Church must focus on what matters

THE deep divisions among clergy in the archdiocese over the fallout from the Murphy report are a distraction from what really matters for the future of the church.

Clearly the bishops did their best in the context in which they were working and their best was far from good enough. It will not matter much if all or none of the bishops resign. The job of the church now is to heal and not to patch things up by some ritual resignations. What will matter is if we see the church unchanged in its perception of its role and in the way it conducts its relationships with its priests and its people, and in the way that bishops are appointed.

The bishops, with a few inspiring exceptions, have been their own worst enemies in adopting an aloof, impersonal and judgemental approach to their role, We all dreaded the regular and tedious pastoral letters read out on Sundays, informing us how to live our lives. The complexity and remoteness of the church as organisation has taken us a long way from the moving simplicity of the Sermon on the Mount.

The people are crying out to be led by systems of insight, and not by systems of power. The absurd emphasis on a form of servile obedience has led to a destructive form of deference. The critical voice of the people has been weakened through the impediments of hierarchy, formality and status consciousness. There should be increasing opportunities for all to exercise genuine leadership in the church. I admit the Irish bishops feel constrained with a hierarchical and male dominated model that permeates the churches thinking. In any hierarchical institution wisdom does not trickle down easily from the top.

Effective leaders are close to those who are led, listen to and respond to their voice, value their insight and harvest the wisdom that is there for the taking. What has destroyed people’s faith in the leadership of the church is the suspicion that the good of the organisation of the church comes before consideration of individuals, even of innocent children. The difficulty with the church construed as institution is that it is perceived as the official receiver of revelation which is transmitted hierarchically. This has got things so badly wrong. The function of the institution must surely be to tap into the lives of those who seek to live the way Christ did. It is to listen to the voices of the people it purports to serve.

Philip O’Neill

Edith Road

Oxford

England