Martin courageous but misses the point

Faith in Jesus cannot be squared with the pernicious authority the church claims to derive from his person. By Vincent Browne.

Diarmuid Martin’s address to the Knights of Columbanus on Monday night was remarkable in several respects: in its damning criticism of resistance within the Catholic Church to the agreed regulations and norms for the protection of children; in criticising the continuing culture of denial over the church’s culpability for the sexual abuse of children; in the implied criticism, not just of his fellow bishops in Ireland, but of the Vatican; in the acknowledgment of the church’s history of arrogance and position of dominant power in Irish society; in its support for the funding of a follow-up to the seminal but largely ignored report, Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland; and in its focus on the now scorned concept of community.

The address was very much founded on his faith in the person and “teachings” of Jesus. Since that is a faith I do not share, I stand aside from that.

But the courage, honesty, conviction and passion of Diarmuid Martin’s address – all features of his own character generally – are very admirable. All the more so since such qualities in public life here nowadays are so rare.

But does he miss a point? The point being that the driving force of the Catholic Church has always been about power and domination, although invariably understood within the church as simply a propulsion to proclaim the message of Christ? And with all institutions of power, particularly institutions that have created around them an accountability exclusion zone, isn’t corruption, abuse of power and self-interest inevitable?

Does it not say much for the cultural (hegemonic?) triumph of the Catholic Church that instead of us recoiling at the lavish displays of papal splendour and authority, we venerate these very symbols of abusive power? Similarly with bishops, archbishops and cardinals?

The very manner in which they expect to be addressed is to be questioned. I know of one recent instance where a member of the hierarchy curtly cut off a supplicant who mistakenly referred to him by a title that did not fit with his self-perceived status. And, incidentally, “supplicant” is the appropriate word in the circumstances that obtained, circumstances I may disclose at a later date.

And just consider the conceit of an institution that brought such devastation, turmoil, suffering and anguish to so many during the course of its own history, that gave such energy to the degradation of women, while still claiming to be the defender of the poor in spirit.

It is an institution that formed itself on the autocratic model of the Roman Empire, presided over by a supreme pontiff, unaccountable, unchallengeable, laced with the “authority” of Jesus, an “authority” that, incidentally, took them centuries to discover. And central to the idea of the Catholic Church was that it, and it alone, was the divine instrument for the salvation of humankind, salvation from the fires of hell.

And, as an obvious consequence, its reputation and authority superseded all other human concerns. Why then fuss too much about the abuse of children which, in the scheme of things. . .

Five years ago, I was among a horde of Munster rugby fans who travelled to the south of France for a match in the European Cup against Castres.

We flew into the magnificent walled city of Carcassonne, and there I learned of a monstrous event, the genocide of the Cathars 801 years ago.

The Cathars were a religious sect that arose in the 12th century in the south of France, and soon became a mass movement. They believed that humans went through a series of incarnations before becoming a pure spirit, which represented the presence of the God of love, as described by Jesus. Pope Eugene II made the extermination of the Cathars an urgent priority, but was unable to do much about it.

His successor, the inaptly named Innocent III, did do something about it. He called for a crusade against the Cathars – it became known as the Albigensian Crusade. Innocent promised the lands and riches of the Cathars to knights who would join the crusade, and thousands did.

In late July 1209, a vast army of crusaders approached the town of Beziers, a Cathar stronghold. They murdered the entire population of the town, men, women and children, and seized the rich booty.

This massacre was not a spontaneous occurrence. It had been planned meticulously by a group involving Innocent. The Albigensian Crusaders were to slaughter the people of any garrison that had refused to surrender.

After Beziers, the crusaders moved on to Carcassonne, whose walls presented a formidable defence. The walls were breached but, in this instance, the Cathars were permitted to leave, having surrendered all their possessions.

I cite this crusade not to suggest that anything the Catholic Church is engaged in now compares at all with the crimes against humanity that it perpetrated historically.

Rather, I wish to suggest that the conviction that the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church alone is the sole instrument of salvation of human beings from eternal damnation is the pernicious cover for the terrible abuses that Diarmuid Martin so rightly and so courageously condemns.