Masses Today

6.30 William Mullins, (Shop St.) Anniv).
9.00 Stephen Mannion, Anniv.
11.00 Msg. Louis Naughton, (late High St.) Month's Mind
12.15 Christina O'Halloran, Anniv.
6.30 Michael & Una Beatty, Anniv.

AS I WAS SAYING...

On Sunday morning last I had prepared a homily on the gospel of the day, St. John's account of the 'doubting Thomas' story. It is an easy homily enough to cobble together in an age when doubt permeates all, when scepticism is the most common creed of the age.

My ear was then caught by a voice I recognised on the radio. It was that of Dr. Eamon Conway from the University of Limerick. Eamon has written extensively on child abuse and he was billed to address the extraordinary general meeting of the Irish bishops on the following day at Maynooth. Among other things, Conway remarked: "If the priests of Ireland refuse to address this issue from the pulpit this morning, they will be letting the people, the Church and themselves down." He put it as blatantly as that.

And there was I with poor St. Thomas wound up and ready to roll! I revisited the drawing board and did as Conway suggested. I took care to put St. Thomas on the Web and delivered a different homily in the Church. During the week a few people asked me why this had happened, why I had failed to publish what had been delivered in Church. I decided to print it in the Newsletter this week. The following was the homily delivered on Sunday last:

"We would rightly be accused of behaving like the proverbial ostrich if we failed to refer the events of the last week. I have referred in the Newsletter to Bishop Comiskey's resignation. If abuse has been a major clerical sin, clerical silence has surely compounded it. Silence is no longer a refuge, or an option.

There is no doubt but that clerical child sex abuse has undermined the faith of many. Terrible damage has been done to the Christian faith, to the Church, but above all to innocent children. We can only strive to imagine the humiliation and hurt they have suffered, and continue to suffer. Sexual abuse, of its very nature, is not just a once-off offence; its effects linger on to fester in the heart and soul. The resulting suffering outlives the abuse and the abuser.

It should not have to be said that sex abuse of children is a crime beyond comprehension, unforgivable. First of all, I would like to address the pitfalls we should avoid in addressing this horrible issue: the first pitfall I have already referred to: silence. The silence and denial has obviously exacerbated the great sufferings visited upon the innocent victims. Silence is a luxury the Church can no longer afford.

Another pitfall would be to vent our justifiable anger and outrage on the perpetrators, the clerical abusers themselves. This is a futile exercise, yielding no profit whatsoever. It may elevate our own 'feel-good' factor, or burnish our sense of moral superiority. Let the victims vent their justifiable rage against their tormentors. Let the rest of us refrain from cashing in on their pain. The most charitable stance we can adopt towards the perpetrators is to acknowledge the fact that they are people burdened with diseased minds. They require our compassion; they deserve our compassion. But the last thing they need is our tolerance.

Another way of avoiding the problem would be to blame the Press and the Media for the whole mess. It is surprising how widespread this conviction is among the clergy themselves. Now there is no doubt but that there are elements in the media who have rubbed their hands in glee at the present discomfiture of the Church. They or their parents experienced the Church as an oppressive institution in the fifties and the sixties. Or at least they imagined it to be so. This is 'pay-back' time. Whatever hang-ups they are now labouring under are now laid at the door of the church. The church operates as a psychological lightening conductor. But these are in a small minority. The vast majority of journalists are upright, honest people charged like the rest of you with keeping a crust on the table. So we must not fall for that one, that the whole thing is a media conspiracy. In fact the Media have, in general, done humanity and the Church a favour by exposing this terrible malady. Because, on the evidence we have to date, the Church was certainly not going to willingly volunteer the information.

The issue now is the accountability and wisdom of Church leaders in this present crisis. As has been said so often during the week, the church must forget about protecting itself and what it perceives to be its own interests. And this is how it is generally perceived to have behaved up to now: primarily protecting its own interests. But its only interests should be the interests that inform the gospel; everything else should be subservient to that. Finally, the Church must take on the burden of responsibility for the offenders. It is not sufficient to say that these men were out of control, we had no idea what they were at. But these men were accepted for ordination. Their preparation was supervised closely by recognised institutions of the Church. They were mandated by the Church to preach the gospel. The system failed and failed terribly. We must admit that. The church community must recognise this as a sin of the community. This evil must be fully acknowledged before healing and reconciliation can be achieved. But this will be an ongoing process rather than a 'once off' act of repentance. We are talking about a process that will perhaps take years to complete, if ever.

However, all is not gloom and doom. A humble Church will conform more closely to the vision of our founder than the triumphal Church of yesteryear. It will be a long and painful road; but resurrection awaits us."

-Dick Lyng.

MATTERS OF INTEREST

THE WAY WE ARE

In Ireland in the year 2000, 60% of priests were over 50. This is no different to Scotland. Archbishop Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh has said, 'In ten years we project that we'll have half the number of priests we do now. I've ordained nobody to the priesthood this year and accepted nobody for the seminary, and the same situation applies in the Archdiocese of Glasgow, which is three times bigger than ours.'

So also in England and Wales: Between 1964 and 1997, the number of priests dropped by 26%, from 7,714 to 5,712. The figure could soon go down to 4,000, most of them elderly.

France had 45,000 priests in 1945. She will have fewer than 10,000 by 2005.

In Europe as a whole 'clergy will soon have an average age of 70'. It was estimated that in many diocese, by the year 2000, between 30% and 50% of European parishes would have no resident priest. And in 2002?

In the USA, parishes without a resident priest have risen from 549 to 2843. Active diocesan priests dropped by 21% in numbers between 1983 and 1998, and religious by over 30%. One quarter of all priests are retired either because of age, health or some other reason.

Of Latin America, one writer has said, 'The greatest exodus of priests the Catholic Church has seen since the time of Luther is under way.'

Distribution of Priests
Europe and North America together have 45% of the world's Catholics, and 77% of its priests. Latin America and the Philippines together have 45% of the world's Catholics, but have only 12% of the world's priests. That is a 6 to 1 proportion in favour of Europe and North America.

In 1998, 52% of the world's priests were living in Europe, while the biggest growth area of Catholic population in the world is sub-Saharan Africa.

The Third World's population grew by 28% in the years 1984 to 1994. In the same period the number of priests in it grew by 7%, i.e. at a quarter of the growth rate of the population. |Between 1978 and 1998, the number of people per priest in Africa rose from 3251 to 4483. In South America it increased by one third.

(The Furrow, April 2002)


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