Since it was announced that the Government has welcomed Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II to visit Ireland, probably next year, there has been much commentary in the media about how the visit will represent a “moment of national maturity”.
Welcoming the Head of State of our former oppressor, the logic goes, would prove that we have matured as a nation. That line of argumentation is, of course, condescending in the extreme. Ireland is a mature nation capable of welcoming any visiting Head of State.
Those who feel that we Irish must “prove” our maturity by welcoming the Queen frequently seek to brush the past under the carpet. Previous British atrocities in Ireland “are in the past” we are told. On his Newstalk Programme, for example, broadcaster George Hook said the Saville Report in to the events of Bloody Sunday had “laid that day to rest”.
To bad the same standard is not applied to the Church. Far from drawing a line under past injustices and abuse, reports about the Church are constantly dragged up. Bloody Sunday happened in 1972 and is, apparently, to be left in the past. Much of the abuse happened decades before that yet some commentators act as if the abuse is ongoing.
The Church has apologised on dozens of occasions for the dreadful abuse suffered by vulnerable people and tens of millions of Euro in compensation has been paid to victims. No compensation has been paid to the families affected by Bloody Sunday yet they are just supposed to accept that the Saville Report “laid that day to rest”.
Could it be that a different standard is applied to the Church? Take, for example, the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain. Ranting atheist Richard Dawkins has vowed to carry out a citizens arrest on the Pope alleging, without citing any evidence, that Benedict XVI co-ordinated a worldwide cover-up of clerical sexual abuse. At the same time, Mr Dawkins seems singularly unmoved to investigate the allegations of war crimes made against British troops in Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan to name but three countries to suffer under British occupation.
Many Catholics are left wondering whether their Church is being subjected to a higher standard than anyone else. It is hard not to draw such a conclusion.
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Michael, why are you complaining about people attacking the Church? If it's justified, then there is no reason to complain. If it's not justified, then just recall what James wrote in his letter Chapter 1, verses 2 and 3 "My brothers, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure" (Good News Bible).
And they say that Catholics know their Bible...
Because Fergal, like Pearse: "I hold it a Christian thing to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression, and hating them to strive to overthrow them". We can't stand idly by in the midst of injustice.
The problem with this is Alan that many of the people who seek to hold the Church to a much higher standard than any other institution or seek to constantly remind the Church of past sins while forgiving the past sins of every other institution, do not themselves accept that the Church is a divine institution.
Obviously, from the point-of-view of faith, one is right to expect more from the Church, but too many of the cynical observers are just lining up to heap scorn upon the Church for their own selfish ends.