Cardinal lost his way somewhere between angels and fallen priests

WHEN he taught metaphysics at UCD, and wanted to highlight a point, Prof Desmond Connell used to give “Fido the dog” as an example.

On his appointment as Archbishop of Dublin in 1988, his students presented him with a glass figurine of Fido under which were engraved the words “Metaphysics made clear”.

Even as cardinal, he kept it on his shelf. Connell pointed it out to Stephen Costello, a young philosopher and former student of his, when Costello interviewed him for his book, The Irish Soul in Dialogue, published in 2001. Costello made the point that Connell looked at Fido “with pride and a certain nostalgic sadness”.

That nostalgia was understandable. Connell did not want to be Archbishop of Dublin and his colleagues and students were well aware of that. He would miss the lectures and the academic environment and the lengthy reflections on angels, his area of academic expertise. He would miss his students, too.

Costello recalled that Connell had “a dry and droll” sense of humour which was apparent to his students and when criticising positions with which he disagreed, there would often be “a mischievous glint and gleam in his eyes”.

Having dispensed with the nostalgia, Connell went on to cover ground in the interview that was familiar to him — theological competency, absolute truth and the science of metaphysics.

The interview became controversial when published because he disparaged the theological credentials of Church of Ireland Archbishop Walton Empey who, he said, “wouldn’t have much theological competency”. As an academic and a teacher, Connell was not without humour, though something he said to his departmental colleagues when vacating his academic position might have appeared as a joke, but it was not: “I leave you with the hope that this department will never become a department of contemporary European philosophy”. He may have had a glint in his eye when he said it, but he meant every word of it, just as he meant every word of what he said about Empey. Connell takes his metaphysics and his theology seriously and, in particular, he has no truck with unqualified people discussing religion.

Connell’s emergence as a headline-maker once again in the last few weeks is a reminder that he was appointed Archbishop of Dublin at a time when he was the last person the Catholic church needed precisely because he was inflexible and driven by his belief in absolute truths. Shortly after he was appointed Archbishop in 1988, Fintan O’Toole wrote a profile of him in Magill magazine which pointed out that one of the first articles Connell wrote was in 1957 in Studies, a journal published by the Jesuits to give space to Catholic debate on literature, philosophy and science.

In this article, Connell complained about unqualified people talking about religion on the radio. According to O’Toole, this article reflected “an impatience with the modern world in which mass communications gives all sorts of people the right to be heard on subjects he believes they know nothing about”.

He remained consistent in his views on that issue. This approach was in stark contrast to Connell’s successor, Diarmuid Martin. As soon as he was appointed in 2004, Martin made a beeline for RTÉ, appearing on Questions & Answers and other programmes to promise the issue of child sexual abuse by the clergy would be dealt with in a transparent manner, however difficult that would be for the church.

It would have been unimaginable for Connell to go on TV to be surrounded by lay people who, as he would have seen it, were not qualified to talk about what the church should and should not do.

Martin knew if the church was to survive, it had to adapt and do so as a matter of urgency whereas, for Connell, the notion of the church adapting to a changed environment was anathema. Just as he did not want a modern philosophy department in UCD, he did not want the church to change with the times.

Connell never courted popularity because he did not believe that to be his job. He did and said what he thought was correct based on what he regarded as principle and truth and followed that truth and its consequences with vigorous logic.

It is likely that his recent aborted attempt to get the High Court to intervene to prevent certain documents being handed over to the inquiry into allegations of clerical child sex abuse in the diocese of Dublin was also motivated by vigorous logic, despite the impact it would have on public opinion and, more importantly, on the victims of child abuse.

He learned last week that such an approach is not acceptable anymore (helped by a visit from Dr Martin), just as he learned after his criticism of Dr Empey in 2001 that his remarks could be construed as insensitive, arrogant and hurtful.

Much of the difficulties surrounding Connell’s time as archbishop have to do with the manner of appointing senior church figures, particularly the practice in the past of plucking them from academia and thrusting them into a job they are obviously unsuited to but feel compelled to take. His academic preoccupations meant very little in the real world, formed as they were by the work of a 13th century saint, Thomas Aquinas.

He and his fellow Thomists (the followers of ideas based on the writings of Aquinas) see no room for doctrinal debate and individual conscience and see a metaphysics based on the writings of Aquinas as an absolute science. They are also concerned with defining the exact nature of angels and how they, as spiritual beings, can have a knowledge of the material world.

FOR those of a more modern bent, of course, these matters are an embarrassing irrelevance, but Connell has been steeped in these issues all his life and he sees them as questions of vital philosophical and theological importance.

Few outside of metaphysics departments want to discuss these ideas and Connell was often socially isolated. I remember observing him in a room at a function in Dublin in 2001 and was struck by how uncomfortable he seemed trying to make small talk and how few people actually wanted to talk to him.

In the period after the Second Vatican Council, which sought to modernise the church and increase lay involvement in its activities, he attacked the British theologian Leslie Dewart for daring to suggest that an understanding of God and the church’s dogma would have to be “drawn forth from contemporary experience”.

For Connell this was infuriating. As far as he is concerned, truths central to his church’s teaching are eternal and unchanging. Connell also argues that virginity is of a higher order than sexuality and that the highest possessor of this virginity is “the consecrated virgin” — the male priest.

Unfortunately for him, he presided over the diocese of Dublin at a time when some of these “consecrated virgins” were inflicting great pain and damage on children. Historians will remember his time as archbishop for that issue and his difficulties in coping with it because of his refusal to believe that a church can or should adapt to changing circumstances.