Isn’t Child Safeguarding Also the Work of God?
By Sean O’Conaill
No one can be in any doubt that the morale of Catholic clergy in the anglophone world is at its lowest ebb in living memory. With a mean age approaching 70 in Ireland, priests know that the status of the priesthood as a career choice among younger generations is in critical decline.
Meanwhile an unbelievable torrent of clerical child abuse revelations – dammed up by generations of secrecy ¬– continues to overwhelm the media.
Disappearance and disgrace seem to be an entirely possible future for a cadre whose oldest living members joined it when no career could compare in prestige.
Against this backdrop one can see the logic of the Pope inaugurating a ‘Year for Priests’ on June 18th. Those of us who have experienced none of the worst of the abuse of clerical power, and who may even feel a sense of personal debt to individual priests, could not complain about this in principle. The best of our clergy never abused power. Exemplifying the spirit of kindness and service they too need reassurance that this example will not be forgotten and will continue to bear fruit.
However, to read the Pope’s letter inaugurating this ‘Year for Priests’ on June 20th is to be filled with misgiving. Quoting at length from the nineteenth century saint Jean-Marie Vianney, the patron of parish priests, Pope Benedict extols the role of the priest in the eternal scheme of things:
“O, how great is the priest! … If he realized what he is, he would die… God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host…”.
Listing then the role of the priest at every transitional stage of our lives from birth to death, and at major crises in between, the pope quotes the saint again, without a hint of hesitation: “After God, the priest is everything!”
It was at this point that I wondered if the Pope has yet been briefed on the Catholic mother in the diocese of Ferns who was so convinced that “After God, the priest is everything!” that she could not believe that anything untoward could have happened when a priest shared a bed with her daughter.
To head off the criticism that I am taking this statement of the Pope’s not only too literally but outrageously out of context, I need to remind everyone that no greater outrage can be committed than sexual abuse by a person entrusted with a highly privileged spiritual role. To this day the Church has not measured the spiritual harm done by such behaviour – or even acknowledged bluntly that it completely disables the capacity of the Catholic priesthood to heal those who have been most completely robbed of their ability to receive the Eucharist.
Continuing on the theme of the spiritual importance of the priest’s role the Pope quotes yet again from the Curé d’Ars:
“All good works, taken together, do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass …. since they are human works, while the Holy Mass is the work of God”.
What then of the human work of protecting children from abuse? If even that is less important than the celebration of the Eucharist, and if “After God, the priest is everything!”, is the pope explaining to us here, in the clearest possible terms, why the only two Irish dioceses yet subject to independent inquiry were found to have put the interests of clergy before those of children?
And does this also explain why, when reminded of the criminality of child sexual abuse by the state in 1987, Irish Bishops prioritised not child protection but the insurance of the clerical institution against financial liability?
Again I will be criticised for taking out of context, and too literally, a pep talk aimed simply at restoring the morale of a severely challenged cadre of ageing men. I do so to remind everyone of the call made by the CEO of the NBSCCC earlier this year to everyone in the church – to build a culture of accountability within it. We cannot do that by arguing that no human work – not even the safeguarding of children – can be God’s work also.
My understanding of the Eucharist is that it most perfectly expresses God’s preference for the human body and soul as His own dwelling place, and especially the desire of Jesus to dwell within the soul and body, and heart, of a child. Empowered as we all are to prevent children being robbed of that gift, doesn’t this work have exactly the same importance as the celebration of the Eucharist?
And couldn’t the morale of the priesthood, and the church, be better restored if all priests were empowered by the Pope to say so?
Sean O'Conaill, President VOTF Ireland
