A letter from Rome - Apologies no longer sufficient

POPE BENEDICT’S pastoral letter will be released today. Whether it will mark an ending or a beginning remains to be seen.

It is not known if he will go beyond his December response to the Murphy report, in which he said he felt “outrage, betrayal and shame” over the handling of allegations of child sex abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. However, it will be very disappointing if he does not.

Much, much more than an apology is required.

Despite innumerable and seemingly contrite apologies we still have scandals of abuse and criminal collusion coming to light on a disconcertingly regular basis. In just the last 10 days we’ve uncovered shabby secrets involving Cardinal Seán Brady, Bishop Seamus Hegarty and his colleague Bishop Edward Daly.

There are probably many, many more abuse secrets festering in paid-for-silence. Apologies from the Catholic Church have become a debased currency and no longer carry the weight needed to make a meaningful contribution to resolving this tragedy.

This cannot continue and if, say, the Pope’s letter was to instruct the Irish Church to publish details of all the deals reached with abuse victims in the last 25 or 30 years it would be just a small step towards what is required. This is not a radical expectation and is along the lines of what has been suggested by Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.

“What is very important ... is that the truth comes out ... I believe there’ll be no healing until we fully address the past,” was how he put it so well.

The whole papal letter process, presented almost as a panacea for all the scandals tearing at the foundations of Irish Catholicism by the conservative members of the hierarchy, is, however, under a very dark cloud.

Sadly, the value of the Pontiff’s contribution is greatly diminished by his role in an abuse scandal in Germany very similar to those uncovered in this country.

It is not known, and probably never will be, how the German revelations influenced today’s declarations. What is known is the German government’s response.

Earlier this week chancellor Angela Merkel said only “truth and clarity”, and not singling out the Catholic Church, would expose the full scale of Germany’s unfolding scandal. She said it would be a “challenge for all of society” to expose the truth about “abhorrent crimes” against children. She is right to point to the Church but she is equally right to point to wider society — this is a challenge for us all.

We are assured that today’s publication is of historic importance and because of that it demands a response from Government. That response must not be shirked. This Government, in all its incarnations, has dodged this issue for far too long, almost as if its authority was compromised or insufficient. Taoiseach Brian Cowen must offer a real response to the letter from Rome and, if necessary, articulate the anger we all feel; the anger the papal nuncio avoided by snubbing a Dáil hearing.

Nearly all of us inherit our core religious beliefs but we remain Catholic by choice. Today’s long overdue publication will undoubtedly influence that choice for very many Irish people.