the reforms he has introduced in Dublin if he were replaced by someone far less committed to them? Without changes to canon law, and to diocesan church structures, everything he has achieved would be entirely reversible.

To be fair to Dr Martin, he was entirely right to stress that renewal of the church will also depend upon a renewal of faith, sourced in the Gospels. But does he really appreciate how the faith of the Irish Catholic people has been challenged by church structures that have let them down so badly? There is a very real danger that seeking now to retain their faith in the current awful crisis, many more Irish people will conclude that their native church is irreformable, and that they must detach themselves completely from it. Many have already done so.

Others, however, refuse to give up on the idea of structural reform of their own church. Evidence of this came following the December meeting of the Irish Bishops’ Conference. A press release on December 14th revealed that over 2,500 respondents to a consultation on the papal pastoral letter of March 2010 had focused on the following core themes: ‘Spiritual Renewal; Structural Renewal; Role of Women and on the Church of Community and Communion’.

Further information on these responses soon came from the bishops’ ‘Council for Pastoral Renewal and Adult Faith Development’. In a report that is available on the website for the Irish Bishops’ Conference it was revealed that:

“There was widespread disappointment among respondents that in the Pope’s Letter child sex abuse is not seen as a symptom of shortcomings in structure and function in the Church. In addition, there is no critique of the role of the Vatican. There is little or no acknowledgement of the exclusion of lay people from roles where they can make significant contribution.”

For most of those who took part in this consultation it must have been heartening to find that they were not alone in calling for structural change. Disappointingly, the Irish bishops’ conference has so far failed to comment at length in reply. Bishop Seamus Freeman in his own letter of response merely referred everyone to the papal document ‘Verbum Domini’ of 2008. As this is a complex exhortation by Pope Benedict to read and reflect on the scriptures it is difficult to see how it is especially helpful in illuminating the question of structural change.

At the most basic level an organisation’s structure convenes its members to meet regularly, to enable them to interact to their mutual benefit and to come to a common understanding. Even to do what Dr Martin and the Pope advocate, to come together to pray and to listen to the word of God, we need to ‘structure’ this into the habitual life of the church.

Instead, our habitual way of ‘interacting’ – the Sunday Mass – has undergone no substantial change in this awful crisis that would allow us to interact at the deepest possible level. It observes the traditional rigid apartheid between priests and people, and requires the latter to open our mouths only for scripted responses and the occasional hymn. No wonder our young people are wondering why we go on mindlessly like this – meeting weekly without communicating. There is a deep dysfunction in the Irish church at present – the kind of dysfunction that prevents a troubled family from meeting in one place to come to a new understanding of how its members are to love one another again.

The newly formed Irish Association of Catholic Priests seems to be well aware of this. Welcoming Bishop Freeman’s publication of the results of the 2010 consultation in the Irish Times, it too called for structural reform and declared that the time might be right for the calling of a national assembly or synod of the Irish church.

At Christmas it seemed that Archbishop Martin had also been paying close attention. Whereas in November he had insisted that renewal was ‘not about structural reform’, on December 24th he said in his Christmas homily “Renewal in the Church is not
simply about structures and organization, no matter how important these can be.” Just a small shift, certainly, but a potentially very significant one.

The absence of structures that will require clergy and people to interact respectfully, thoughtfully and regularly will prove fatal if it continues. Since Vatican II we have never had an opportunity to come to a fruitful understanding of our complementary roles. It is this above all that has given us a ‘two-tier’ church in Ireland, and attitudes that devolve all church responsibility onto clergy in the first instance. Embedded in our church structures at the deepest level – actually institutionalised in them – is the heresy of clericalism.

It is important to say this because Dr Martin has many times identified clericalism as a major obstacle to renewal. It cannot be confronted or eradicated without structural reform.

In the end, of course, events may prove Dr Martin correct in one sense. Oppressed by the multiple crises of the moment more and more Irish people may indeed come together spontaneously to reflect upon the Gospels and to pray. That was exactly what happened in the 16th century when to many people the church of popes and bishops had become corrupt. This led to the fragmentation of north-European Christianity and to the multitude of varieties of Christian witness that we see today. It is now far from certain that the Catholic church in Ireland will avoid a similar fate.

If it is to do so, structural reform must be on its near horizon. We need to be convened as regularly for renewal as we are for Mass. It is an insult to the Mass, and to God, to go on as we are going. If the Irish Bishops’ Conference is at last to show real leadership it must face this issue squarely in 2011.

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Revitalising the Catholic Church in Ireland: X – The Emerging Church

Articles, Church Renewal, Clericalism, Laity, Secularism, Spirituality, ,

Sean O’Conaill © Reality 2004

Nothing could be more obviously needed by the Catholic Church in Ireland than a clearly defined role for lay people – a role in renewing and revitalizing the whole church.

And nothing could be more obviously lacking in our church at present than structures that would require and allow lay people to meet creatively – under the banner of their church – at parish, diocesan and national level – to respond to the current crisis by building a prayerful sense of common purpose and ownership of our own faith.

The fact that four decades after Vatican II the Catholic church in Ireland has a conference of bishops, and a conference of priests, but still no conference of the Catholic laity – is a monument to the inertia of the church’s leadership, to Irish Catholic clericalism and to hierarchical disloyalty to Vatican II.

The fundamental problem of clericalism is that it is obsessed with the status of clergy – an entirely worldly concern. It fears lay people exercising initiative, freely debating the multitude of problems that beset their church and society, and taking action to put them right. It privileges clerical control, so it places a high value on lay docility and passivity and prefers lay people to be in a permanent state of inadequacy and need. Raising lay obedience to the pinnacle of its value system, it trains us for permanent inertia.

“Leave everything always to us!” This is the central message of clericalism. “We will do all your thinking for you, and tell you when and how to respond.”

As a result our church is in deep danger of disappearing altogether when the present generations of clergy pass on – as they are rapidly doing. No adult in Ireland is now unaware that the continuity of the faith is critically challenged. Clericalism is building nothing to replace itself, because it can envisage nothing but a clerically-controlled church.

And lay people are especially disheartened when some of those priests who have sought a reputation for forward thinking have been heard to say to their new and fragile pastoral councils: “What you propose is not going to happen: remember I am the parish priest”.

Yet the conviction behind this series of articles is that already lay people are being called into thought and action – and are laying the foundations of a different kind of church. A deep sense of crisis is calling people into prayer, and the continuing absence of an adequate clerical response to that crisis is forcing lay people out of their inertia. When clerical leadership fails, lay people are clearly themselves called to lead.

This does not mean that we are called to promote and preach new and radical theologies. Our specific task as laity has been already clearly defined by Vatican II: to consecrate the world to God. Our current priority is to understand what that means, and to communicate that meaning to one another and to the secular world in which we live.

I am convinced that it means infusing secular space with the values and wisdom of the Gospels – so that no one is abandoned to loneliness, depression, addiction, suicide or neglect. It means understanding why secularism alone is not enough, and why prayer is necessary to human health and development. It means nothing more than making Ireland a truly welcoming, safe and compassionate society.

The ideology of secularism began just two-and-a-half centuries ago, when many intellectuals in western Europe became convinced that religion was the source of most human problems. Under the banner of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ secularism set out to change the world – as though nothing more than a snappy slogan was needed.

This movement had no sooner begun in 1789 than it discovered it needed a guillotine to get rid of its opponents. And then these same secular evangelists began to use the same guillotine on one another. Their outstanding legacy to the world was the word ‘terrorism’

Two-and-a-half centuries later freedom, equality and brotherhood are in as short supply as ever – and terrorism is a global problem. And the Gospels tell us why.

The reason is that whatever slogans we may agree with one another politically, we are all secretly afflicted with a tendency to put ourselves first, by acquiring a superior status. (‘Lord, which of us is the greatest?’).

This is a moral and spiritual, not an intellectual, problem – and it has therefore only a spiritual solution. Every one of us needs to be engaged daily in a struggle with our own selfishness, our own ego.

The most effective means of waging that struggle is to understand that true freedom and self-respect lie in meeting the needs of others – the reason Jesus calls us to serve. If we use our personal gifts merely for personal advancement we miss the joy that lies in using them freely for others.

Many people in Ireland today are discovering exactly that. The search for spirituality – and for answers to problems such as addiction, depression, family breakdown and loneliness – are all leading us in the same direction. We cannot find personal fulfillment as isolated individuals: we are fulfilled only when somehow we are involved in meeting the needs of community.

The search for status – for the admiration of others – the search that underlies excess consumption and workaholism – is the root of most social problems – including the collapse of community. If there is nothing beyond this world (the basic precept of advanced secularism) then every one of us must compete for status with everyone else – by building the largest palace on the outskirts of town, with the most expensive cars in the driveway. Every town in Ireland is now encircled by these ridiculous monuments to human vanity – while community collapses.

And so everyone who lives in such a palace must also become increasingly security-conscious. Soon enough in Ireland the rich will be doing what the rich elsewhere are obliged to do: building high walls and fences around their palaces to defend ourselves against the envy they evoke, permanently protected by closed circuit TV.

It is the search for social status that underlies both social violence and the environmental problem. The iron law that tells us that we must desire what others find desirable is heading the human population rapidly towards social and environmental catastrophe. This iron law is nothing other than the biblical sin of covetousness.

Spirituality – the search for a relationship with the Spirit of Goodness and Truth – leads us on another path: towards personal frugality and an ethic of compassion, generosity and service.

This union of religion and spirituality is the challenge that Vatican II threw down to Ireland and the whole of the church forty years ago. It threatens no-one, and can answer the supreme question that secularism poses: how can we be prosperous and happy as well?

It can meet also the other challenge that Vatican II threw down – to ‘engage with culture’. How are we to avoid absorbing every new cultural wave that rolls in from across the Atlantic or elsewhere? (Some of these now encourage children to engage in sexual activity as soon as they reach puberty.) How are we to define, improve and preserve our own cultural identity, bequeathing solid values to our children?

The answer lies in understanding why we so easily absorb the culture of others. The reason is nothing other than a lack of self-respect – and this too is a deep spiritual problem. To overcome the fear of being different we need to understand that spiritual development offers especially the courage to be different – the courage to be ourselves. For Christians, this is the great gift and programme of the Holy Spirit.

Understanding all of this – and much more – is the wisdom that Ireland now needs. To develop this wisdom lay people need to be meeting together as adult Christians, taking responsibility for the first time.

Too many of our clerical leaders are, so far, afraid to sponsor and encourage this process – because they are still mostly wedded to the strange notion that the Holy Spirit wants clergy to be always in charge.

Their own inertia – and the growing confidence and independence of the Irish laity – is proving something else: that God gives intelligence to everyone, and calls everyone to prayer, so that we can freely spiritualise our own lives, and spiritualise also the secular space we occupy. The many thoughtful responses this series of articles has received from lay people prove exactly that.

So lay people must not feel guilty that they have outgrown the inadequate structures that the clerical church provides the wider church. Growth is the particular business of the Holy Spirit, who is calling us into a new maturity. The decision taken recently by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that all parishes in his Dublin archdiocese should have parish councils, and his challenge to clerical authoritarianism, are pointing the way forward for clergy in all dioceses.

Our challenge as laity is to humanise and spiritualise a secular world that does not understand the limits of mere secularism. That is our own lay task, our own adventure – and no one is entitled to take it from us. We need no-one’s permission to begin it, as we have always been called to do it – by our baptism and by the Eucharistic liturgy.

For the moment we must use every means and opportunity that secular space provides. In time, as usual, the clerical church will catch up – and belatedly sponsor a process that it cannot, and must not, stop.

Fifteen centuries ago when the faith was new in Ireland, our missionary saints set out to restore Christian values to a world devastated by imperialistic and militaristic values. Now Ireland has been given a different challenge: to put our faith to work to meet the challenge of a fundamentalist secularism that does not understand its own shortcomings, or why the world it has built is headed towards disaster.

We Catholics in Ireland are now called to respond to that challenge, and to teach the world once more. This time we must teach by doing – by helping to build a compassionate, just, free and wise society, using the insight and inspiration that the Gospels provide.

There is probably no town or village in Ireland where some have not already begun.

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