Opinion

Martin O'Brien: Mary McAleese poses serious question on role of women in Catholic Church

Former president Mary McAleese has criticised the Catholic Church. Picture by Julien Behal/PA
Former president Mary McAleese has criticised the Catholic Church. Picture by Julien Behal/PA Former president Mary McAleese has criticised the Catholic Church. Picture by Julien Behal/PA

“How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him[Jesus Christ]!”

The anguished words of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Rome on Good Friday 2005 lamenting the horrors of clerical sex abuse during a profound meditation on the Stations of the Cross just 25 days before his election as Pope Benedict XVI.

The revelations about crimes perpetrated by former St Colman’s College, Newry president Malachy Finegan over a period of twenty years while a priest in the diocese of Dromore, just prove that the scandals which began to yield their dirty secrets under journalistic investigation 25 years ago will continue to haunt the Church and re-traumatise victims for a long time.

Fast forward thirteen years from Good Friday 2005 to March 8, 2018 and these thought-provoking, challenging words by Dr Mary McAleese, former president of Ireland, in a speech, also in Rome.

“Failure to include women as equals has deprived the Church of fresh and innovative discernment; it has consigned it to recycled thinking among a hermetically sealed cosy male clerical elite flattered and rarely challenged by those tapped for jobs in secret and closed processes.”

Who, hand on heart, cannot say that that “recycled thinking among a hermetically sealed cosy male clerical elite” and attendant abuse of power is precisely what contributed significantly to the systematic cover-up of clerical sex abuse in the Church?

And who can seriously say that if mothers, grandmothers and wives were actively participating at senior level, as the equals they are before God, in the governance of the Church, they would have sat back and connived in all the cover-ups that scandalised the Church and inflicted such additional suffering on victims and survivors?

Those tempted to rush in and criticise Dr McAleese, a committed Catholic and trained canon lawyer, for going “over the top” in her remarks would do well to ponder seriously the central question she posed for the Pope and the male leadership of the Church.

It is this. Given the teaching that women are excluded permanently from priesthood, which Catholics are obliged to accept, then what “radical, innovative, strategic ideas” (to use Mary McAleese’s words) do they have for their inclusion in decision-making and policy-making in the Church?

Meanwhile, what should be done in the wake of the Finegan scandal, revealed thanks not to Stephen Nolan’s shock-jock approach on TV towards a most sensitive issue but to the tenacity of BBC NI’s respected and feared Spotlight investigative programme?

First, the Church must strenuously maintain the tough safeguarding regime it has now in place under the National Board for Safeguarding Children delivered by literally thousands of trained and vetted volunteers in every parish in the country.

Although the Church is still too wounded, and shamed, to say it out loud, Catholic premises are now probably the safest of environments for children anywhere in Ireland and that should be acknowledged.

Second, consideration must be given to the establishment of an independent inquiry, at the appropriate time, to find out what went wrong in St Colman’s, who and what enabled a thug and paedophile like Finegan to behave as he did and provide assurance that such a scandal can never happen again.

The NIO, in response to the call for an inquiry by Clem Leneghan, a brother of Mary McAleese - who recalls suffering sustained psychological and physical abuse at St Colman’s - said it was a matter for a devolved administration but that will just not do as an executive may not return any time soon.

One would expect the trustees and the Board of Governors of St Colman’s to be ready to commission an independent inquiry, conducted by, say, a QC or retired judge, when the PSNI have completed their work.

The Council for Catholic Maintained Schools do not have jurisdiction over St Colman’s, a voluntary grammar school, but the trustees and board could avail of their expertise and invite them to assist in the establishment of any inquiry.

An inquiry would have to have full access to the diocesan files - seen by the National Safeguarding Board in their 2011Review –and these should reveal inter alia just when the Bishop informed the police about Finegan.

More Finegan-type cases, more skeletons in the cupboard, will likely emerge to re-traumatise victims and further unsettle the faithful until all diocesan files on deceased priest abusers throughout the country are publicised.

When will all the Bishops learn that “The Truth will set you free” (John 8:32)?