Sir, - According to Dr Walsh, Bishop of Killaloe (April 23rd) the sexual scandals involving clergy and religious have "shattered" the Catholic Church in Ireland. The most disturbing aspect of this is that apart from Dr Walsh and one or two of his colleagues, the Hierarchy has now evidently adopted a policy of silence on the issue. It is as though there has been a death in the family, but we are not allowed to hold a wake; as though the policy for dealing with traumas resulting from secrecy is to be yet more secrecy.
If there is a deliberate calculation of "least said, soonest mended" let it be said as loudly as possible that such a policy will be more disastrous than these events themselves. The health of the church demands, as a matter of urgency, that there be an open investigation of the pathology of secrecy within it, with a view to ending its reign forever. Those who have called for a national synod are right. Those who deprecate any such move are part of the problem of reviving the institution they lead.
It is not enough that Dr Cahal Daly should commend the media for whistle blowing when clerics err (March 12th). We need a church organised in such a way that it blows its own whistles immediately, instead of waiting 30 years for the media to blow them for us. There is absolutely no dignity in being a member of a church which sub contracts the task of identifying its malefactors: to media which Cardinal Daly himself identifies as hostile to it. - Yours, etc.,
Coleraine,
Co Derry.