Church should consider term limits for bishops

THE option of further costly, non-binding State inquiries, rather than prosecutions by the DPP, have been mentioned following the publication of the most recent reviews of child safeguarding procedures in six dioceses over a 34-year period.

Further state inquiries will achieve little if they were not to be accompanied by a contemporaneous systemic root and branch reform of the Church in Ireland by The Holy See.

While the six reviews did cite one bishop, Dr Leo O’Reilly of Kilmore as a role model exemplar, and several other bishops for being disciplined and constructive in their safeguarding obligations, the reviews also reveal a horrifying catalogue of dereliction, incompetence, delinquency and incapacity — euphemistically described as “errors of judgement”, which have further weakened the moral authority of the entire Church and impair the prospects of transparency and credible transformation.

A vital component of reform relates to bishops’ tenure. There have been no more than five individuals holding the position of bishop throughout the last century in each of the six dioceses that have been reviewed. Some Irish bishops have been in office for terms of over 30 years.

Longevity of tenure and the absence of checks and balances, other than accountability to self, lead to an impossible and intractable position when a bishop’s moral authority wanes, an outcome that is further aggravated by the absence of new people entering the priesthood and the ageing of the current cohort.

Therefore, term limits of five to seven years with a public mandate ought to be considered and the foundation of tenure and advancement needs to rest on demonstrable leadership credentials and moral authority rather than a rigidly conservative and insular theological pedigree.

Myles Duffy

Bellevue Avenue

Glenageary

Co Dublin