Church’s credibility being shredded

NO more stonewalling. This is no longer an option for the Catholic Chutrch in Ireland despite yet another apology from Cardinal Desmond Connell last night.

His apology does not change the basic situation which is the injustice done to the many victims of clerical child sex abuse.

The apology does not offset the effect of the deliberate strategy of evasion and cover-up operated at the highest levels by the Irish Catholic Church to shield paedophile priests. This policy is now likely to have a very costly finale.

The more we learn about the sexual abuse of children by clerics the uglier and more sordid the picture becomes. More alarmingly, the degree and extent of the complicity involved is shredding the credibility of the Hierarchy.

This is a scandal growing exponentially, its ramifications in legal terms and in undermining moral authority could be devastating.

At this juncture this much is clear. Cardinal Desmond Connell and his fellow bishops are now facing the greatest crisis in the history of modern Irish Catholicism.

A growing number of people seem to think it should lead to high-profile resignations, to follow that of Bishop Brendan Comiskey in Ferns.

More than that, it has also led to calls for the prosecution of those in positions of high authority in the Church who, time and again, shielded errant priests, thereby obstructing justice.

The terrible irony is the Church should be the foremost champion of justice, and the staunchest upholder of the claims of justice on all of us, clerical and lay persons alike.

In the aftermath of Thursday's RTÉ Prime Time special, not even Cardinal Connell can be secure in the belief that he is beyond the scope of any criminal investigation.

In the light of these further shocking revelations, the inadequacy of the apology from the Cardinal, who is the Archbishop of Dublin, stands exposed.

As Tony Blair said of the IRA in Belfast earlier this week, one can't be half in and half out of a process, whether the objective is peace (as in the North), or justice (as in the case of the Church).

The apology was a gesture, but at this stage, as Blair said of the IRA gestures, it is no longer enough. They simply don't work anymore.

The Church is now very much on the defensive. It is in a self-made hole of sizeable proportions, and what it does next will determine whether it wants to extricate itself, or dig an even bigger hole.

To judge by the evidence of the Prime Time programme, it would appear the Church is intent on digging an even bigger hole for itself.

The way out is not through an internal Church inquiry though no doubt the one that is being headed by retired judge Gillian Hussey will do all in its competency to arrive at the truth.

Neither individuals, families nor the State itself will get much help from Rome for the policy that has been pursued here in this country, as in the USA and in Australia with such disastrous consequences, has Vatican approval.

Equal justice under law that is a fundamental principle throughout western society. The problem is that the Church has always claimed privileged status, insisting on the right to internally regulate its own affairs.

Hence its insistence on the relevance of the Code of Canon Law, behind which the Irish Church has been allowed to hide for too long.

There could be difficulties if some sort of inquiry above and beyond an internal Church inquiry is contemplated. Article 44 of the Irish Constitution could be a stumbling block.

The ultimate solution by way of putting effective and appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure equal justice under law would seem to be by way of a Concordat between the Irish State and the Vatican.

Built into such a concordat would be provisions which would guarantee the primacy of equal justice under law. A move of this kind was never even contemplated since an independent Irish State came into existence in 1922. But then a crisis of the kind we are now witnessing was never foreseen either.

The primary concern must be the achieving of justice for the many individuals whose lives have been blighted by pernicious clerics placed in positions of trust over them.

In the past and up to now the achievement of that justice has been sacrificed in the interests of preserving the power and the institutional status of the Catholic Church and its clerical functionaries.

The onus is now very much on the Church to demonstrate that the dignity and integrity of individual human beings is no longer to take second place to the "institutional integrity" of the Church.

The State can play a major part by opening negotiations for an historical Concordat between which would sideline Canon Law in the area of clerical paedophilia.