Paul Malpas

This is going to be a short one today.  I am mindful of all my old school friends around the globe who are now hanging on to every word I write and because I do not know how far they have been religiously persuaded over these last 50 years and as I do not want to upset our recent acquaitance, I will have to pick my way carefully over today’s disclosures and happenings.

I started to listen to Brady’s mass this morning which was sent out over the web, but after the first hymn sung by some strangulated soprano, I switched it off.  I knew from her tone and delivery that this service was going to be same old, same old.  I waited a couple of hours until the media had got the papal pap into print and without a doubt the whole world was waiting for it from Co Roscommon in Ireland, to Northfield, Minnesota, to Alexander Road in Manchester.  Without doubt the Vatican’s publicity machine is a powerful tool.  The problem is it is stuck in the same mire as the Church and can only churn out what we do not want.  They have not been arsed to try to get into the minds of the ordinary decent people of Ireland.  They are the ones most affected by the scandal and all the pope can offer them is trite nonsense.  He does not accept any of the blame when we all know he is up to his holy oxters in it.

The people of Ireland do not want to do penance, they do not want to hear that they have become too secularised, they do not want a visit from a man who has organised this cover up and the one in Germany that is threatening to be an even bigger burden on Rome. What they do want is a fundamental change in the mind-set of the epicopacy.  Peter R. Cullen writing a letter to the editor of the Irish Independent today sums it all up succinctly.  For an eighty year old to have such revolutionary thoughts is admirable.  Google it and read it.  I hope he lives long enough to see it happen.

We need to see the old order out and a new more democratic and accountable Church in its place.  Perhaps Archbishop Martin is the one that could draw us out of the mire providing he is let and even if he is not let, he should withdraw himself from this evil that is being orchestrated in Rome.

We are certainly being led a merry dance and it is now time to up the tempo.

So I am sorry to all my new found school friends for being such a rebel against the religion they have held dear since the late Tommy Duggan massaged their arses all those years ago but I also was fed this pap for most of my life and it was only when retirement beckoned did I revert to anarchy.

Last night I witnessed the most inept, senile and out of touch display of accountability by the bishops of Ireland that has ever been known, when they set up the three stooges, McAreavey of Dromore, Brennan of Ferns and the holier and more stupid than thou, our own Jones of Elphin.

Although this press conference was expected and in fact Brady of Armagh said he would attend and it was expected Archbishop Martin would also be present, two hours notice of time and location was given to the media and the conference was limited to 25 minutes duration while these three bishops gave their much vaunted master class in obscurity, idiocy and sheer lunacy.

You would think that the bishops knowing the seriousness of the situation and that a public relations class was necessary, would have brought out their big guns to fend off the barbs of the media, but obviously Brady does not want to become involved and Archbishop Martin has been told to back-pedal.  The difference in that man pre-Rome and Post-Rome is a subject in itself.  It is as though they are two different men, the go-getting Martin knowing God was on his side pre-Rome, has been replaced by this stultified, nervous and certainly very uncomfortable post-Rome Martin, who finds it difficult to put more than two words together in answer to questions on the subject of abuse.  On Newsnight on BBC2 on Tuesday, he was at his lowest and no match at all for the strident Jeremy Paxman when talking about the serial abusing yet unpunished Bill Carney.  My advice, for what it is worth in matters as important as this is to stand up and be counted,  do not hide behind authority and at the end of the day give authority as the excuse for wrongdoing, like Hitler’s minions did after the war was lost.  Be totally accountable at all times to everybody.  Feck the rules because the rules are wrong and evil.  I feel really sorry for him having to take the path he has and being reined in and letting the likes of Drennan of Galway and the retired O’Mahoney have their evil way and say.

Which reminds me that Drennan of Galway who was classed as the complete scholar and holy man by Jones of Elphin at the press conference yesterday, has told his priests to send a couple of representatives from each parish in the diocese to a service of reparation in the Cathedral on Palm Sunday where these elected ones would place a sprig of palm on the altar to express penitence for the cover up by the bishops of these paedophilic priests.  The poor people of Galway, what has it to do with them?  Why should they express penitance?  Why are the bishops not standing on their heads and shouting “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”.  Jones’s statement about Drennan reminds me of something a mate of mine said this morning whilst we were talking on this subject,  Michael Cryan, citizen of Boyle and always good for a quote said “If you are there  at the bottom of the shit heap even a hump on your back is a thing of beauty”

So there we were with these three monkeys from Dromore, Ferns and I am ashamed to say Elphin, with Dromore spluttering and farting like a demented pig, Ferns doing a good impression of a man sucking a lemon and Elphin asking why is everybody singling out the Church when it is a well known fact that most child abuse takes place in the home and has done for hundreds of years and nobody condemns that, but just because the Church has transgressed and covered up, the world is on its back.  What a load of bunkum, if this is what they say publicly what must their private thoughts and conversations be like.  Why should we accept lunacy of this nature from a shepherd of Christ.

It was Jones of Elphin who said in his pastoral letter after the Murphy Report that the Diocese of Elphin abides by best practice when dealing with possible child abuse and the laity have nothing to fear.  Well I fear him.  Where is best practice in that statement of his yesterday.

Watching this simian trio at the press conference made me think that the Church is missing a trick, professional PR men or women would do a far better job at wooing the people back, but perhaps the Church realises it has put its finger too far into the fire and that self immolation is the only way out.  It is  well known  among all the dead religions as the Phoenix Theory.  It never works.  All we can do is sit back as Sinead O’Connor said to me last Saturday “Good will win in the end.  We just relax and enjoy watching it all unfold”.

As I said in The Slippery Church blog of 3 February 2010, the bog standard priest in the Archdiocese of Dublin is revolting. There is more fall-out after the O’Mahoney/Drennan schism at Maynooth a fortnight ago.  The ordinary priests of the diocese or at least 25 middle-aged and therefore senior priests are, according to Alison Healy in yesterday’s Irish Times, unhappy at the way Archbishop Martin has not shown any compassion towards the auxillary bishops of Dublin.

It seems that there was a meeting of these 25 mature Dublin priests at Manresa retreat house on 18 January 2010, the minutes of which appear in yesterday’s Irish Catholic newspaper.  This meeting of time-served priests was called to discuss the Murphy Report.  They said of the auxillary bishops that “a grave injustice had been done to men who had loyally served this diocese with selfless commitment and Christlike compassion”.  They also said that Archbishop Martin had tarnished the name of O’Mahoney and that the Church had not engaged in a “cover up”.  They also claimed that Archbishop Martin had a dictatorial manner.  No wonder I accused Archbishop Martin, in my blog Once A Catholic on 7 December 2009, of shilly shallying and talking mumbo jumbo.  With these type of men at your back you would need to watch every word.

Let us get this right.  It is a fact that there was wholesale sexual abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin. The bishops knew about it, certainly the senior priests knew about it and the Murphy Report considers the majority of normal priests knew about it in one form or another but no hand was raised only the hand of the terror stricken abused who were kept quiet for years.  The Murphy Report has made all this public knowledge, the Government agree with it, the Gardai agree with it and Archbishop Martin to his credit has wholeheartedly embraced its findings.

It does show you however, the bishops and senior priests who have been basted with this scandal, this crime, are so remote from their people that unless they go, and go quickly, the Church will fall.  How can these priests say there was no “cover up”, when faced with the facts and the length of time this abuse was allowed to continue unhindered.

Undoubtedly there were good priests doing great acts of Christian work, but while they carried out these acts , they knew.  The numbers are to high to disregard and consider minimal, manageable and acceptable.  In the Dublin Archdiocese at the moment, according to their official website, there are about 650 practising priests.  The Murphy Report states that they received information about 180 abusing priests ( let us say that the falsely accused equalled the number who were not caught at it).  Therefore you can say 28% of priests in Dublin were abusers or to mollify this % a little; let us say that 20 years ago there was 100 more priests in the Archdiocese,say 750, that would suggest 24%.  Let us therefore say for ease of reckoning that the abusers were 25% of the roll.

There is an argument that says that the number of abusing priests is no more than in the lay world and therefore not unusual and should be acceptable.  I cannot accept that because I argue that the Church should have realized the position of a priest was one of responsibility and intimacy and an absolute goldmine for those with abuser tendencies.  There should have been some psychological filtration system in place to counteract this obvious attraction and therefore the % of abusers should have been nil or approaching same and certainly not 25% of the total.  What kind of religion preaches one thing and practices another.  And if the above figures are to be believed, 25% of mature lay men are abusers also and therefore 1 in 4 children are abused.  Someone, somewhere, shoot down my choplogic.  I cannot believe it.  I am totally dismayed.

Working on the principle that the above is wrong but that the facts are right, the answer is that the position of a priest is an absolute must for the determined abuser.  He has no need to hide behind a marriage or be coated with the dirty old man syndrome, he in fact can live out his dreams and desires to his hearts content, providing he is careful and grooms the right children.

The Church should have known and historically probably did and that is why there has been this systemic and atroposic failure and why Archbishop Martin or the Pope has to quickly organize a Night of the Long Knives.

Even now after all the revelations, after all the promises, after all the pleas of best practice the church is proving to be a slippery customer if you expect cooperation on matters priestly and sexual.  The hierarchy in the form of the majority of bishops do not agree with all the Murphy Report says and will not accept fully accountable child protection procedures in their dioceses.  As I have said before 19 of the 26 dioceses have priests in charge of this very sensitive area of child protection and the Report says that this responsibility should be handed over to properly trained professionals who have been strictly vetted.

With the example yesterday of Patrick Hughes, a priest with a self confessed attraction to altar boys, admitting his three year abuse of one boy after he had originally fled the country and was in hiding with the Church’s protection.  It wasl Archbishop Martin’s officewho  handed him over to the Guardai, who said in court that they “hsd been given the runaround by the Church authorities”.  The judge gave him a years imprisonment for the crime, the maximum being two years.  Presumably because Hughes had told the judge that he had weaned himself off altar boys.  On to what you might ask.  Coming down the track is the case of Ronald Bennett, accused of buggering boys at Gormanston College.  He has already served two and half years for previous offences in 2007.  He was also involved with the Irish Swimming Association.  He must have thought he was in heaven.  So why faced with this almost avalanche of perverted sexuality does the majority of the hierarchy seem to think that the Murphy Report and Archbishop Martin are wrong.

It seems that at the conference in Maynooth last week, held to establish the programme for the bishops papal interview in two weeks time, did this majority hit back at Archbishop Martin over his acceptance of the Murphy Report and not accept the fully accountable child protection procedures put in place in Dublin, in their own dioceses.  This split led by Drennan of Galway and O’Mahoney of Dublin seems to have a large majority of bishops on their side and they are moving to oust Archbishop Martin from his position after he wholeheartedly accepted the Report’s findings.  Even some influential priests are against the Report and want more considered imput from the clergy.  They consider Martin to be remote.  What they are asking for is a synod of priests to discuss any problems.

Unfortunately it is too late for second opinions, the cancer is too deep seated, surgery is necessary immediately.  What the clergy want could take years of anguished talk followed by the administration of lethargic treatment.  No, immediate surgery to remove these time stalled bishops, followed by a period of considered opinion and regeneration by both the clergy and the laity when the patient is on the road to recovery.

If however these bishops who mixed this carciogenic stew are allowed to have their own way and remove Archbishop Martin, then the Church in Ireland is lost.  The Pope has to be decisive and he has to act fast.  Let him pretend that for once in his life he is leading a blitzkrieg.