Catholic church will not be able to cover up it's crimes
IF something is right it is consistent with facts or beliefs.
It adheres to conventional ideas of morality, propriety and decorum.
It is conformation to what is expected of us. In fact, doing right goes beyond the letter of the law, it exemplifies the spirit of the law. When we are genuine in our desire to do right, we willingly and deliberately avoid even the appearance of wrong.
Recently there has been no better example of this than in the whole business of Parliamentary expenses. Things that were legally OK according to the rules governing claims, have completely skewed the spirit of the rules and brought disgrace to the good name of Parliament.
The same principle of doing right can be applied to every walk of life.
My old friend, the late Dr Jones Sr always put it like this: "It is never right to do wrong to do right. Do right should the stars fall."
Cardinal Brady is learning this week that no matter who you are, no matter how personable you may be, no matter your position, wrongdoing is the undoing of right.
Just a few weeks ago we all watched as the Irish bishops went off to Rome to meet the Pope. Then we watched as they came home.
I wrote about their visit in my column on February 19. The upset being voiced at the time by the victims of abuse and by members of the Roman Catholic Church was palpable. At the end of my article I included these words:
'Sing a song of sorrows
A generation marred;
Four and twenty Bishops summoned out to Rome
When the summit ended
The Bishops all did sing
Their sordid deeds well covered, they kissed the Pontiff's ring.'
You see, nothing had changed. Like Chamberlain, they returned from their foreign talks claiming success, but unlike Chamberlain they didn't have a piece of paper, just the promise of one to come. That piece of paper from the Pope, addressed to the faithful of Ireland, is supposed to arrive in a few weeks' time in the run up to Easter. Now its content will be required to reach an even higher expectation.
The Brady/Smyth revelations are not in accordance with law, morality, with people's sense of fairness, with justice, and with what is viewed as acceptable behaviour. They further violate the rights of every victim of abuse. They put Canon law so far up the scale that the law of the land is neutered. They seduce evil and they dishonour truth. With malice they taunt every child and family whose lives have been distorted beyond repair by men and women who took, in the name of the Church, what was never theirs to take and what they can never return.
The seduction of young hearts and minds in order to rape and abuse is a crime so heinous that no attempt to cover it will suffice. This dam has burst, and no finger, ringed or otherwise, can stop it.
Think On This:
'..the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief, that, though late, I might remember my sins, and that I might return with my whole heart to the Lord my God."
St Patrick
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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