By Harry Hutchinson, Labour Party Northern Ireland.
Almost 40 years ago Pope John Paul II was greeted by over a million worshippers on his visit to Ireland. At that time, over 90% of the Irish population attended mass, in a country where homosexuality, divorce, abortion, and same-sex marriage were banned. Compared to forty years ago, less than half the number greeted Pope Francis in Dublin and Knock, as support for the church has dwindled and public attention is focused on the decades of child sex scandals.
The Church today is on a downward trajectory, overwhelmingly as a result of the exposure of massive child abuse and because of the Church’s reactionary stand of almost every social issue. Today, less than 30 per cent of Catholics attend mass, and in some parts of Dublin, that goes down to 2 per cent. Even if there were enough worshippers, in the not-too-distant future, there will be nowhere for them to go, because the Catholic Church is not recruiting priests. The Church’s own forecasts show a likely a collapse of up to 70% in the number of working priests, with about three- quarters of those currently in post being over the age of 60.
According to the 2016 census, only 78 per cent of Irish people identify as ‘Catholic’ to 78% and those self-identifying as having no religion are around 10%. A study commissioned by the archdiocese of Dublin in 2015 forecast that attendance at mass would fall by a further third in the years up to 2030.
The referenda that have taken place have shown the changes in attitude of Irish people. Now, divorce, same-sex marriage, abortion and homosexuality are decriminalised.
The child sex scandals go back to the early 1960s and since then hundreds of priests have been accused of abusing thousands of children, the most notorious being Father Brendan Smyth, a priest in Belfast, Dublin and the US, who was jailed for abusing 140 children.
The Ferns Report of 2009, which looked into one diocese alone, documented a hundred allegations of child sex abuse between 1962-2002: of rape, physical and sexual assault and forcing mothers into giving birth. Twenty-one priests were investigated in the diocese, with the report concluding that ”child abuse was endemic in Catholic-run schools and orphanages.” Yet the Catholic Church is still allowed to control these institutions throughout Ireland.
Several other reports like the Ryan Report (2000) and the Murphy Report (2009), document hundreds of children being abused over a forty-year period. Follow-up reports like the Cloyne Report have highlighted cover-up from both the Church and the Vatican as well as the Gardai (Police). In Northern Ireland, the ‘Historical allegations of abuse’ (HIA) is investigating four Catholic-run institutions, as far back as 1922.
In the town of Tuam, in County Galway, eight hundred infants lie buried in a mass grave in the grounds of the Catholic-run Bon Secours mother and baby home. Mothers were forced to give up their new-born babies for adoption. While Francis was celebrating mass in Phoenix Park, Dublin last weekend, a huge crowd of people held a vigil at the site of this mass grave. Banners and placards made the feelings of those present quite clear: “The Pope is protecting paedophiles”, “Religion is fine, rape is not” and even “The Church way worse than the Brits”.
Child sex abuse by the Catholic Church is not confined to Ireland. In the US, a grand jury in Pennsylvania discovered Church cover-up, collusion, denial and pay offs in the investigation of a thousand child victims by three hundred priests. This investigation looked into just six of over two hundred dioceses in the US.
Church complicit in cover-up
Pope Francis has been an accomplice in the cover up, putting the integrity, wealth, influence and power of the church before the victims of the abuse. Francis was forced to apologise for his own ”serious errors”. This Pope, along with the paedophile priests and bishops he has protected, should be on trial for decades of abuse.
On his visit to Ireland, Pope Francis has been forced to address the issue of child abuse, and his cover up in the scandal. But little publicity has been given to his own war crimes from his days as a Church leader in Argentina. During that country’s brutal military rule between 1976-83, Francis, then known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the superior of the Society of Jesus in Argentina, an organisation that collaborated with the military junta in killings, torture and forced adoptions. During this period, known as Argentina’s ‘dirty war’, witnesses claim that Francis earmarked ‘subversives’, ie left wing political activists and members of the Communist party, who were subsequently tortured and then registered ‘missing’, presumed killed. Over 30,000 in total were killed during the one-sided dirty war.
Even left-leaning priests and nuns were targeted in those years. One was Orando Yorio, a priest, kidnapped in 1976, tortured for five months for doing social work in the slums in Argentina.
Pregnant women were held until they give birth, subsequently killed and their babies handed over to childless military officers. Many live today as ‘children of the disappeared.’ According to the New York Times, victims were repeatedly tortured before being killed. In 2010, Pope Francis was asked to testify over the ‘stolen babies’, but he claimed he only knew of them after democracy was restored to Argentina.
28 August, 2018
