This week's report from the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) is an encouraging sign of hope in what has been a sea of depressing news in the Church in Ireland for too long.
It shows that the huge amount of time and energy invested in recent years in child safeguarding is starting to bear fruit. Some 2,356 parishioners in almost every community around the country are trained and acting to ensure that their parish maintains the highest standards when it comes to child protection. Within months, the board reports, there will be blanket coverage of every parish in the country. This is impressive by any measure given the fact that the board was only established in 2006. But set against the atrocious record of the Health Service Executive (HSE) the improvement in the Church's approach to child safeguarding is staggering. While almost every parish will be covered in a time-frame of just four years a recent report by the Ombudsman for Children revealed that in ten years the HSE has only managed to implement proper child safeguarding procedures in 50pc of its regions.
The report of the NBSCCC will be reassuring to many Catholics who have had to look on in horror as it appeared their Church, the Church they go on loving despite everything, was either unwilling or unable to handle this issue.
At a time when the so-called death of volunteerism is often lamented, we have witnessed a mammoth response whereby lay people are embracing the vital work of safeguarding children in the Church. It is an inspiring example of lay involvement and one that should be replicated in every area of Church life not least in the sphere of Church governance.
The spontaneous reaction by lay people is somewhat reminiscent of how the People of God saved the Church in the 4th Century. At that time, the Arian heresy had engulfed the entire eastern part of Christianity and much of the western Church. The lone bishops opposing Arianism were Pope Julius and Athanasius of Alexandria. However, the crisis dissipated when the so-called sensus fidelium (sense of the faithful) of the People of God ended up saving the Church because the people would not follow the heretical bishops who subscribed to the heresy.
It is a long and arduous road to recovery for the Catholic Church in Ireland. But it must not be a road to ''business as usual''. The model of the Church that has gone before us in Ireland clearly did not serve us well and has brought Irish Catholicism to the brink of catastrophe. Business as usual will simply not do the trick. The renewal of the Church that Cardinal Brady promised to lead this week, must be a radical transformation of how we understand power, authority and responsibility in the Christian Community that leads to a Church that is more authentic and more attuned to the Gospel message. This is the only way the Church can even begin to regain moral authority in Ireland.
