Madam, - When Bishop Brendan Comiskey resigned on April Fools Day, 2002, one had a sense that the Irish Catholic Hierarchy were behaving more like sheep than shepherds.
It was right that Bishop Comiskey should have resigned - of that there is no doubt in the aftermath of the Ferns Report. However, one sensed that some in the Hierarchy were happy to see him sacrificed in the hope that it might satisfy the media wolf pack. Yet, in truth, there remain within the Hierarchy a number of Bishops whose failure to protect the innocent must be examined as thoroughly and comprehensively as that of Bishop Comiskey and his predecessor.
If the chief executives of a financial institution had so utterly failed their investors, they would have to resign. Many chief executives of the Catholic Church, of which I am a member, have utterly failed their flock, not just in Ireland, but also across the world.
After Sunday Mass recently, an old Dublin parishioner shed tears as he said, "We survived Cromwell and the Penal Laws and yet the greatest damage done to the Irish Church was by those within whom we trusted most." How right he was.
The Catholic Church is dying of a malady that requires urgent surgery and transfusion. The present Hierarchy owe it to us all to give the courageous leadership required. There needs to be a clearing out and it must begin with them.
Any members of the Irish Hierarchy who know they have like Bishop Comiskey, failed adequately to protect the innocent and vulnerable, should immediately tender their resignations and make it clear they will co-operate fully with the necessary investigations that should and must be conducted along the lines of Ferns. To fail to do so now will only delay the inevitable and add to the trauma of innocent victims, honourable clergy and the people of God whom they failed.
In the midst of the darkness and depression of the past few days, there have also been voices of hope and faith. Fr Gerald McGinnity's reprehensible treatment by the Hierarchy is deserving of special mention and those honourable leaders still within the Church, who are deserving of support, must urgently restore his good name and reputation. - Yours, etc,
DON MULLAN, Hillsbrook Crescent, Dublin 12.
Madam, - Fr Michael Manning writes in his letter on contraception and infallibility (October 27th) that "like the apostles in their time the Catholic Church is not out to seek popularity but fidelity to Christ and to his teaching".
It is incredible, in this week of all weeks that anybody could still believe and write such a statement .
What is Christian in the Church's pronouncements on homosexuals and divorcees; in the revolting wealth of the Vatican, the pomp and hypocrisy of the Hierarchy? I need not even mention the Church's handling, worldwide, of clerical sex abuse.
While there are many excellent individuals working in the church, as an institution it has moved so far from the message of Christ as to be barely recognisable as a Christian organisation at all. The church has many doctrines and rules, though Christ had very few; but the church in its infallible wisdom has decided to ignore the most fundamental of all Christ's teaching - that is, to love others as yourself. It seems now to exist only for itself. - Is mise,
KAY CHALMERS, Bridgemount, Carrigaline, Co Cork.
Madam, - If, as your Editorial of October 26th suggests, the Ferns Report is a shocking indictment of the church authorities, it is chilling to think that the majority of young children in the State will, this morning, attend schools under the management of the Catholic Church.
In the wake of the Ferns Report, should we continue to entrust our children to the care of schools under the control of such a corrupt and morally weak institution? - Yours, etc,
KEVIN McDERMOTT, Orlagh Rise, Scholarstown Road, Dublin 16.
Madam, - In our rightful outrage at clerical sex abuse, let us not forget that the vast majority of Catholic priests are men of the highest integrity and public service who need our sympathy and support in these dreadful times.
They too are innocent victims. - Yours, etc,
ALEXANDER F. REID, Rossylongan, Donegal Town.