You can't fight the rot

Who are the "strong forces” within the Catholic Church that Dublin archbishop Diarmuid Martin believes are still trying to cover up the scale of clerical child sex abuse?

Four days before Dr. Martin's May 10th bombshell speech to the Knights of Columbanus in Dublin, Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of auxiliary bishop Francis Lagan of Derry. Dr. Lagan, it was explained, had reached retirement age, 75. But this wasn't the whole story. His resignation came in the wake of reports that former priest Gerard McCallion, convicted in the 1990s of a series of indecent assaults against children, is to face further child sex abuse claims.
Although convicted "only” of indecent assault, McCallion raped at least one little girl, and probably others, while serving in St. Mary's parish in the Creggan Estate. On the night in 1990 before McCallion arrived in the parish, Dr. Lagan came to the parochial house door to warn the priests to "keep an eye” on their new colleague and make sure he wasn't left alone with children.
It proved impossible for the priests to track McCallion 24/7. As a result, a number of innocent children were left brutalised, defiled, traumatised for life.
Clearly, Dr. Lagan had known in advance that something of this kind might happen. So, obviously, had the head of the religious institution in the South whence McCallion had come with health warning attached. So, too, following Lagan's visitation, had the priests who tried to shadow him around the estate.
After McCallion was bundled out of the diocese following complaints from parents, Church authorities, including the just-appointed Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh, Cathal Daly, were made aware in terrible detail of his rape of a child. Daly alerted no outside authority. Instead, McCallion was again sequestered in a monastery in Waterford.
This is to say that material information regarding a crime of child rape was held by the head of the Irish Church, at least one bishop, a number of priests and the head of a major religious order, none of whom made any move to have the rapist arraigned before the courts or made accountable to civil society in any way whatsoever.
It seems reasonable to assume, to put it no more highly, that the Cardinal will not have withheld the information from the Vatican.
Who or what, then, are the "strong forces” whose resistance to the truth about child sex abuse in the church prompted Dr. Martin to confess in his address that, "I have never since becoming Archbishop of Dublin felt so disheartened and discouraged”?
They would appear to be the forces which dominate and prevail, the forces of authority, of power, of leadership, of legitimacy.
It has always been so. The refusal to open up the Church to inspection by outside, secular authority arises not from institutional arrogance or mafia-style omerta but is deeply rooted in a dogmatic belief held as a matter of faith that the Church is the embodiment on earth of God Himself and cannot of its nature be made amenable to earthly power.
Dr. Martin is not in conflict with "forces” within the Church but with the Church itself. Perhaps he should set down his discontents in 95 points and nail them to the pro-Cathedral door.

At the end of last month, Stormont Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development Michelle Gildernew took time out from an electoral knife-fight with Unionist Rodney Connor in Fermanagh-South Tyrone to issue a reminder to farmers that the North's annual stock-take of animals was imminent.
Fermanagh-South Tyrone is precariously poised between Orange and Green. Mr. Connor had been selected as "Unionist unity” candidate in a bid to mobilise the constituency's Protestants as a single bloc. In response, Sinn Fein sought to marginalise the SDLP's Ferghal McKinney and out-mobilise the Prods – which they did, just, giving Michelle a four-vote victory.
The reminder she'd published 10 days before the poll told that, "Keepers should note that this year inspectors are required to inspect all of the sheep and goats on the holding. Keepers are reminded that they must maintain an accurate and up-to-date flock or herd register and ensure that all movement documents are completed accurately and copies retained. They must also ensure that the 2009 Annual Inventory has been returned and that the inventory details are recorded in the register. Keepers are also reminded that all sheep and goats should be identified separately before they leave the holding.”
Some elections are decided according to which policies and political ideas electors believe will best serve their interests. In others, it's just a matter of counting the sheep and the goats.

On May 3, a woman from Derry was convicted of doing the double and ordered to pay back £4,098 received in income support and housing allowance, plus court costs of £73.
On the same day, another Derry woman who failed to declare employment while claiming £537 in income support was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay back the money as well costs of £52.
The two women were "named and shamed” on the website of the Department of Social Development (Minister, Margaret Ritchie, SDLP).
Three days later, on May 6, Ms. Ritchie was able to take a break from hammering the double-jobbing women of Derry to celebrate her triumph in landing a job as MP for South Down (salary, £65,000) to add to her job at Stormont, (salary £71,000).