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Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

The Vatican very happy that Irish bishops mess is being sorted out - Papal Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown skips a generation of leaders

Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 07:23 AM

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Cardinal Sean Brady (center) with Monsignor Eamon Martin (left) and Papal Nuncio Charles Brown (right) on the steps of Armagh Cathedral on Jan 18 2013.

The Vatican is moving to completely transform the face of Irish Catholicism led by the dynamic Papal Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown.

The New Yorker and Notre Dame grad has quickly worked out a strategy for the Irish church leadership beset by sex abuse cover-up allegations.

That strategy was unveiled in full by the announcement late in the week that Monsignor Eamon Martin of Derry would leapfrog a generation of bishops and would be bishops and become the future leader of the church.

Martin is a toddler in ecclesiastical terms, a mere 51 years old, and Brown has undoubtedly taken the step to recommend him as the future Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland to end once and for all the hideous in fighting that has consumed the church leadership.

There is apparently a poisonous atmosphere among the top clergy, caused in the main by the implications of the cover-ups and the failure of one leader, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, to go along.

Diarmuid Martin is fearless, but a deeply divisive figure among his fellow bishops because of his outspoken comments. In terms of public approval he would be by far the most popularchurch figure in Ireland but popularity is not where the Vatican is at.

Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the church in Ireland, has become a massive liability after it became clear that he had participated in some manner in the cover-up of abusive priests.

So he had to go, hence the move now by Brown and the Vatican to move beyond this tainted generation of church leader and choose a bright new star, untainted by child abuse scandals.

It is operation ‘clean hands’ and is already being referred to as such. There are many other senior appointments to come and we can expect more of the same.

The gamble for the Vatican is that young Eamon Martin may be out of his depth which would mean they have picked a lightweight who may be in situ at least two decades.

Brown however, appears to be a shrewd and clever playmaker who has seen the need to skip a generation and start afresh and who thinks the gamble on such an inexperienced prelate is worth the risk.

That remains to be seen but there will be a long sigh of relief in the Vatican that the Irish mess is on its way to being sorted out.

Former Bishop of Derry Edward Daly spoke for the majority when he said “He does not carry any baggage from the past with him,' Daly told the BBC.

'It's a challenging time for the church in Ireland. He has been asked to lead that church.'

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merefalow | Jan 22, 2013, 12:30 PM EST

MEN OF GOD,yeah,right?

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Gearoid4 | Jan 21, 2013, 02:46 PM EST

Monsignor Eamonn Martin is an inspired choice as he carries no "historical baggage" from the clerical child-abuse scandals and is a very able administrator and pastor. He is clear-sighted and realistic and is a mild-mannered but fearless defender of the true Catholic Faith, as handed down by the apostles.

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eiriamach | Jan 21, 2013, 10:29 AM EST

markday says, "The Irish and the Austrians & Australians are way out ahead of everyone on this--including the U.S." That's true, and we should ask why it's true. One obvious reason is that since 1791, the US has had constitutional separation of church and state, whereas Europe and Australia have long traditions of church-state alliances. As a result, Americans are less concerned about church governance issues (otherwise American Catholics would have rebelled against papal-monarchy supremacy by the 1880s). Americans know that sometimes God's work is done through secular institutions, and while religious values influence and motivate that work, they cannot determine the outcomes. Most Catholics voted for Obama despite the US bishops' all-out campaign to defeat him, for example. It's shocking to me that when Irish bishops speak AS church representatives, they have influence on Dáil Éireann and that when the pope tells the German Bundestat to return to RC teachings, they applaud him!

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RichardP | Jan 20, 2013, 01:02 PM EST

Gutless decision to bypass the best man for the job, Diarmuid Martin, but entirely characteristic of the Vatican.

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olovely | Jan 20, 2013, 11:57 AM EST

Looking at them, wouldn't they inspire you with great confidence? They have the look of a bunch of pallbearers, which when you think about it, they have been.

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markday | Jan 20, 2013, 10:27 AM EST

It's not the "Irish mess." It's the Vatican mess--and it's not going to be solved by the papal nuncio or shuffling around the men in black. Thank God the politicians and the priests association and the lay people are speaking out. The Irish and the Austrians & Australians are way out ahead of everyone on this--including the U.S. The future of the church is in the hands of the people, not the clerics.

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