Ireland's Catholics see signs of hope in Irish Church crisis

Do we want the Catholic Church in Ireland to reform itself and be a voice for the poor and lonely, feed the poor, and comfort the dying? Or do we just want to get the Church out of society? Many people want the first choice.

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Irish Bishops attend a mass celebrated by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, background center, prior to the start of their meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, Monday, Feb. 15, 2010.

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“It could happen a bishop” was the title of a book of reflections published some years back by Bishop Brendan Comiskey, and then the Diocese of Ferns imploded as a litany of abuse and abusing priests came to light — and Bishop Comiskey resigned in disgrace.

It had kept on "happening" for the Irish bishops; the story of clerical sexual abuse has rolled on and on since the early 1990s with regular head-on collisions in which a report is published detailing shameful abuse and a cover-up or a bishop is found to not have co-operated with the civil authorities.

The latest chapter in this appalling saga is the bishops returning on Ash Wednesday from their meeting with the Pope at the Vatican to a near-hysterical atmosphere accusing them and the Pope of window-dressing and participating in a sham.

In Rome, the bishops were talking about penitence and humility, about this being a step on a journey, about learning to listen to each other better and their desire to reassure victims of abuse that they are trying to finally show leadership.

Yet that message, which is I believe genuine, is being drowned out by angry voices — those of victims and priests like Peter McVerry and F.r Brian D’Arcy, who have had enough of clericalism.

The picture of bishops kissing the ring of the Pope in Rome has sent ordinary Catholics into spirals of indignation, the degree of which was once reserved for "West Brits" who might bow and scrape in an audience with the Queen of England. The Irish Catholics who once scorned the English and their Queen now have turned in almost Presbyterian zeal to jeering their spiritual monarch and his medieval customs of deference.

Many feel the papal monarchy, encased behind its high walls in Rome, doesn’t get it just as the Queen of England didn’t get it when she refused to lower her flag to half-mast on the death of Princess Diana. The key issues of a straightforward papal apology and the acceptance of resignations could have been delivered in Rome easily enough, but weren’t. They probably will come, but Rome moves slowly if deliberately.

And this I believe is the crux of the issue --to some extent, the Vatican doesn’t get the need to react to instant crises — if you’ve seen it up-close you’d know why: iI’s a civil servant bureaucracy led by elderly men who have mostly spent their years in academia or administration.

They know that once they try to play the popularity game (Pope John Paul II was the exception that proves the rule) and respond to demands of abuse victims or angry clerics, they open the floodgates and they will end up going from crisis to crisis. That is what is happening to the Irish bishops, until now.

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