Pope’s pastoral letter - A welcome apology that lacks resolve

Monday, March 22, 2010

In as much as the Pope’s pastoral letter is an apology for clerical paedophile abuse, it should be warmly welcomed, but it is distinctly short on specifics about what should actually be done.

"Nothing can undo the wrong you have endured," Pope Benedict XVI explained in addressing survivors. "Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated."

There were two distinctly different forms of abuse. One was the sexual abuse when the victims were children and the other was the torment those victims had to endure when they sought to expose what had happened to them. Church authorities and their representatives sought to defend the indefensible by suggesting that victims essentially fabricated their stories of abuse.

The country got a vivid and disturbing insight into the anguish caused by those tactics when Michael O’Brien lashed out on television last May about what he had been put through at the Redress Board. This added insult to injury, compounding the initial injustice.

"Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations," the Pope admitted. There were "grave errors of judgment" and leadership failures on the part of the Irish bishops.

"You and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law for the crime of child abuse," he wrote.

Unfortunately some contradictory pronouncements in recent days by Church authorities have probably only confused the Irish public about the norms of canon law. Looking back, Cardinal Seán Brady admitted last week: "I am ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess and believe in." He says he hopes the Pope’s letter will lead to "a great season of rebirth". But the cardinal’s own position remains untenable.

While the Papal apology has been warmly welcomed by some spokespeople for the victims, others have expressed disappointment that it did not go far enough.

"Victims were hoping for an acknowledgment of the scurrilous ways in which they have been treated as they attempted to bring their experiences of abuse to the attention of the Church authorities," said Maeve Lewis, director of the One in Four victims group.

The Pope’s letter is really an address to Catholics who have remained faithful, rather than to those who have become disillusioned. He pays magnificent tribute, for instance, to the missionary zeal of the Irish down through the decades. The Church provided education for so many young people and the result "was a rise in vocations: generations of missionary priests, sisters and brothers left their homeland to serve in every continent, especially in the English-speaking world".

In almost every Irish family a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, an uncle or an aunt were to be found in religious life. These good people have been forgotten in the midst of the latest scandals. They were betrayed, not so much by the machinations of the perverts within religious life as by their own superiors, who sacrificed the welfare of so many children in irresponsible efforts to cover up the vile deeds.

It is much too simplistic to suggest that what happened in Ireland was in some way the result of "serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularisation of Irish society", as Pope Benedict XVI suggests. "Fast-paced social change has occurred, often adversely affecting people’s traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values."

Some have interpreted this as suggesting that if the people of Ireland had more faith, all of the abuse would not have happened here. The abuses were happening when there was still a very strong attachment to religious practices – when over 90% of Irish Catholics attended Sunday Mass. If anything, the Irish people had a misplaced faith – placing their trust in Church leaders who betrayed that trust.

The current disillusionment is more a consequence of clerical abuse than the cause of it. Of course, whether it is the cause or a consequence, there can be no doubt that the Pope is right in suggesting that the clerical paedophilia "has contributed in no small measure to the weakening of faith and the loss of respect for the Church and her teachings".

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has equated what is happening to a time bomb that needs to be defused before even more damage is done.

The Pope referred to an Apostolic Visitation to Ireland to inquire into what has actually been happening. If that involves genuinely listening to those who have been abused, it could help with the healing process.

On the other hand, some suggest it could be just a high-powered internal inquiry by Vatican officials. This could cause more problems than it will resolve.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, March 22, 2010