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For those whose minds are not closed this report is conclusive proof of
the complete failure of a system of church governance that has caused
intense trauma to thousands of Catholic children throughout the world.
So far the response to the report by Irish Bishops, and by the Holy See,
tells us that too many minds are still closed. No bishop has yet
admitted what all of us can plainly see: their unaccountable and
aristocratic system of governing the church has failed our children and
disgraced the Catholic community of faith throughout the world.
In the wake of reports on Ferns in 2005, and on Cloyne in 2008 - and a
tide of similar revelations in over twenty other countries - this
devastating report on the Archdiocese of Dublin can lead to only one
conclusion. The absolute and unchecked administrative power that
Catholic bishops have acquired not from God but from history tends
inexorably towards their corruption.
For the sake of all other Irish victims of clerical abuse, known and
unknown, this revelation now demands an inquiry into the remaining
twenty-three Irish dioceses.
This dangerous and absurd church system must in the meantime be
changed. It has failed our children and the people of God on many
levels, and is not fit for purpose. It cannot be redeemed by
outstanding individual bishops because, in the words of Archbishop
Diarmuid Martin on the feast of Epiphany 2009:
"We have to have a system whereby people are pushed to be
accountable. "
At present, the only forces that push a Catholic bishop to behave
accountably are the secular media and the secular state. This is the
reason that for over two decades Catholics all over the world have been
shocked by a succession of appalling scandals that have held us all up
to global contempt. To deny that change is now necessary in the way the
church governs itself is to condemn other children of the church to the
same trauma, and to condemn the rest of the church to endless derision
and scandal. Catholicism cannot survive this.
To argue that God supports the present church system is to argue that
God approves of child abuse - and that is blasphemy.
We protest especially at the total absence of an internal forum within
the church that would allow lay people to ask their own questions and
express their own views on this appalling failure of church leadership.
This too is clerical abuse of power. It has led to the continuing
isolation of the victims of clerical sexual abuse, and to a culture of
denial and demoralisation among the rest of the faithful. It has denied
to the Holy Spirit the freedom to inform the church through the wisdom
of lay men and women - especially the wisdom acquired through
suffering. It has also allowed too many bishops to live in a cocoon of
absurd self-delusion, cut off from all reality by a culture of servile
deference that belongs to the Middle Ages.
If the church is to recover, our bishops must leave this cocoon and
engage directly with their people. The age of deference is dead. We
Catholic Irish have finally discovered in 2009, at a terrible cost, that
deference is the deadly enemy of childhood, of truth and of love. It
is therefore the deadliest enemy of the church also.
In a separate open letter we call upon Pope Benedict XVI to explain to
us and to the universal church why so many bishops throughout the world
- all appointed by the pope - have betrayed so many children. Many of
the bishops who have failed in this way are still alive to testify to an
inquiry into this. That no such inquiry has yet been launched is deeply
disturbing. If it is denied now we will be forced to a conclusion that
will be fatal to Catholicism globally: that the papacy also puts the
Catholic clerical institution before the interests of children.
In Ireland as in Rome the Catholic Church was a community of faith
before it became identified with a clerical institution. That faith has
been betrayed by the leaders of the Catholic clerical institution. The
relationship between the community of faith and the clerical institution
is now therefore deeply troubled and almost broken. If this relationship
is to be healed the clerical institution must now seek advice from the
people of God on how that can be accomplished - and do so urgently.
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VOTF™
Mission Statement
To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit,
through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance
and guidance of the Catholic Church.
Our Goals
1. To support
survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
2. To support priests of integrity
3.To shape structural change within the Catholic Church.
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