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Young people and the Church
Why saying 'sorry' isn't enough.
On 6 December 2009, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, made a clear appeal to young people not to abandon the Catholic Church in light of the sex abuse scandals, and subsequent crisis of faith here in Ireland. He made the point that the Church’s response “will come not just from new structures, which are necessary and that process will go on, but structures must be combined with accountability.” Whilst I don’t doubt the sincerity of Dr Martin’s words; I await without much hope that it will actually materialise.
The Catholic Church and its followers have been shook to the very foundations in light of the sex abuse scandals. Every week, more stories of abuse and degradation emerge in the media; stories of the denial of children’s basic human rights: cruel beatings, emotional abuse and sexual exploitation. Our Catholic institutions appear riddled and infected to the very core with evil. Whilst these abuses were being perpetrated right across Ireland, those in the know stayed silent. Why did social services,the managers of these institutions, the Gardai, teachers and people in the local community who knew what was going on not speak out?
By staying silent they themselves became part of the problem. Ireland’s institutions, designed to nurture and protect the young and innocent were instead inflicting horrors not far removed from the Holocaust. The very people that were supposed to be protecting children failed abominably to do so and so they all have blood on their hands. And when brave victims came forward, the church remained silent on the issue. The questions that come up again and again throughout the unmasking of the widespread infliction of abuse: why did men and women of God do these terrible things? Where was God when all of this was happening?
The institutions where abuse took place stole the childhoods of generations of children. Child abuse is a life sentence and its perpetration by the Church makes a mockery of an institution claiming to save souls and cherish lives. In this case they took them away.
The Catholic Church has survived so many times as its very saving point is the absence of a nod to change. The Catholic Church has seen 2000 years of social change and has never needed to update, knowing that human beings long for sameness, tradition and also fear death like nothing else. So, fashionable thinking comes and goes, but when you indoctrinate from birth you have people forever. It thought it could play this line again when the abuses first started emerging, but eventually realised that in our modern age we were less afraid of questioning authority. We stopped going to Mass and the Church finally admitted that there was a problem.
Money was offered without apology. Victims were then criticised for coming forward to claim this, as if they hadn’t suffered enough. The Ryan Report highlighted that the abuse was endemic. And yet, the Irish people have largely remained silent. How can the Archbishop of Dublin expect young people to return to the church, which destroyed the lives of so many children? How can he ask for young people to offer their hope, their idealism when the Church itself illustrates the poorest examples of Christianity?
It was Jesus Christ himself who spoke out about the excesses and indulgences of the society of his time. What sort of justice is it for victims when their pain is denied and the perpetrators of such evil slip off without so much as a slap on the wrist? Reform of the Church alone is not enough; our society must wholly examine the collaboration of state and church actors that allowed widespread abuse of children. The abuse of Children should be rightly examined, acknowledged and remembered as a horrific period in Irish History, one never to be repeated. After all, why was the abuse so specific to Irish institutions? Why the general absence of child abuse in other churches not dissimilar to the Catholic Church, for e.g. the Church of Ireland?
The scandal is also a sad example of the use and abuse of power in Irish society. You only have to take a quick glance at your own community to feel the weight of the Church’s power and make the connection to how abuse was allowed to continue. The Clergy is present on school boards and management; hospital boards and management; health services boards and management. The Irish Constitution, backbone of the Irish Legal system, might be better renamed as the Irish Catholic Constitution. The darker side of Irish tight knit community life emerges as part of the abuse: where people who could have stopped the abuse chose to remain silent perhaps in fear of making waves, upsetting the local powers, through intimidation. They still continue their silence, and by doing so re-victimise all those scarred by abuse.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin cannot ask young people to return to the Church until the Church can illustrate responsible use of power, and a severe curtailing of its power in our society, however long this may take. It must reach out to young people and offer a true, unambiguous representation of Christianity informed by past mistakes. It has to become a church that takes responsibility, alongside the Irish State, for victimising thousands and thousands of now adults who continue to suffer by not being listened to.
The people; the Church; Irish Society must remove this cross from their backs and take on its full weight, in reflection of true Christianity.
By: Annette Carter
