Church leaders embark on a bureaucratic filibuster

ONCE again the Catholic church embarks on a great bureaucratic filibuster – now it is going to audit the abuse of children by church employees.

It is not going to count all the abusers but will confine its activities to perpetrators who are still alive. Whether this refers to them being alive before the audit we can only speculate.

The projected time frame for this audit is two-and-a-half years, but will doubtless extend into a tribunal time frame and then double as they again run for cover behind the specious legal curtain that has served them so well in the past.

Nothing will come of this. After the facade of doing something, another audit will be needed because half the perpetrators will have died during the process.

All the bishops who did nothing will be dead, so that will be that – a neat solution to this irritating distraction. They can then continue to blame dead bishops.

These self-absorbed people who run this organisation will never get it. They determinedly complicate everything, presumably in the hope that the resultant confusion will cloud over the sordid detail.

Allow me to explain its simplicity:

* Abuse of children is always wrong – period. There are no extenuating circumstances, excuses or justifications – ever.

* Failure to report a criminal act is in itself a crime.

* If you suspect abuse of children, you alert the civil authorities – no ifs or buts. It is for the legal representatives of the state to investigate and decide whether or not a prosecution will follow. Churches, no more than golf clubs, have no hand, act or part in the process of prosecution.

* Canon law is utterly irrelevant in civil matters. This is the internal rule book, enforced in secrecy, and has no bearing whatsoever on the law of the land.

The victims of these atrocities are bombarded with empty apologies and pleas for forgiveness every time a bishop opens his mouth. The apology has become part of the template for every public utterance and is about as heartfelt as a banker’s pledge.

It has come to mean nothing because given in a vacuum of any meaningful action or munificent compensation, sincerity is a word missing from their lexicon. These are the preachers in our midst, preachers but not practitioners. It is not about what the victims can give you, it is about what you can give them, without the ceaseless, hypocritical and hollow pleas for forgiveness. The latest offering from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference (March 10) is the Bishop of Elphin, Christopher Jones, questioning why the Catholic Church is being singled out when, he says, the cover-up of child abuse is going on in families and in society.

The bishop said people were being “unfair” and “unjust” to the church by constantly focusing on it.

Clearly, they have learned absolutely nothing.

Pat Burke

Clonsilla Road

Dublin 15