The Irish Catholic Church's fund-raising is not the business of politicians

Fine Gael TD Tom Barry

Taking pot shots at the Catholic Church is probably the easiest way for an Irish elected official to garner a few positive headlines for himself, but I'm way past fed up with it.

Today's headline comes thanks to Fine Gael TD (MP) Tom Barry, who I'd never heard of until this morning. I don't know what his angle is, but Barry is quoted in the Irish Examiner as urging Irish Catholics not to contribute to any fund intended to bail out dioceses struggling with debts due to compensation payments to abuse victims.

Barry says that families should not have to pay for the hierarchy's failures. Well you know what? They don't "have to." Membership in the Catholic Church is optional. The amount any Catholic gives is at his own discretion. Nobody "has to" give anything.

You want me to say that there were a lot of bad things done by priests, brothers and nuns? Well there were. You want me to say that some of those at the top of the Church failed miserably to deal properly with those who abused children? They did. In fact, I've often recoiled at what has been either a failure to comprehend or indifference to the impact such abuse has on a child and how a parent would feel about it.

These matters were grossly mishandled and the Church must pay substantial sums to those who were abused as compensation. That has placed a significant burden on the finances of every diocese, which combined with the falling contributions due to the decline in church attendance/membership and the near collapse in the Irish economy has pushed some dioceses to the brink of financial disaster. The Archdiocese of Dublin is reportedly one of those dioceses and may consider seeking extra donations from church-goers to meet its financial obligations.

These are tough times. Some Irish Catholics will dig deep to help out and others may find they cannot or will not, possibly for the reasons given by Barry. Again, no one "has to" give if they don't want to.

The same is not true when it comes to the failures by those in Barry's line of work. No, when it comes to the failings of our politicians, we all "have to" give.

The state and all of its branches has failed almost immeasurably over the past 20 years and for that we all must pay:

Mismanagement in the national blood transfusion board? Thousands of lives ruined, hundreds of millions in compensation and no one held accountable. The state owes and we all "have to pay."





Scandals involving the gardaí, the planning process, mobile phone licenses, etc. were all cases of mismanagement by the state, which resulted in lengthy, costly tribunals at the end of which no one was held accountable, but for which the state now owes and we all "have to pay."





Failure to regulate the banks? The costs are still undetermined, but that the state now teeters on the edge of bankruptcy is thanks to this scandal. Still, no politician, no member of the permanent governing class for which our elected officials are responsible has been held accountable. The costs are immense and we all "HAVE TO PAY."

So, if Barry wants to get on his high horse about bills due to mismanagement that families should not "have to pay," let him keep his eye on his own profession. I'd imagine there should be enough there to keep him busy for some time so that he doesn't feel the need to opine on matters that do not involve the state, but are fully internal to the Church.

Feast of the Assumption should remain a holy day, not a holiday

MLA John Dallat

A member of the Northern Ireland Assembly has called for August 15 to be made a national holiday, north and south. SDLP member John Dallat feels that making August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, a national holiday would be an "opportunity for everyone to become involved in a celebration of the special relationship the Mother of God holds in the lives of Irish people."

By no means would I ridicule Dallat for his devotion or question his religious views. I went to Mass on the 15th myself.

It's just, well, I don't know, but when I read his comments this morning I was taken aback. I felt like I'd been transported back in time.

Only yesterday we had the news that the diocese of Dublin may be on the brink of a complete financial collapse thanks to the fact that attendance at Mass and the collections have declined significantly. The seemingly endless reports into the Church scandals haven't helped, but I'm not so sure the Irish people have much of a "special relationship" with Jesus' mother these days.

That such a special relationship did exist seems pretty obvious to me. All over the country, in urban and rural areas, you can see Marian shrines. These shrines were erected during the Marian Year of 1954 (I believe). Many are in the middle of public housing estates, presumably built on government owned land. There's no way that would happen today.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there," according to L.P. Barthartley. That certainly seems true in Ireland where the obvious signs of an extremely devout people stand in stark contrast to the agnosticism, cynicism even, of so many Irish people, particularly those under 50.

This is why I was startled by Dallat's proposal. It's as if he was talking about a "foreign country" where "they do things differently" because there's simply no chance that Ireland is going to adopt August 15 as a national holiday.

I expect Dallat will get virtually no support, other than from a few Catholic die-hards and those cynical enough to exploit the beliefs of the faithful in order to get themselves another day off in the summer. I do, however, admire his courage because he is bound to attract a lot of personal and very negative attention, almost all of it from people who were baptized Catholic.

I'm not inclined to support Dallat myself. I can't help wondering why we should make August 15 a holiday now, when it wasn't a holiday in the 30s, 40s and 50s when it would have been more appropriate. If it was good enough then for people to have to work on the feast day, it's good enough today.

From little corrupt acts do big corrupt acts grow?

There is a fantastic story in today's Irish Times, one that I highly recommend you read. Basically, it's a story from the 1960s about an Irish missionary priest, a bottle of poitín (Irish moonshine), an elected member of the Dáil (parliament) and the gardaí (Irish police force).

As I read the story I realized that what I really enjoyed about it was the familiarity of it. Yes because it spoke volumes to a simpler, more stereotyped, and probably more enjoyable Ireland, but also because the story could easily have originated in New York or Boston or Philadelphia or Baltimore or Albany or wherever. Spencer Tracy's character in the Last Hurrah could have acted in exactly the same manner as this Irish politician (father of Prime Minister Enda Kenny, Henry Kenny).

It's a cute story of a bit of harmless corruption. You would have to be an anti-corruption zealot to be offended by the story.

Yet as I read the story in the same paper that today has pages dedicated to yesterday's publication of a report into corrupt dealings between politicians and businessmen I wondered if the bloodthirsty jail-is-too-good-for-them crowd would find the story amusing. There seems to be zero tolerance for corruption in Ireland today.

Maybe the zealots are right? Maybe tolerating these little incidents gradually escalates into the sort of corruption detailed in yesterday's report or other tribunals into misdeeds by politicians and the gardaí?

Does it start with a politician procuring a bottle of moonshine from the police for a missionary priest which morphs into jobs for the boys from the neighborhood which morphs into mobile phone licenses for the boys with the checkbooks, with a little kickback for the politician(s) making the decision? I don't know. The first case seems harmless, the second is legally dubious and possibly immoral, and the latter is plainly 100% wrong.

Today Twitter is aflame with calls for the columnist Sarah Carey to be dismissed by the Irish Times because she admitted lying to the Moriarty Tribunal about leaking material from the Tribunal to the press. Carey says there were many leaks and thought she was acting the public good. She later admitted to the Tribunal that she had lied earlier while testifying.

She leaked; she lied; she owned up. I can probably live with that. Maybe it's just that I'm older than most of those calling for blood on Twitter, but I'm more than willing to forgive Carey this transgression. Judge Moriarty said she was one of the few to own up to leaking, although that didn't change the fact that what she did was "irresponsible, in flagrant breach of the course of dealings that had been clearly conveyed to her."

She did wrong, but I don't think she should lose her job. I see her crime as closer to getting poitín for the priest than getting a big check in your back pocket for abusing public office.

{Photo: a poitín still from MuseumsOfMayo.com.}

Ireland's Catholics rebuff media

An extremely well-publicized and media-promoted boycott of Mass by Ireland's Catholic women was almost universally ignored yesterday. The boycott was originally called by 81-year-old Jennifer Sleeman, who hoped the boycott would “let the Vatican and the Irish church know that women are tired of being treated as second-class citizens.”

Sleeman claimed that the empty pews at Mass yesterday would show the Church's hierarchy that “the days of an exclusively male-dominated church are over.” From what I saw at our parish yesterday and from what I read on Twitter and in the newspapers today attendance at Sunday Mass was unaffected by the boycott. Even a last minute appeal to those women who didn't want to miss Mass that they wear green arm bands was totally ignored. The boycott/protest was an abject failure.

The child abuse scandals in the Church that have dominated the headlines here for the past decade or more have seriously dented the Church. There is no denying that. However, the failure of Sunday's boycott's demonstrates that the Church in Ireland is far from dead, despite the fact that the media has pronounced its demise frequently.

The Irish media may not accept it, but they were seriously beaten this past weekend. Sleeman was the media's proxy in its war against the Church and this weekend Ireland's Catholics showed that despite all the problems in the Church they were not going to adhere to the agenda set by the editors and prominent opinion-makers in Ireland's newsrooms.

Yes, yesterday constituted a 'vote of confidence motion' in the Church and by any measure the media's hoped for empty pews failed to materialize.

If my parish is anything to go by, this weekend may even prove to be a significant positive for the Church. If anything, the congregation at Mass was younger than usual and there was no hint of any no-shows among women, young or old. The people voted with their feet – by attending Mass they voted against the no-confidence motion.

What this weekend proves is that the Irish Catholic Church may have hemorrhaged numbers in recent years, but a fairly large percentage of Catholics remain committed to the Church.

Problems remain, including a final reckoning for the child abuse scandals and a steep decline in vocations, but the decline may be at or at least near an end. The new Church will be smaller, no longer the dominant institution in Irish life that the old Church was was in decades past. However, this new Church will also be a strong counter-weight to the cynicism and liberal agenda beloved of the media.

Demands for change led by those inimical to the Church will be ignored. That doesn't mean that those who remain will be docile. Far from it. There will be a demand for better management and the laity will expect and be expected to take a more active role as the number of priests declines.

Change is coming, but it won't be the change desired by those whose dream is to see the end of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

NY Times goes all tabloid on the Pope

Okay, hold on. I was going to write about the Pope's recent letter to Ireland's Catholics, but instead I want to talk about the story on the front page of the NY Times on March 25. Just because so many of the Bishops have made some grotesque errors in judgment doesn't mean that the NY Times should take leave of its editorial senses and adopt the sensationalist policies of a British tabloid.

The story the Times tells is another one about a priest who violated his vows, the innocence of children and the trust of their parents. Fr. Lawrence Murphy was an Assistant Director, Director and eventually Principal at St. John's School for the Deaf, a residential school in Milwaukee, from 1950 – 1974.

During that time Fr. Murphy sexually molested dozens of boys, perhaps even as many as 200. It's a horrific tale, made worse by the fact that Fr. Murphy preyed on deaf children for whom communicating what was happening to them was that much more difficult.

When in 1974 the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was told by the boys what had happened to them Fr. Murphy was relieved of his duties at St. John's and basically ordered to go back and live with his mother in a different part of Wisconsin, in a different diocese. The Times says at the time the police and prosecutors "ignored reports" from Fr. Murphy's victims, so there doesn't seem to be the same cover-up concerns that are a feature of most of these stories. Murphy's abuse of children seems to have stopped with his removal from St. John's in 1974.

That story, however, has already been told by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel back in March 2006 and is told in detail at BishopAccountability.org. The Times connects the story to Pope Benedict, which is why it was on the front page.

The Times reveals that in January 1998 while the Church was proceeding with the process to laicize Fr. Murphy, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger appealing to him to stop this process on the grounds that (a) it was outside the norms of Church law (time limits) and (b) he was in poor health, having just "suffered another stroke." Three months later Ratzinger's secretary asked Milwaukee to drop the case. Four months after that Fr. Murphy was dead.

So there's the crux of the scandal that the Times saw fit to blaze on its front page. No legal cover-up, simply an old sinner's appeal for mercy and, apparently, a positive response from Cardinal Ratzinger.

Now I wish Cardinal Ratzinger hadn't done that. I'd rather have seen Fr. Murphy suffer, but I'm not a priest nor a bishop. I'm not in the business of forgiveness or mercy, but I can accept that this is a core function for a priest.

I'd like to be happy that the Times is so hard-line on the application of justice, but anyone who reads the paper regularly knows that not to be true. I'm still waiting for their editorial condemning the Scots for releasing Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who was convicted of murdering 270 people over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 and who was released last year for dubious medical reasons.

No the truth is the Times picked up on an old, terrible story and used a thin connection to tie it to the Pope in an attempt to discredit him. That's it. The British tabloids would be proud of the Times' efforts.

Irish missionaries served God & Ireland

I had intended to mention this earlier, but it slipped my mind. RTE showed a two part documentary on the 20th century history of Irish missionaries.

There were some political and religious views that caused me a little disquiet and there were a few, sort of, 'National Geographic-like' images that I wasn't sure about, but overall it was a story worth telling and it was well told.

As well as spreading the faith, the missionaries were, as President Mary McAleese says, ambassadors who "have done Ireland no end of service." Unfortunately it's a service that's winding down now as there are virtually no young missionaries these days. What they accomplished and the trials they endured (or didn't - many died before reaching age 40) is a story all Irish people should know.

RTE has made the two parts available to view (until the March 23) for people outside Ireland. Each episode is 50 minutes, but it's worth while. Part I is here and Part II here.

Open the pubs on Good Friday

Part of the way we celebrate Easter in Ireland is that a certain percentage of the population suffers unduly on Good Friday because the sale of alcoholic beverages is banned. These people lead the annual moan about the pubs being closed for the day.

This year we got a head-start on the annual moan thanks to the fact that the authorities in charge of rugby have scheduled a big game between Leinster and Munster in Limerick on Good Friday night. The pub owners of Limerick, worried about the trade they might miss out on, are leading the campaign to be allowed to open for business on Good Friday.

Those for whom the DT's kick in at the very thought of Good Friday have joined the publicans in the bombardment of the airwaves with their plaintive cries asking us to feel their pain, their need.

This goes on annually. Every year the cries grow stronger and the sympathy for the sufferers greater. There is only one obstacle to the change needed by these poor people - the Catholic Church.

Or so they imagine. The airwaves are full of "this is not a theocracy" or "in this day and age the Church should not ..." and so on.

Well here's one Catholic that has heard their cry and is now joining the chorus: 'open the pubs.' Honestly, I've got no problems with pubs being open on Good Friday.

I'm no theologian by a long shot, but my little bit of research turned up no Church law requiring Catholics to abstain from alcoholic beverages and certainly nothing requiring that the civil law mandate that public houses be closed on Good Friday.

It's not a Church law. It's a government law based on an Irish custom. Maybe this custom is rooted in the traditional folk practices of Irish Catholics, but still it's an Irish custom and not a Church law. And like I said, as a Catholic I couldn't care less whether people buy a pint or ten on Good Friday.

However, as a resident and taxpayer and the father of impressionable youngsters living in this country I worry about it. I worry that as a nation we seem to need alcohol.

I'm not a teetotaler and enjoy being in the pub on occasion, but still I worry that the old customs are being replaced by new customs, such as celebrating the vomit, vice and violence that comes with too much drinking. The whole tone of city and town centers late at night is much more menacing than it was in the past.

Stereotypes notwithstanding, Ireland used to have one of the lowest per capita alcohol consumption rates in the EU. However, over the past 20 years Ireland has gone from being near the bottom to the top of the table. In 1990 the average Irish person consumed 6% more alcohol than the average American. By 2006 that gap was 40%.

Pubs used to be closed on Saint Patrick's Day too, but I don't feel less Catholic for that change having been made. The subsequent street violence and rioting have no impact on my faith. Same will be true on Good Friday. So go ahead and open the pubs on Good Friday.

Irish Catholics must pay for Irish Church's sins

There's a lot of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth here in Ireland today thanks to the announcement by Bishop Brennan of Ferns that he would be asking Catholics in the diocese to help pay compensation and legal costs arising out of sex abuse scandals. {Read more here.}

Thus far, the Diocese of Ferns has paid out $10.9m in compensation on 48 cases with a further 13 actions pending. The diocese's insurance covered only about $1.5m of these claims, which means the diocese to raise money to meet these obligations.

A column by documentary producer Mary Raftery in today's Irish Times captures the mood of those who are outraged by the bishop's request. Rafferty says the parishioners of the Ferns diocese should not be asked to pay because the "parishioners damaged no child, transferred no pedophiles from parish to parish, covered up no abuse, hid no shameful secrets." That's all true, but if the money doesn't come voluntarily from Catholics in the diocese of Ferns, where will it come from?

The general answer to this question is 'the Vatican.' This answer misses the point: the Catholic Church - whether at diocesan level or at the Vatican level - exists on contributions from its members.

If the people of Ferns balk at subscribing the needed $80,000 per year for 20 years - and I suspect the bishop will be sorely disappointed - then where will the money come from? Sure the Vatican could pay, but then all that would mean is that Catholics in America, Canada, India, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. will be paying for the problems in the Diocese of Ferns. Is that more just?

Of course not and in fairness that's not what Rafferty and others want. They want the Vatican to pay out of its 'vast wealth.' What exactly that wealth is does not feature in their arguments, but I doubt if the people who throw their money in the basket each week and annually subscribe to Peter's Pence really want the Church to call in Christie's to help it off-load a Michaelangelo or two.

So one way or another the money will come from the members of the Church. The only question is which members. Although I don't blame Ireland's Catholics for being angry, there's no denying that we subscribe to an organization from which we accept(ed) too little accountability. In many ways we're not much different than the shareholders in the banks: we didn't sufficiently care about what the management was doing until it was too late.

Now we're faced with the choice of either paying for that 'sin of omission' or telling the Church to dispose of assets - schools, for example - to cover the bills, which will be a sure sign of the Church's decline. For some of those who have left the Church this will be more than satisfactory, but for many Irish Catholics the idea that we could soon have no Catholic schools is unthinkable.

Somehow the disconnect between the members' reluctance to pay the sex abuse bill and their desire to keep the Church functioning, including Catholic schools, has to be overcome. Given the Church's decline a disposal of some assets is inevitable. There are too many half empty churches and too few priests, many of whom don't want to be involved in running schools.

Ireland's Catholics are going to have to accept that for some the church where they made their 1^st Holy Communion, were married, had their children baptized and buried their parents is going to be sold and used for a different purpose or demolished. Even some of those who have left the Church might shed a tear at that development.

But there's no escaping the problem. One way or another Irish Catholics are going to have to pay for the sins of the Irish Catholic Church. Simply calling on the Vatican to pay up is nothing more than an attempt to push the problem onto others.

Irish Church needs African missionaries

An article I stumbled across at UniversityWorldNews.com got me thinking about the Catholic Church in Ireland. The article says that Ireland is known as the "Land of Saints and Scholars," "but it would welcome a lot more of the latter." That's probably true, but I doubt too many people would object if we had an influx of saints as well as scholars.

For generations the Catholic Church in Ireland sent priests and nuns to America, Britain, Canada, Australia, and just about anywhere English was spoken. The Irish Church also produced thousands of missionaries who went to Africa (mostly), South America, Asia and other places. Their success can be seen in parishes and dioceses in Africa and elsewhere. And now, maybe here too.

Yesterday I went to a different church, not my own parish. The Mass was said by an African priest. It was obvious he was not there just for the week seeking support for the Church in Africa as would have been the case years ago. No, this man is based in this parish. Our own parish also had an African priest until very recently. I've seen other African priests in and Dublin as well.

What's going on here? Well, I don't know. I can only guess. I know the priest who was at our parish was in Ireland to complete his PhD. Maybe all these priests are the same - pursuing higher education opportunities. Or maybe they're here simply to improve their English.

Regardless their presence is, for the moment, interesting but it could prove crucial in the years to come if the Church is to recover after all the recent scandalous revelations. The average Irish priest is old and seems tired and burdened. Who can blame them with so many people willing to tar them all with the same brush? These days it seems the phrase 'pedophile priest' is just everywhere.

The African priests are, in contrast, young, energetic, enthusiastic and unburdened by the Irish Church's problems. These men seem to relish being here and, from what I can see, the people in the pews love them.

Although these African priests are not officially missionaries - at least I don't think they are - they are really on the missions in Ireland. Sure they might leave with a degree and with a great deal of goodwill for their work back in Africa, but they could be the spark that relights the Church in Ireland.

At the moment with so many churches only half full of mostly gray-haired people, the energy and the joy of these men is completely off the scale from what most Irish people experience in a church these days. Even teenagers and younger children seem more alive in the church when these men are on the altar smiling and speaking and singing - often badly, but loudly.

I presume the Church in Africa can't spare any more of these men, but if it's at all possible the Irish bishops should seek out more of them. The Church needs these 'missionaries' here in Ireland. They can come as scholars and do a saint's work while here.

Yes! The Time is now for Fr. Doyle Square

Following the publication of the Murphy Report into clerical child sexual abuse Dublin City Council wants to change the name of Archbishop Ryan Park. Okay, changing the name away from Archbishop Ryan is appropriate, but changing the name to honor "one of the city's famous writers," as suggested by one councillor, is wrong. The park remains a gift to the city from the Catholic people of Dublin and, therefore, an Irish Catholic should be honored.

The park should be named after someone who lived a positive Catholic life. Matt Talbot would be more than fitting, even Daniel O'Connell would be fine. Naming the park Fr. Mathew Park would be even better. Fr. Theobald Mathew's crusade against drunkenness in the 19th century is a bit of inspiration that our modern Ireland could use.

However, my first choice to replace Archbishop Ryan in the park's official name is Fr. Willie Doyle. It's only 4 months since I called for a Fr. Willie Doyle Square in Dublin and now that exact opportunity has presented itself. Fr. Doyle - a great Catholic and hero of the Western Front - is the perfect choice for this park. This is a man whom all of Ireland can celebrate. Catholic, Protestant, Unionist and Republican, as commenter chicagoaoh pointed out back in September.

My Mayo grandfather (who was of age in WWI but joined the IRA instead) had a 1920 copy of Alfred O'Rahilly's book "Father William Doyle, S.J." throughout his life. My grandfather said it was one of his favorite books... Doyle's was a unique story of courage and faith.

Fr. Willie Doyle was an heroic figure admired by thousands, perhaps millions, of Irish men and women, but who is now only remembered on a cold wall in Tynecot cemetery in Flanders, Belgium. The time is now to right that wrong.