Scandals "shatter" church, says bishop

THE sexual scandals involving clergy and religious have "shattered" the Catholic Church in Ireland, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, said last night.

He said there was a "perception that we, as bishops, and other religious authorities involved ourselves in a web of secrecy which was designed to protect the abuser rather than the abused".

Dr Walsh was addressing the National Conference of Priests in Dublin about the challenges facing the church.

He referred to the ill treatment by nuns of children in orphanages. "There has been a degree of shock that innocent children could have suffered at the hands of those they should have been able to trust. There has been dismay and distress among sincere Catholics at the state of their church. There has been real grief at the death of their own illusions."

He asked: "Which of us are entitled to say how could that have happened to the Mercy Sisters?' when we were part of a society which did not approve of single mothers rearing their children and which generally subscribed to the spare the rod, spoil the child philosophy".

The bishop said, however, that it was important to try to balance the picture, including the huge numbers of people who attend religious services each week, the tremendously generous work done by priests up and down the country and the very significant number of people who participate in the church at local level.

Dr Walsh told the conference, which continues today, that the church has to involve the people but that there is the difficulty among bishops and priests "of letting go". If a clergyman allows someone to "truly collaborate" he loses a little control. "We need to let go, to learn that we are not diminished by having less power or control."

He was concerned that the church presented "a less than loving face", particularly to "people in second unions, people who feel unable to accept our teaching in regard to family planning, those whose sexual orientation does not conform to what we believe to be normal. I have not ready solutions to these problems but I worry about a church that lays down long lists of duties and obligations, which counts the number of masses we attend and novenas in which we participate and yet somehow seems to miss out on the central law of love."