Clerical scandals - Church must tackle issue of celibacy

The resignation of Fr Maurice Dillane, 73, as curate in the Woodford-Looscaun parish of Galway has again rocked the Catholic Church, which seems to be lurching from one crisis to another in recent years.

This is the third such scandal in this country since Bishop Eamonn Casey announced in 1992 that he had fathered a child 17 years earlier as Bishop of Kerry.

In January 1994 the news broke that the late Fr Michael Cleary, who had died some weeks earlier, had fathered a son.

In fact, it later emerged that he had actually fathered two sons by the same woman.

This was not a story of culprits, but of victims.

He and his partner, Phyllis Hamilton, were engaged in a loving relationship, but the stress that each had to endure may well have contributed to their early deaths.

At the time a poll found that 40% of Irish priests believed the celibacy rule should be ended, but the reaction of Cathal Cardinal Daly and some other members of the hierarchy killed any debate on the issue.

In the circumstances it should not be surprising that so many priests have been leaving the priesthood.

“Some of the absolute cream of the priesthood have been lost,” Fr Brian D’Arcy warned yesterday.

“The compulsory celibacy issue has to be addressed.”

If a man in any other walk of life were forced to resign after having admitted to fathering a child in a consensual adult relationship, there would be a public outcry.

In the midst of all the clerical paedophile cases, the decline in vocations and the drop of in church attendances, the Roman Catholic Church is in “a huge mess”.

It is time that the ordinary people who make up the general body of the Church insist that those in authority act to clean up that mess.