Calling in lawyers is a wholly inappropriate response to the problem of clerical sex abuse and how the church has dealt with it, argues Patsy McGarry,Religious Affairs Correspondent
It is always a relief to see common sense win out, as it did in High Court number 13 yesterday, especially when it might not have done so. No one would have gained were Cardinal Desmond Connell successful in preventing the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation having access to those 5,586 documents he claimed were privileged to him.
Had he done so, he would forever afterwards be seen as having rendered the commission redundant in the pursuit of its basic function - that of establishing the truth of what happened in the archdiocese when it came to the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations there.
Emasculating the commission would have been a tragedy, particularly for those too many victims who need this truth so they can have closure over a trauma that has dominated their lives. The truth and its acknowledgment will set them free, they tell us. That done, they may then be able to leave it all behind and begin anew.
Success in preventing the commission from having access to all relevant documents would not have been in the church's interest either, as conspiracy theorists would have built myth upon myth.
The church would be presented as an institution of gothic-scale evil which harboured and protected monsters who raped children, the better to save itself.
But at the heart of all relief at yesterday's rapid withdrawal of the cardinal's legal action, there must remain a nagging doubt. Much reaction to the cardinal's move was summed up by the question "Will they never learn?", a reference to the unseemly haste with which senior churchmen reach for the lawyers when confronted with child sex abuse issues.
It is done almost by reflex and has made many ponder how an institution which presents itself as being about selflessness and love can so easily rush down the route of maximum self-preservation, whatever the cost in more suffering to those whose pain it facilitated and ignored in the past and for so long.
Clerical child sex abuse has done enormous harm to the Catholic Church, but the damage done has been compounded by the practice of "bring on the lawyers" when confronted with the pain of the innocent.
Nothing else in this traumatic saga has done more damage to the institution it itself believes was founded by God, and nothing else has betrayed with such consistency that God they tell us is love. Where is the love in confronting an emotionally dishevelled abuse victim with the cold-starched reasoning of a lawyer who sees only threat when all that is generally sought is ordinary human compassion?
How many of these abuse cases would have been resolved to the satisfaction of all involved, victim and institution alike, had that institution simply did what it claims to do "on the tin"? Had it simply reached out to a human being in distress and embraced him or her. How few legal actions there might then have been?
And how it hates that question, "What would Jesus have done?" It is hated, and dismissed as naive, because it goes to the very root of what the church is supposed to be about, and so frequently is not, in its dealings with abuse victims.
It would be trite to assume anyone has learned a lesson out of the past 10 days since Cardinal Connell initiated his action against the commission. It would be trite because we have seen it all before, and so often. Some of "them" will never learn. They will simply go on confronting this issue by retaining lawyers who, acting under instruction and fully within the law, compound in human terms tragedy upon tragedy.
Such was the case with Peter McCloskey, who two years ago in Limerick spoke of his abuse by a priest. The response of the diocese was a legal one; three days later, he committed suicide. The solicitors who advised in that case were also retained by Cardinal Connell in pursuit of his action against the commission more recently.
The invocation of the law against the commission speaks of a sad intent which one would have thought had no place in the heart of any Christian gentleman. And those of us who have had dealings with Cardinal Connell would most assuredly say he is a Christian gentleman.
He acted on the "unanimous" advice of his lawyers in taking this High Court action against the commission, he has been quoted as saying. Such unanimity can come from a very different perspective and what it may merit in strictly legal terms it sorely lacks in ordinary human compassion - the necessary ingredient one would expect the cardinal himself to inject.
That the cardinal's action was met with a veritable tsunami of opposition, even from those staunchest of his supporters who did not remain silent, could only have been a surprise to those with little knowledge or experience of this great scandal and the damage it has done and continues to do.
It is regrettable that so many Dublin priests sought refuge once again in what Fr Vincent Twomey described on RTÉ Radio 1 last Sunday evening as that cult of the "unquestioning acceptance of everything". Irish Catholic priests "have to learn a thing called courage", he said.
Those of us who have been defending "the priest on the ground" as having saved the Irish Catholic Church from an even worse fate because of its handling of this scandal are getting tired of the convenient, comfortable silence of priests on this issue.
Where is the sturdy courage that helped those men choose a difficult life for love? Has it been displaced by self-pity?
The commission has emerged well from recent events, preserving its anonymity to a remarkable degree. So too has the current Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, a man who has made few friends among his priests or fellow bishops in handling this issue openly and transparently, and whose motives have been cynically misconstrued by some as he goes about doing what is merely right.
And as for Cardinal Connell, let us not be hard on him. He too is suffering greatly and is as deserving of our compassion as other victims of this appalling tragedy. Truth, when it is established by the commission, may not be as cruel to him as he and others clearly fear. Let us hope that will be the case.
But if there is just one thing, we who have been dealing with this issue for so long now and who have seen so many similarly repeated mistakes, it is simply this - we would ask of the church authorities that they abandon the lawyers.