Finally, a senior clergyman has
resigned over the many, many, Irish sexual abuse cases. A recent report identified several named Bishops as involved in the cover-ups - moving abusive priests on to fresh new territory, refusing to investigate accusations and the like. Donal Murray, Bishop of Limerick was merely one of this cabal who decided that the strength of the Church outweighs the needs of raped children, their families and the community.
More need to go. Schools need to be handed over to the State (they're still run 'for' the State by religious institutions in Ireland, and the Pope needs to 'fess up. In his previous job, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith (it probably sounds cooler in Latin), he had responsibility for all this stuff. He knew, and said nothing.
Ireland used to be the hope of the Catholic Church. While other nations slipped away into atheism or (worse) Protestantism, or developed strands of Liberation Theology (the idea that Catholic priests should identify with the poor and the oppressed rather than bolster the ruling classes), Ireland's Catholics stayed obedient, reactionary and devoted. They handed their children over to the Church and received in return a ruling class that never lifted a finger without checking with Rome first. One image serves well: all of the government and senior oppostion, with the brave exception of
Noel Browne (an all-round hero), waited outside the funeral service for the President of Ireland,
Douglas Hyde (owner of a splendid moustache), because the Catholic church forebade its members from attending Protestant services.
Catholicism's on my mind today. I certainly don't have any nostalgia for my days as an altar boy or choir boy, but it leaves its effects, positive and negative, even on we liberated atheists. I'm definitely a Catholic Atheist! In London the other day, Adam and I visited the National Gallery's
The Sacred Made Real exhibition, a collection of paintings and statues from the 17th-century Spanish Counter-reformation. All the statues are hyper-real: John the Baptist's head is painted, and moving around the glass case reveals a neck complete with windpipe and bloody flesh. The Christs are all heavily scourged and wounded, the tears dripping from Mary's eyes are made of crystal.
It's the iconography of a church which feared and distrusted its congregation. Not for them the tales of liberation and joy available in the New Testament. Instead, the emphasis is on suffering and sacrifice: Jesus crucified and the gory martyrdoms of various saints, all dwelt upon with a dark kind of pleasure. The people, clearly, were urged to identify with the misery and pain of these events, rather than to consider the positive aspects of the religion. It's a very personal, inward-looking kind of belief, designed to encourage the faithful to resist the wider social and moral attractions of rival denominations. As art, the images are disturbingly beautiful. As theology, they're terrifying. This is what lies at the heart of the Irish scandal.
