Dublin Ireland.
After fourteen years as
skipper of the battered barque of St Patrick in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese,
a no longer young Diarmuid Martin, 73, is grappling stoically with the supreme
navigational test of his pastoral rule and diplomatic acumen.
As host to
Pope Francis at the lightning-struck ninth World Meeting of Families (WMOF)
from August 21-26, Archbishop Martin finds himself immersed in a new and more
intense phase of the clerical child abuse crisis erupting from across a
tempestuous Atlantic Ocean.
Ever since
Francis, three years ago, assigned him to host pilgrims from 116 countries,
Martin has planned a programme to educate, edify and entertain attendees.
Although
knowing that Francis would be unable to replicate the turnout for Pope John
Paul II in September 1979, Martin announced his intention of making the 2018
WMOF inclusive of all shades of church opinion – traditional Adam and Eve
families and families composed of lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgenders. (LGBTs).
Yet, in the
2015 referendum which voted for gay marriage and in the recent reversal of the
1983 Pro Life amendment, Martin has been on the losing side. This prompted him
to regret that “the Irish Church is widely regarded with indifference and
as having a marginal role in the formation of culture here.” Clearly, Ireland
has not respected John Paul’s injunction to remain ‘Semper fidelis – Always
faithful’.
However, it
was just in the past few weeks that Captain Martin had to don his life-jacket
when it became clear that this second ever papal visit was being
blown off course by a tsunami driven by fresh discoveries of a systematic
cover-up by the Vatican and national church leaderships in Latin America,
Australia, England and America. In particular, the documentation of how at
least 301 children were abused by their pastors in six dioceses of Pennsylvania
over 70 years has caused Martin the same revulsion that the abuse files in
Dublin did.
Diarmuid
studied for the priesthood at the Holy Cross College in Clonliffe and UCD. He
was ordained in May 1969 by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who sent him to
Rome for further studies at the Gregorian University. On his return to Dublin
in 1974 he spent two regimented years as a curate in Cabinteely before the most
important career break came his way.
In 1975 he
was sent back to Rome by McQuaid’s successor, Archbishop Dermot Ryan, to be a
tourist guide for Irish pilgrims visiting the Eternal City during a Holy Year.
This brought him to the attention of Roman officials working for Pope Paul VI,
who spotted his potential talent. Naturally, Ryan approved his recruitment into
the papal civil service.
For the next
three decades Diarmuid climbed the Vatican career ladder. From 1988 to
2001 he was undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace. In 1991 he was “raised to the purple” as Titular Bishop of
Glendalough (while still residing in Rome). In 2001 he ascended to the
prestigious post of Holy See Permanent Envoy to the United Nations, based in
Geneva and commuting to New York.
Life change
dramatically for him in 2003, however, when Pope John Paul nominated him as
coadjutor archbishop of Dublin with right of succession. After an apprentice
year as assistant to the unpopular Cardinal Desmond Connell, Martin took over
in April 2004 with a papal mandate to clean-up the Irish Church after decades
of hidden sexual abuse of minors by clergy that devastated the self-pitying
Connell’s 19-year reign.
No sooner
had Martin settled into the job in the vast grounds of ‘the Palace’ in
Drumcondra than he realised how lowly weekly religious attendance had
plummeted, especially in inner city parishes. He also frequently asked why so
many young people leave Catholic schools with little understanding of their
faith, many of them abandoning religious practice.
POPE’S VISIT
In his WMOF
capacity Martin is cast in a role akin to that of a director of an
ecclesiastical Edinburgh Festival orchestrating celebrity highlights and fringe
shows. Operating from Clonliffe with a
full-time staff of 58 under Father Tim Bartlett, Anne Griffin and Brenda Drumm, Martin immersed himself in
preparatory detail, as is his wont. In addition to briefing trips to Rome, he
co-chaired a steering group with Martin Fraser, Secretary General of the
Department of the Taoiseach.
With an army of
volunteers, they have arranged for Francis to meet President Higgins, the
Taoiseach, Government ministers, other public representatives and accredited
ambassadors in Dublin Castle; a three-day Pastoral Congress in the RDS, a Festival of Families
at a concert on Saturday August 25 in Croke Park, where the main
attraction will be Andrea Bocelli, a devout Catholic; a lightening sweep to
Knock Shrine in Co Mayo on Sunday 26 ahead of his return to Dublin for Mass in
the Phoenix Park.
This is Martin’s
biggest performance yet on the world stage. Renowned for his polished prose in
headline-making press releases and his selection of the mot juste to
sugar bitter pills, Martin knows only too well that what Francis says in
Ireland, particularly on August 26 will make or break the visit. He has
been subjected to an avalanche of advice from outspokenly serious players and
from a clamorous media.
Similarly,
Francis’s fellow Jesuit, Peter McVerry, noted bluntly: “The success of your
visit will depend on the challenge which you present to the Irish church to
move from maintenance mode to mission to the marginalised.”
In the Sunday
Business Post, Michael McDowell, politician, senior counsel and budding
religion commentator, noted the holding in Dublin of an
alternative conference staged by intransigent Catholics under the banner of Lumen
Fidei: its main speaker is American Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of four
prelates who accused Francis of teaching heresy in his recent apostolic
exhortation, Amoris Laetitiae, The Joy of Love.
Martin has accumulated good will among the laity, especially
women, and from victims themselves for his zero tolerance approach to abuse
allegations, For this he has incurred unpopularity with many clergy. Often in
broadcast interviews he has worn his heart on his sleeves, for instance,
agreeing with Miriam O’Callaghan about the presence of misogyny in the church,
and calling for more women in leadership positions, though he does not believe
he will see female priests in his lifetime.
On other occasions he became upset as he recounted telling the
pope about the discovery of the bodies of the Tuam babies. And who forgets his
account of how he threw diocesan files in disgust on the floor when reading the
allegations he inherited from Cardinal Connell!
But the biggest jolt for Martin came from Mary McAleese, the
former President of Ireland and supporter of his more open style of
Catholicism. This shock was delivered via Patsy McGarry, the Irish
Times religious affairs correspondent. McGarry reported how McAleese
refused to discuss a suggestion by then Vatican secretary of State,
Cardinal Angelo
Sodano, in November 2003, of an agreement with Ireland that
it would not access church documents.
PROPOSED INDEMNITY
The story prompted former Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, to contact McGarry with the follow-up story
that Sodano, in private discussion with him at the Vatican in November 2004,
suggested Ireland might indemnify the Catholic
Church against legal actions for compensation by clerical child
sexual-abuse survivors.
The Rome
based journalist Paddy Agnew, returning to his former green and
white hoops in the Sunday Independent after a long stint with
the Irish Times, recalled how the now 90-year old Sodano, in
February 2005, asked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, if the US
Government could stop a class-action before a district court in Louisville,
Kentucky. This case was seeking to make the Vatican financially responsible for
the sexual abuse of minors. “This is not how the US system of justice works”,
the coy Conda hissed ever so delicately into the cardinal’s carbuncle,
years ahead of the final bill costing the American church more than $3bn.
A clearly shaken Martin told the
indefatigable Patsy that he “was not informed of any such interventions at that
time by either side”. However, Martin was closer to this Vatican ruse
than he knew when he spoke at a conference at the Pontifical Irish College in
May 2006 on the occasion of Connell’s eightieth birthday. Significantly, this
conference was attended by Sodano, who spoke of the deep respect he always had
“for our dear Cardinal Connell”. In response, Connell acknowledged how deeply
indebted he was to Sodano for his advice and encouragement. A forthcoming
biography will reveal that Sodano told Connell about his plans to secure the
Irish church’s silence, and that Connell backed Sodano on this cover-up
policy. This would explain how Connell later attempted to stop Martin
handing over 74,000 documents to the
Murphy Commission.
At this juncture, Goldhawk might be excused for
concluding that this papal visit is "inopportune", as nineteenth
century liberal ecclesiastics were wont to say about the declaration of papal
infallibility! One Belfast priest even called on Francis to cancel his
trip to Ireland, and prominent Dublin victim Andrew Madden will be out of the
country during the papal “drivel”.
Leo Varadakar, Ireland’s first openly gay Taoiseach, says he will
advise Francis to address the abuse issue. Mary McAleese is angry that Francis
did not reply to a letter she sent him earlier this year but will welcome him
in Dublin Castle. Minister Joanna Madigan says she will press for the
ordination of women.
Martin has been resolute in his selection as a speaker of
American Jesuit priest James Martin, who has received
“oceans of hate and threats”on
account of his sympathetic attitude to LGBTS.
Martin is determined that Francis address the issue with renewed
realism while in Dublin, though many would applaud if the gardai arrested
Francis rather than provide protection – and others resent the taxpayer
paying half of an expected 36 million euro bill for a visit lasting only
36 hours.
Among the
most durable legacies of 1979 is of Canon James Horan who turned Knock Shrine
into the Lourdes of Ireland. Among the most embarrassing is the picture of
crowd-cheerers at the Galway youth Mass in Ballybrit race-course: Bishop Eamonn
Casey and Father Michael Cleary.
Martin is intent on
persuading Francis to listen to survivors, especially after the withdrawal of Cardinals
Sean O’Malley of Boston and Donald Wuerl of Washington DC. However, even before Francis boarded his flight
for Ireland, he issued a letter on
Monday August 20 recognising once
more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse and pledging “no
effort will be spared to prevent abuse and its cover up”. This failed to
produce a plan of action.
DISMAL FAILURE
In Dublin
Martin will ensure that Francis meets victims. Francis needs Diarmuid
more than he needs Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who has overall responsibility for
the visit. He also needs to heed the words of Ian Elliott,
the former chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children, who
dismissed the papal record on child protection as “a dismal failure” in
contrast to Martin’s successful approach.
“Just one Irish bishop
stood out,” Elliott said. “Without a shadow of a doubt that would be Archbishop
Diarmuid Martin, because he had the courage of his convictions. He was prepared
to be unpopular, he was prepared to say ‘this is not right, it should not be
happening’, and he was a very strong person and I admired him. We’d have rows,
we wouldn’t always be on the same page but I respected him because I always
felt he had the best interests of children and young people at heart and that
he could not in his conscience come to terms with the fact that any member of
the clergy could abuse a young person. He was outstanding.”
Indeed, in his homily on
Sunday in the Pro-Cathedral, Martin gave Francis sound advice when he pointed
out that “the Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors is too small and
not robust enough”. Survivor Marie Collins who quit the Commission
because the curia was blocking its work would say Amen to that.
But Martin had more to
say on the major problem confronting Francis: the commission was “not getting
its teeth into where it should be, and this “puts all the pressure back on the
pope”.
It puts him almost in an
impossible situation. Pope Francis, Martin added, “really needs a better,
stronger and more robust team around him” adding that it was “not enough just
to say sorry. Structures that permit or facilitate abuse must be “broken down
and broken down forever”.
With the Dublin event
likely to be followed by more resignations by church leaders, especially in
America, Francis would be inspired if he puts Martin in charge of this
commission. With Martin having recently hinted that he may offer his
resignation sooner than April 2020 when he becomes 75. Francis may act quickly
to shift him to Rome and give him a red hat at the next consistory possibly
next February. Diarmuid Martin’s destiny may be to rescue Francis’s
papacy and the universal church from the worldwide scourge of clerical child
abuse.
Once elevated to the
cardinalate, Martin would be well placed to become the first Irish pope at the
next conclave to succeed Francis as the churchman who rid the church of the
paedophile snakes from the hierarchical and clerical ranks.
No comments:
Post a Comment