July 18, 2011
I am writing this on the morning after the Cloyne
report, and out of the perspective of almost forty years conducting parish
missions around the country.
Cloyne was always an unusual diocese, or to be more
accurate, Cobh was.
In the era after Humanae Vitae, when on our missions we
tried to soften the rigid implementation of that teaching in the Irish Church,
we met more resistance in Cobh than anywhere else.
That Cathedral, with its scrupulous and legalistic
bishop (John Ahern) and those six priests houses at the back, was easily the
most clerical scene I witnessed in my time.
Men like Tim Sheahan, John Thornhill, Pat Twomey and
Denis Reidy were clear and strong in their views, and were unwavering servants
of the official Church line on all things. So any dialogue was almost
impossible. Certainty was the order of the day.
Curiously, in the seventies, I met with more
anti-clericalism in Cobh than in any place outside of Limerick or Dublin. It
must be said that the atmosphere in the rest of the diocese was very different,
and there were many great priests there, just as there are today, and my heart
goes out to them this morning.
Then John Magee was appointed bishop. Why was he
appointed? He was clearly unsuitable, and was an imposition from Rome. Was it
that they wanted to get rid of him over there, or that it was a reward for
covering up the circumstances of John Paul I’s death.
I don’t know, but it was a good example of the terrible
policy of Episcopal appointments pursued by John Paul II, which I see as being
one of the main reasons for the mess the Church finds itself in today.
He was never fully accepted, and his manner and
attitudes were foreign to many of the priests and people. He gathered some
kudos by promoting perpetual adoration for a time.
But I remember an old priest, now long dead, saying to
me about 1990 that the diocese would reap a terrible whirlwind from the
policies of John Magee.
Of course there never was an easy relationship between
John Magee and Denis O’Callaghan, because O’Callaghan felt that he should have
got the mitre.
So it does not surprise me to learn that a big part of
the problems that was revealed yesterday had to do with a lack of communication
between the two.
O’Callaghan was too much into power and position in the
Church himself, as was obvious from his volte face as a moral theologian after
Humanae Vitae came out.
All in all, this sorry chapter highlights a lot of what
is wrong with the official Church, and with the Vatican bureaucracy. Will
anything be learned? I don’t know. The abuse victims have had their day, and
that is good.
And the state would appear to be responding well. The
sooner the handling of everything around sexual abuse of children is dealt with
by the state the better; and that is why I am no fan of Church bodies or
guidelines dealing with it.
It would be much better if anyone who has a complaint in
this area did not go to a bishop or a priest, but went to the civil
authorities, and let them deal with it.
And if the law is not sufficiently strong to handle the
complexity of the cases, then let it be changed. In that way there would be no
confusion or cover-up.
In the meantime we priests struggle on.
And I would ask the people of Cloyne diocese today to be
conscious of their own priest, and what it must be like for him.
Maybe a word of support or encouragement would help.
Tony Flannery
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(One has to wonder if John Magee, like Justin Rigali, before their exiles from the Vatican heard one too many confessions from the
fine young studs in the Swiss Guards Barracks, as their chaplains, and knew
something someone powerful in the Vatican, a secret, (a dirty little German secret?), that could only destroy
clerical careers instead of elevating them? Or it is all just a typical grand Peter Principle job scale thing - Vatican Style?)
.
