Colin Sheridan: The church told us to know our place — maybe now it finally knows its own

A personal reflection on faith, failure, and letting a daughter receive Communion from a Church that still owes answers

A nun buys one of the newspapers covering the death of Pope Francis in Rome last month. Photo: AP/Oded Balilty

Two weeks ago, thousands of middle-aged Irish men and women performed a sharp intake of breath as news broke about the passing of an 88-year-old Argentinian man called Jorge Mario Bergoglio. 

The reason for the intake would've had little or nothing to do with the personality of the deceased who was widely regarded as a humble, caring man, and everything to do with the church he led for a dozen years. 

As Pope, Bergoglio was immensely popular. Veneration can be a stinky cologne, however, and for the many, many Irish people whose lives were irrevocably altered by abuse perpetrated by men and women of the Catholic Church over the last few decades, every testimonial, every eulogy offered on television and radio this past fortnight will likely have stung a little. 

While Pope Francis was not to blame directly, he became the leader of an institution that destroyed countless lives. Heavy lies the crown on the head of anyone who accepts such a poisoned chalice. That he did it with an abundance of grace should go some way to heal old wounds, but there is a long, long way to go.

What we do in the dark is what really matters, and if Frances chose to visit the sick and needy when the lights were off and the cameras weren’t rolling, then I don't care if he was the Pope, a parish priest, an Iman or a Rabbi. 

So too with his nightly phone calls to churches in Palestine. He was a good man, I hope, but not wanting to disrespect anybody's faith, I do not believe any human being to be infallible, so it's entirely possible to me that Frances may have failed his fellow priests in Argentina in the 70s. 

He was a good man, I hope, but not wanting to disrespect anybody's faith, I do not believe any human being to be infallible, so it's entirely possible to me that Francis may have failed his fellow priests in Argentina in the 70s. 

If he did, perhaps his conscience evolved as a result. It’s a shame his passing arrived before a true reconciliation between the church he ruled, and the victims of its abuse was ever truly reached. 

It’s even more shameful that every revelation of truth continues only to be achieved under duress. The Church has never opened itself up to be audited the way a business facing corruption charges would. If you stole a tin of beans from a supermarket the guards would be at your door quicker than you could say a decade of the rosary. 

The same rules never applied for Big Religion, however. Perhaps Pope Francis reconciled that, if anybody should lead such a damaged whale of a thing, better it be a humble Jesuit than a pampered Carmelite. 

Whatever his reckoning, he will go to meet his maker having done much to realign the notion of church and charity, when for so long, the Vatican was an impenetrable house of horrors.

I say all of this as a lapsed Catholic myself, someone who believes in a higher power but has no faith in a church that continues to be run by men we are told to be superior, to be ‘chosen,’ to be potentially infallible. Especially since recent history has shown us all what that potential infallibility looked like. 

I’m more from the Fleabag school of doubt and spiritual curiosity than the Conclave one.

Daughter's communion

There is an element of hypocrisy in my selective abandonment, however. This week, my daughter made her first Holy Communion. Why, if I’m motivated to be so critical of the Church in a column of a national newspaper, would I allow such a thing to happen?

Perhaps because it exercises a free will that the Church denied so many for so long. An opportunity for my daughter to enjoy a rite of passage free from the burden of unnatural expectation. 

Is there an element of parental peer pressure? I don’t think so. I admire the backbone of those who opted out of the ritual as I’m sure their children had plenty of questions why. 

I’m also grateful for the low-key approach my daughter's teachers took (she goes to a progressive, Jesuit-founded school). There was no religious hysteria or scaremongering, and certainly no pandering to the commercial aspects of a day that can quickly spiral out of control.

Maybe Pope Francis's trademark humility finally forced a shift in mindset from a Church who were so quick for so long to tell their flock — “know your place”. If there is a God, they might be happy they finally know theirs.