Bashing The Bishops

The millennium approaches. Mad people converge on Jerusalem, miniaturised nuclear weapons concealed about their persons, or sit atop ascetic mountains, awaiting interstellar transportation, or nip round to 55 Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin 1, just up from Busáras, and drop press statements into the offices of The Irish Catholic. Dr. Mary Lucey, foundress of SPUC, attacks the Third World aid agency Trócaire in The Catholic (January 7th) for softness on abortion. At recent UN conferences on world poverty in Istanbul and Rome, Dr. Lucey explains, Trócaire delegates gave SPUCers the cold shoulder, while hanging out with Dóchas, the 19-strong umbrella group of Irish aid agencies. "Dóchas follows the government line and therefore the UN line on population control," Dr. Lucey darkly elaborates. In Dr. Lucey's view, the prime purpose and constant preoccupation of the UN is to ensure that as few pregnancies as possible come to full term, anywhere on earth. From time to time, the organisation may involve itself in other matters: but these are marginal to its anti-life raison d'être. The Irish Government, being a member of the UN, is complicit in this conspiracy. Dóchas is government-funded (actually, it isn't) and thereby, in turn, a co-conspirator in the killing of the unborn. And Trócaire officials make their pro-abortion views plain when they collude with Dóchas and steer clear of SPUC. SPUCers at the same conferences, explains Dr. Lucey, align themselves with "Papal delegates" and "Muslim delegates", in a lobby which has "had considerable success in preventing further destruction of the unborn". Noting that Trócaire was established by the Catholic hierarchy, Dr. Lucey then homes unerringly in on the point she was aiming at in the first place. "The Holy Father never misses an opportunity to state what abortion is: the greatest crime of our century. And he had exhorted us to speak out against it. "Why won't the Irish bishops teach Trócaire its priorities?" Goddit? Move on, then, to the recent attacks on Bertie Ahern for parading the world with Ms. Celia Larkin. There are good reasons for disquiet about the Taoiseach skipping the length of the Great Wall of China with Ms. Larkin on his arm. The tax-payer is being fleeced to fund these frolics. There is no rule, protocol or diplomatic tradition requiring that political leaders bring their partners in tow on official visits to exotic locations. If you, I, or Nell McCafferty—or even Sam Smyth—were to put in an exes claim for the partner after an assignment in the East we'd be told sharpish not to try that one on again. Ahern and Larkin circumnavigating each other at our expense is an outrage. But for the moment, no matter. This is not the complaint voiced by Catholic correspondents. What Judge Rory O'Hanlon, Youth Defendants, Family Solidarists and other holy high-rollers fret about is that it was left to the Church of Ireland Gazette to denounce the unmarried pair for travelling the world as husband and wife. Why, they demand to know, haven't the Catholic bishops spoken out? As O'Hanlon interestingly put it: "Surely it would be the wish of the Holy Father that the sanctity of marriage would be proclaimed?" There it is again. The bishops setting themselves against the Vatican as they betray Eternal Truth. Or consider the campaign to bring back the Latin Mass. No edition of The Catholic is complete these days without a letter along the lines of (this one's from Anne Kiely of Tralee, February 4th): "May I ask why are the Irish Bishops so deaf to the Holy Father's appeals to the Bishops of the Church that they permit wide and generous celebration of the Old Mass throughout the world? What are they afraid of?" It isn't the craving of rank-and-file Catholics for the Latin Mass, then, that the bishops are treating with disdain, but the appeals of the "Holy Father".Those interested in such matters might also recall that the Irish bishops last year spoke in generally approving terms of the practice of "open" or communal confessions, whereby an entire congregation—instead of each individual confessing his/her sins in the murky seclusion of a confessional "box"—might reflect inwardly on how it had offended the Almighty, express repentance and receive "general" absolution. Well, Fr. G. Ellis of Greystones (Feb 4th) has had it up to here with this sort of heretical innovation. He draws attention to the "Holy Father's" ruling last December that "The individual and integral confession of sins with individual absolution constitutes the only ordinary way in which the faithful are reconciled with God and the Church". "General" confessions—as sanctioned by the bishops—are "totally unacceptable. There can be no justification of such an exploitation of the Sacrament, running counter as they do to the explicit teaching of the Church". And there's more. But that's enough. In each instance, the embattled defenders of the Faith cite the pope in their support against the bishops' dereliction of duty. The United Nations, the Irish Government and the mainstream Irish aid agencies are promoting abortion, while the men to whom the people could once look for leadership now look away. The bishops accept abortion, condone adultery, profane the sacraments and scornfully ignore the pleas of the Pope for proper respect for Holy Mass. The whole world is on the high road to hell. The hierarchy has abandoned the Faith. Only a tiny beleaguered fellowship holds hard to Christ's path. The High Priests have spat in the face of Time and sold Truth, greasily, into Darkness and Death. There will be a mighty roaring of wind, blizzards of fire, giant scorpions and whatnot. Many mad bastards believe this sort of stuff. More of them will make their appearance as the year winds on towards the meaningless millennium. They do not, most of them, cackle and gibber so as to identify themselves. But they converge on Jerusalem, sit atop mountains, and write letters to The Irish Catholic. One of them has a column in The Irish Times.