The crisis that exists in Catholicism
THE Catholic Church in Ireland is imploding before our eyes.
Still reeling from the various paedophile scandals, the Chesney Affair represents another massive blow.
Congregations are dwindling and there is genuine anger not just at the past behaviour of priests but at the totally unconvincing way in which the hierarchy has dealt with the scandals.
There's even a website called www.countmeout.ie which shows disaffected Catholics how to leave the church. For these people, being 'lapsed' and therefore not taking the sacraments or going to Mass is not enough – they want to formally sever their links with a church they believe to have failed them.
To date 11,450 people have formally removed themselves from church registers. And these are just the tip of the iceberg.
At the heart of the discontent is the implied belief that the priesthood is somehow above the law. Thus whilst the church condemns contraception, sex outside marriage, homosexuality and divorce, and regards abortion as murder, those priests who sexually abused children were protected and hidden from the authorities.
In the case of Chesney, the church colluded with the government to quietly transfer an alleged IRA killer to a diocese over the border in Donegal in order that he might escape prosecution for a terrible crime.
The knowledge that this happened will have profoundly shocked the Catholic laity. Of course, it's always been the case that despite the hierarchy's steadfast opposition to the IRA there have always been some priests who have republican sympathies or beliefs.
And so the notion that a priest was also director of operations for the South Derry Brigade of the IRA and was responsible for an atrocity which killed nine people, including two children, one of whom was a nine year-old-girl, will have been hard to accept.
And then, when you add to that the fact that the then Cardinal Conway conspired with the secretary of state to ensure he never faced trial, it is extraordinary.
Of course, 1972 was a terrible year, and you can understand that if a priest were to be convicted of murder it would have exacerbated the already deteriorating situation and could have led to 'open season' on all clergy.
And similarly, you could understand that a spate of convictions of paedophile priests could undermine the church.
But expediency should never be a factor in the administration of justice, nor should it be in matters of morality.
The Catholic church teaches that murder is a cardinal sin. By conspiring to protect a murderer from justice the church undermined the sanctity of human life.
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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