Bertie Ahern was interviewed by Gay Byrne on RTE's 'Meaning of Life' programme last night .The former Taoiseach revealed an unpretentious traditional Catholic faith that will probably have them tittering over in Dublin 4 but which makes him all the braver for having admitted to such a faith, especially in the present climate.
Mr Ahern was also asked about the scandals. On this point he said he wished the Church well, but he went on to criticise Church leaders for hiding behind canon law.
He said: “There was one time when the church tried to put up the defence of canon law and my colleagues just looked up to the sky and thought they were joking. Unfortunately, they weren’t joking, they made bad decisions.”
It's a pity Ahern didn't have his own canon law advisers because they could have told them that far from canon law giving Church leaders a shield to hide behind, it actually required them to deal with abusers far more ruthlessly, and justly, than they did.
As the Murphy report made clear, the problem with canon law is that it wasn't used. The problem is that it fell into disuse and disrespect from around the mid-1960s, abandoned in favour of less 'punitive', less 'legalistic' and more 'compassionate' and 'pastoral' approaches to errant priests, approaches that turned out to be disastrous.
Instead of disciplining or laicising offending priests as required by canon law, they were sent off for therapy only to offend again later.
So don't blame canon law for this mess. It would be far more accurate to blame the 'pastoral' approach adopted by post-conciliar liberals. They are the ones who abandoned canon law.
Peadar,
Irish politicians are fond of calling for the expulsion of the Holy See's ambassador, and Israel's ambassador, but never the likes of Iran.
This is a very pertinent observation. If we look in certain quarters, last month's 'Reality' magazine for example, one could summarise the reaction as more of the 'pastoral' approach. Or the fluffy liberal approach. The point they miss is that this was tried and it didn't work. I am sorry none of the tribunals have so far called the therapeutic profession into the dock. Well, that matter can arise.
With regard to Bartholomew, you have an excellent point. The first serious paedophile scandal was that of Fr Brendan Smyth O.Praem. which toppled Albert Reynolds and made Bartholomew leader of Fianna Fáil and subsequently Taoiseach. As Taoiseach, he negotiated with the religious orders, among other things - without considering other aspects of Church-State relations. The services of a good canon lawyer would have helped him considerably in any of this. But David, that would mean thinking outside the box.
On Church-State relations, some people reckoned the first course of action was to recall the Irish Ambassador to the Holy See - Des O'Malley had a smug letter about this in the paper of record (the paper of the broken record). This was to miss the point. The embassy to the Holy See is the Irish government's main avenue in influencing the Church. There would be a better case for beefing the embassy up.