After centuries of blind obedience to the Catholic Church, the nation of Ireland seems to be pulling away from the Vatican – at least politically.
A speech recently given by Enda Kenny, the Prime Minister of Ireland, to the Irish parliment was loaded with invective directed squarely at the Roman Catholic Church.
What brought it on? A recently released report focused on the diocese of Cloyne. There government investigators uncovered a pattern of deception purposefully designed by church officials to keep secular authorities from knowing about alleged child abuse at the hands of priests. This report, coming on the heels of the similarly damning Ryan and Murphy Reports, has only reinforced the creeping feeling that this just the tip of the iceberg.
Fr. John Magee
Guidelines were set up by the Vatican in 1996 that are meant to help dioceses deal with reporting child abuse allegations to secular authorities. Fr. John Magee, the former Bishop of Cloyne, and Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan, Vicar General of Cloyne, were willfully ignoring these guidelines, as at least nine credible accusations of abuse were hidden from law enforcement.
While it might be tempting to lay the blame for lax enforcement of the 1996 guidelines strictly at the feet of Cloyne’s clergy, it has been uncovered that in 1997 the Vatican secretly advised church leaders that the guidelines should only be considered “merely a study document.”
For all the horror found in the previous reports on clergy abuse, the Cloyne Report is particularly damning because it proved abuse was still being covered up within the last few years. “For the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago,” said Kenny. “The Cloyne report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism, the narcissism, that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.”
3 Comments
Schism is the wrong term in this context. The Greeks and the Roman Catholic Church have a schism; the Republic of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church do not.
Use “divide,” “discord,” or any other term, but, technically, “schism” is not correct here.
Actually, technically you are incorrect. A schism, in the simplest sense, is a division.
Merriam webster lists the first definition of schism as:
division, separation; also : discord, disharmony
Dictionary.com lists it as:
division or disunion, especially into mutually opposed parties.
I am obviously aware that the word can have ecclesiastical connotations, but that was part of the tease in the use. The possible religious application is meant to highlight that this is a struggle between two countries, one of which is a religious institution and the other a state trying to decide whether to further divorce religious and secular matters.
As a side note, there is actually some talk (yet again) of a movement to separate the Irish Catholic Church from Rome:
http://www.newrossstandard.ie/sport/gaelic-football/is-it-time-for-the-irish-church-to-break-from-the-vatican-2831703.html
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/stifled-by-weight-of-romes-pomp-power-and-stubborn-patriarchy-2835994.html
Right, I know all that. I’m familiar with the different meanings/usages. But in a religious sense, there’s simply no “schism” whatsoever in Ireland with regard to the Catholic Church.
I cannot envisage a Church of Ireland. (It would be too “English” if you know what I mean.) I think it would become a thoroughly secular state before its Catholics splinter off and form the Church of Ireland.
I’ll eat my hat if it should ever come to pass, though. (And post a video feed of the hat-eating to the ANP threads.)
By the way, if someone wants to see a hilarious Irish TV show, go to your local library or log on to Netflix and order “Father Ted.” It is one of the funniest, best shows that has been on TV in the last 15-years. If you like the Simpsons, you’ll like Father Ted. It’s about 3 Irish priests who live in a rectory on an island in Northern Ireland. Great stuff. A must for any Catholic.