The Hand of God and the Will of Allah

One of the standard questions I'm asked by people who are curious about how such an otherwise apparently sane and reasonably intelligent person can be a Catholic is generally along the lines of 'But there are lots of other religions that don't believe in your god -- how can you say they're all wrong?'

The answer, when you get down to it, is that I say no such thing. I don't think the situation is polarised such that Catholics are right and everyone else is wrong. I talk of degrees of truth, and aspects of the transcendent, and intimations of the numinous in the collective imagination of mankind, and in talking of all of this I think in the language of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council's declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions. Deep down, though, I think I'm really just offering a developed, more Scriptural, and more sophisticated version of of a couple of things I read as a child, one penned by C.S. Lewis, and one in a Doctor Who novel.

Yes, I'm still talking about Doctor Who. Three days in now.

The Lewis passage is well known, of course, and comes from the end of The Last Battle, the final Narnia book, when Lewis describes Aslan meeting Emeth, Lewis' good Calormene, and welcoming him into Heaven.

'"Son, thou art welcome." But I said, "Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash." He answered, "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me." Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, "Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?" The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, "It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites -- I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man does a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?" I said, "Lord, thou knowest how much I understand." But I said also (for the truth constrained me), "Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days." "Beloved," said the Glorious One, "unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."'

The other passage comes from a rather less well-known work, Doctor Who and the Crusaders, David Whittaker's novelisation of the 1965 story, 'The Crusade'. The book is rather more substantial than the TV programme, and features a memorable scene -- well, memorable for me, anyway -- where Ian Chesterton, one of the Doctor's companions, meets with Saladin.

'"I give you these passes," he told Ian, "because I admire your bravery and courage, Sir Ian. Secondly, the lady Barbara had believed she was under my protection and I would have that belief honoured. Lastly, El Akir has presumed upon my situation in this war, and his value to me in it, and I would have that rectified. His main army, of four thousand men, it is true, is placed with the body of my fighting men in front of Jerusalem, but he has a personal guard in Lydda of several hundred. One thing and one thing alone can bring success to your enterprise... the Will of Allah." He smiled at Ian wryly."But of course, you are a Christian, and my words mean nothing to you."
"On the contrary, Your Highness, if you will forgive my contradicting you, the names and the phrases differ but the purpose is the same in all races of intellect and culture. You say 'the Will of Allah' where we would say 'the Hand of God'."
"I see you have made some study of the subject, young man," murmured Saladin approvingly, "but surely the conflict still remains? The gulf between our separate faiths is too wide to be bridged by such a simple explanation."

"I have a friend, a very wise, well-travelled man who spoke to me on the  subject of religions once. In the West, three main streams dominate: Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity. In the East, the Hindu, the Buddhist and the Moslem rival Janism, Sikhism, Parsee and Shinto. But what is the sum total? That all people, everywhere, believe there is something mightier than themselves. Call it Brahma, Allah or God – only the name changes. The little Negro child will say his prayers and imagine his God to be in his colour. The French child hopes his prayers will be answered – in French. We are all children in this matter still, and will always be – until colours, languages, custom, rule and fashion find a meeting ground."

"Then why do we fight? Throw away Life, mass great continents of men and struggle for opposing beliefs?"
Neither could provide an answer so Ian took his leave as decently as he could, although Saladin was now keen for him to Hay and hear the arguments put forward by the many wise men and philosophers who filled his court. Ian’s only regret was that he had had to speak for the Doctor and knew that his friend would eternally regret not meeting the great Sultan.'

I'm not saying that religious truth doesn't matter; on the contrary, I think it may matter more than anything, not least because what we believe dictates how we live, and I doubt there's a more important question out there than 'how should we live?', itself resting upon the deeper question of 'why are we here?' 

I'm merely saying that we're all in this together, and  the challenge of secularism is to be a meeting place where we can wrestle out this question in our lives. It should be an open space, where those of all faiths and none are free to live their lives in accord with their beliefs. It should be a space where the civil authorities seek neither to serve nor to suppress any religious -- or irreligious -- grouping. It should be about the separation of Church and State, but not about the separation of religion and politics, something which I believe to be neither reasonable nor pratical, neither desirable nor just.

But that's a discussion for another day.


* The others, of course, include, 'but how could a loving God have created a world like this?', 'why do you even think Jesus existed?', 'do you really believe the world was created in six days?', 'you don't really believe the Bible, do you?', 'do you think you can't be moral unless you believe in God?' and 'seriously?'

Watching Doctor Who after the Easter Vigil

I was talking yesterday about how Stephen Moffat's run on Doctor Who hasn't shirked the messianic themes of Russell T. Davies' era, and indeed has enhanced them, openly embracing an idea of 'Doctor as Christ'. Questions of faith -- not defined simply as blind belief, but as fidelity, loyalty, and faith in action -- ran through Moffat's whole first series. The final episode, taking its name from the scientific theory first formulated by perhaps the twentieth century's greatest priest-scientist, Georges Lemaître, featured a fine sequence which played on the idea of faith as 'the conviction of things not seen'.

Little Amelia Pond, in her altered universe, believes there should be stars in the almost empty night sky, and paints and draws them regularly.

'You know this is all just a story, don't you?' says a psychiatrist to her after looking at the sky by her side, 'You know there's no such thing as stars.'

Afterwards, Amy listens in on the conversation downstairs.

'I just don't want her growing up and joining one of those star cults,' says her aunt, 'I don't trust that Richard Dawkins.'

Work that one out if you can. Is this criticism of Richard Dawkins or is it praise? Is it right of his alter-ego to believe in stars, without their being any evidence of them? Does he think that they should be there, even if all the evidence points to the contrary? We don't know. All we know is that in a universe without stars, Richard Dawkins believes they're there. 

An Easter hero, revisited

I talked of Paschal imagery in last year's curtain-raiser; well, watching 'The Impossible Astronaut' on the morning of Easter Sunday in Glasgow, having attended the most beautiful, vibrant, and thoughtful of vigil masses the previous night, I was struck by how Moffat seemed to be developing those ideas. 

The episode begins with a image of men in what looks like late seventeenth-century garb, trying to enter a room where a painting of the Doctor has been in progress. No ordinary painting, though: instead an image of the Doctor as a heavenly king, standing in the clouds and being crowned by an angel...

It's not long before the action skips forward through the centuries to the present day where Amy and Rory receive a message, a summons from the Doctor. Off they set to the Valley of the Gods, with them arriving at their destination by bus -- a local bus, bearing the name of Utah's San Juan County, where the Valley of the Gods can be found. Yes, that's right. San Juan. Saint John. As in the fourth evangelist. Keep that in mind.

Joined by the Doctor and River, they decamp to a nearby diner, where the Doctor and River pore over their diaries, and River asks the Doctor, W'here are we? Have we done Easter Island yet?'
'Yes!' he exclaims after a thoughtful pause, 'I've got Easter Island.'
'They worshipped you there... have you seen the statues?'

And then, after gracing us with the idea of the Doctor as God, at a place defined by the Resurrection, they set off for a picnic by a lake. But it's no ordinary picnic. It is, by any definition, a last supper, as the Doctor has summoned his friends to dine with him one last time before he goes to face his death.

That it should be by a lake seems reminiscent of Jesus' post-Resurrection meal with the Apostles by the Sea of Galilee...

... but far more important, surely, than the location of this meal is what its central element seems to be. Wine. Red wine, presumably poured by the Doctor given that he's got the bottle. The Paschal significance of this hardly needs spelling out.

'Human beings,' smiles the Doctor. 'I thought I'd never get done saving you.'

A mysterious figure appears from the lake and the Doctor approaches it, telling his friends not to follow: 'You all need to stay back. Whatever happens now, you do not interfere. Clear?' Parallels to Jesus' instructions to his followers at Gethsemane should be very obvious at this point.

And then, having told his friends to stay back, the Doctor goes to his death, dropping his head and dying with arms outstretched as though nailed to a cross.

He collapses onto the ground, dead, and his friends gather around him. Here the iconography becomes particularly clear, with River leaning over his body, clad in blue and white, a Marian figure in a Pieta. Amy next to her is a redhead and clad in red too; as the previous year, she is Mary Magdalene. And Rory? He must, I suppose, be the beloved disciple; hardly surprising, really, given how he's basically defined by his steadfast love and loyalty. And then up turns Canton Everett Delaware III to confirm that there's definitely been no fraud and to help them dispose of the body. This old man is clearly standing in for Joseph of Arimathea.

It's important to destroy the body, for what it's worth, because as River says, 'A Timelord's body is a miracle. Even a dead one. There are whole empires out there that'd rip this world apart for just one cell.' And why shouldn't a dead body be as miraculous as a live one? Elisha's bones could raise the dead, if we can believe the Old Testament...

Note that it's River, clad in the colours of Mary, who expresses complete fidelity to the Doctor. 'We're his friends,' she says. 'We do what the Doctor's friends always do. As we're told.' Her faith is absolute. Remember what I said yesterday about early Christians seeing the Incarnation as a recasting of the Fall? Well, just as Eve's role in the Fall was defined by her disobedience, well, so Mary's role in our salvation is defined by her obedience. 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,' she said, and thus the Word became flesh. 

Afterwards they return  to the diner, the same place they'd met before the Doctor's death. It's the Cenacle, in effect, the upper room, but -- unlike earlier -- this time it's not a place of comfort and friendship. It's a place of disbelief, of confusion, of a complete lack of understanding of what has just happened.

And then, all of sudden, he's among them, and they're looking at him in horror, as though they're looking at a ghost. 

He's okay, he assures them, he's the King of Okay, but they're still baffled, and then, in complete confusion, Rory stretches out his finger...

Doubting Thomas. It could hardly be more explicit, could it?

Watching Doctor Who before the Easter Vigil...

'The God Complex,' last night's Doctor Who episode, was interesting, and I was amused by someone tweeting in its aftermath to say:

'That was fun: people getting attacked by the god of Feuerbach, with a cameo by David Walliams as a sort of alien LibDem.'

This, of course, set me to frowning at my failure to have read any Feuerbach, as I don't really think it's good enough to read about people; you have to read what they actually said themselves. It's obvious that the current crop of celebrity atheists are pygmies riding on the shoulders of the likes of Feuerbach, Marx, Nietszche, and Freud, and it bothers me that I've read so little of those four. None of Feuerbach, as I've said, and far too little of the other three. They're serious thinkers, and require serious engagement.

This evening, Paul Cornell -- whose written some fine episodes of Doctor Who in his own right -- said that he'd got around to watching it:

'Just saw last night's Doctor Who: excellent stuff, and, maybe surprisingly for that subject, a positive portrayal of a person of faith.'

The person in question was Rita, the intelligent young doctor who responds to the Doctor's surprised question, 'You're Muslim?' with a simple 'Don't be frightened.' She comes across very well, a fine example of how faith and reason can work in harmony, rather than in crude opposition. Still, I found it kind of surprising that  he thought a positive portrayal of a person of faith to be surprising in Doctor Who. 

He'd not be alone in holding that view, though, as the Guardian's blogpost on the episode makes clear:

'In the end "The God Complex" was funny and thoughtful: Doctor Who is by nature a secular show, but this didn't hammer you over the head with an atheist agenda; until her faith got the better of her, Rita was presented as being empowered by it. It was blind faith, of course that emerged as dangerous.'

Aside from the lazy conflation of secularism with atheism -- they're very different phenomena, in that that though plenty of atheists are secularists, there are plenty of secularists who aren't atheists and there have been plenty of atheists who most certainly weren't secularists -- I found this an odd statement. Is Doctor Who really a secular show? Indeed, given how the Guardian commentator seems to see little difference between secularism and atheism, is it a normally an atheist show?

Secularist, but not Atheist...

My feeling has long been that Doctor Who might be a secular show, but it certainly isn't an atheist one -- how could it be, given that its principal character is somebody who has a habit of giving his life for those he loves, sacrificing himself to save the world, and then returning to life again?

And yes, I realise that the two most recent show-runners for Doctor Who, Russell T. Davies and Stephen Moffat, are atheists, but the reality seems to be that if you write a messianic character, then in our post-Christian culture it's hard to pull this off without Christ shining through.

And sometimes it's very obvious. Did you notice how the Doctor was betrayed with a kiss in the recent 'Let's Kill Hitler' episode? A poisoned kiss, as we were later to learn, with the TARDIS informing the Doctor that:

'Your system has been contaminated by the poison of the Judas Tree.'

Yes, slain by a kiss from the Judas Tree. Shades of Gethsemane, anyone?

Check out Mark 14:45, for starters...

An Easter Hero

The Doctor as Christ motif has been unmissable in Stephen Moffat's two series, the first of which began on Easter Saturday 2010, the second on Easter Saturday 2011. Given the Doctor's messianic character, as a sacrificed and risen saviour, that these series should have launched at Easter looks fortuitous, to say the least. Moffat, as an exceptionally skilled writer, seems to have loaded both 'The Eleventh Hour' and 'The Impossible Astronaut' with Paschal imagery.

Watch, for instance, how the pre-credits sequence to 'The Eleventh Hour' saw the Doctor having an encounter with a cross...

Look on top of the spire. Plotwise, is this necessary?

And how the after the credits we're taken to young Amelia Pond praying in her room, with her prayers seemingly being answered by the TARDIS crashing in her back garden. The first words we heard spoken by Amy -- the first words we hear in Stephen Moffat's run of Doctor Who -- are the following prayer:

'Dear Santa, thank you for the dolls and pencils, and the fish. It's Easter now, so I hope I didn't wake you, but -- honest -- it is an emergency. There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know it's not. Because at night, there's voices. So please, please could you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman. Or -- back in a moment -- Thank you, Santa.'

For what it's worth, we'll later see that she has a large cross on a drawing in her room.

Yes, I know that she's praying to Santa rather than God, but we live in a confused world nowadays. And don't gloss over the fact that the pet she received is a fish either; it might seem a chance reference, but I really don't think it is. Even without the references to them, we'd know Amelia had dolls and pencils, as much later on we see the drawings she's done and the dolls she's made of the Doctor and herself. The fish, which we'll never see, is the most ancient symbol of Christianity -- indeed of Christ himself, and this passage let's us know that the sequence isn't merely shown at Easter; it's set at Easter, which will make the following scenes all the more significant.

She rushes out into the garden, this redheaded girl, where she meets, as someone rising from his tomb, a man who has saved the world, and died, and been restored to life. It's worth noting that Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles and first witness to the Resurrection in at least a couple of Gospels, was invariably represented in medieval art as a redhead. Lest you think it's silly to read any significance into that, keep in mind too that Eve was often also construed in medieval thought as a redhead -- because Adam was made from red clay, and she was made from Adam -- and that in early Christian thought, the entire Passion story was regarded as the story of Eden recast.

But I'll get to that in a bit.

Anyway, Amy brings the Doctor inside as he's hungry, and it turns out that the only thing he eats is the improbable combination that is fish fingers and custard. Yes. Fish. Again. But take a look at Luke's gospel, where Jesus addresses the dumbfounded apostles, still incapable of believing that he was physically present among them, by asking whether they had anything to eat, and then taking some fish from them, and eating it. It's his consumption of the fish that proves he's really there, that they're not imagining him.

Important to the story too are Annette Crosbie's character Mrs Angelo and her grandson Jeff. Two angels, so, just like in Luke 24 and Acts 1.

It's not a straight point-for-point allegory, by any means, but rather an Easter tale that plays in a polyvalent way with Paschal ideas and imagery. Other aspects of the Passion and Easter story show their faces in the episode, most notably his promise to Amy -- just before his 'ascension' -- that he'll return, the darkening of the sky during the day, and the very odd moment when, triumphant over the episode's serpentine villain he spreads his arms wide and cries 'who da man?'

Who da man? Behold the man, more like it. With arms spread like that in a moment of triumph over the Devil, he embodies the Christus Victor principle.

And yes, I said the Devil.


Two Gardens, Two Temptations...
Early Christian thought put a lot of weight on the Protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 and of Paul's description at 1 Corinthians 15:22  of Jesus as a new Adam; it saw the whole story of Christ's incarnation, and in particular his passion and death on the cross, as a recasting of the drama of Eden. Jesus was the new Adam, Mary the new Eve, Gethsemane the new Eden, and the Cross the new Tree.

Well, if Easter carries within it the imagery of Eden, it probably shouldn't surprise us that lots of the action in this episode should take place in a garden, that there'd be a couple of scenes where nudity appears as somehow simultaneously natural and shameful, and that there'd be a memorable moment where our redheaded Eve would give our Adam an apple...

I know, in the Bible it's simply a generic fruit, but still, in our culture we've always thought of the fruit as being an apple. Amy gives the Doctor an apple, but unlike Adam he doesn't eat it; instead like Christ, the second Adam, he'll eat fish.

And, of course, the diabolic villain's a serpent...

The Eden story is, of course, the story of the Fall, of how the world goes wrong; it's an idea that occurs in other myths too, perhaps most famously in the Greek myth of Pandora's box. It's curious then that Prisoner Zero will eventually taunt the Doctor by saying 'The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open.'

More tomorrow...

It's important to call people by their proper names...

Or at least the names they like being called. It's simple bad manners to do otherwise. The same principle applies to where they're from.

I'd a fleeting and annoying exchange with Louise Mensch on Twitter the other day, where she, in connection with this article, had said, 'Also, of course, Eire has its own legal code. I don't know if phone hacking is legal in Eire, or if there is a public interest defence there.'

Seemingly, there isn't, but sighing to see any politician making such a basic blunder elsewhere in what she said, I responded: 'When speaking English, Louise, it's normal to call the country Ireland,' and pointing her to article 4 of the Irish Constitution, which says:

'The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.'

'Since I lived in Dublin,' she replied, 'I've always thought of it as Eire, plus, four letters is more tweet-friendly.'

I conceded the latter point, but thought her main claim absurd, and said so: 'Bizarre. I'm from there and have never once heard anyone in Ireland ever call it that, save when (rarely) speaking Irish.'

At which point someone else weighed in with 'No one in Ireland calls it Eire you ridiculous woman!'

I always find it baffling that English people will sometimes do this when talking of Ireland. I've never noticed them doing it for other countries -- even the most pretentious of them will rarely talk about visiting Deutschland, España, Italia, Hellas, Suomi, Sverige, Nederland, Česko, Polska, Magyarország, Helvetica, or Danmark. They invariably call those countries by the English versions of their names, save on those rare occasions when they're speaking German, Spanish, Italian, Greek or whatever.

All else aside, if Mrs Mensch is going to play this game she should do so consistently, so that instead of saying 'Since I lived in Dublin I've always thought of it as Eire,' she should say, 'Since I  lived in Baile Átha Cliath I've always thought of it as Éire'.

So, basic things to remember: 

• If you're speaking Irish, say Éire.
• If you're speaking English, you should call the country 'Ireland', because that's its name. 
• If you're speaking English and want to distinguish the country called 'Ireland' from the island of 'Ireland', you should call the country 'the Republic of Ireland', this being its description in Irish law, if not the Constitution.
• It's okay to call the country 'the Republic'; it is never okay to call it 'Southern Ireland' or 'the South', unless you want to appear politically and geographically ignorant*, as well as rude.
• It's unwise to refer to Ireland as being part of 'the British Isles', as lots of people will get annoyed at this. Given that the term is simply a corruption of an erroneous ancient term, and that it no longer reflects the political reality it had during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many people find it both obsolete and offensive. Of course, you can use it if you want to come across as insulting and reactionary, but that's up to you.

And in return, I'll refrain from wasting everyone's time by calling the UK 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' and shan't abbreviate it UKGBNI. I can't speak for anyone else, mind.

* Not least because the northernmost point of the Republic of Ireland is further north than Northern Ireland, and because there's not much more of Ireland north of Cranford Point -- Northern Ireland's southermost point -- in Northern Ireland than there is in the Republic.

Sometimes the Truth Hurts

Now this is interesting. Yesterday on Twitter I saw that somebody had retweeted this:

'Huzzah, the Catholic church sticks it to Irish mammies! Kids with two dads must be thrilled to have dodged that one.'

I wondered what that meant, but then a while later someone else posted a link sayin, 'This priest seems to have set out to rile people.'

It seems that a Wexford priest in the diocese of Ferns, Father Paddy Banville, has written an article in which he's said:

'In exposing abuse within the Catholic Church, we have opened the door to hell and stepped inside the front porch, and standing there in horror some have dared to peer further, into the hallway and reception areas of a very dark and unexplored house.

In time, I believe Ireland will discover that there is nothing particularly unique in the Catholic bishop’s bungling attempts to deal with clerical abuse...In fact, I believe that covering up is a typical response to child abuse right across the board, at least until very recently.

Few can accept my next point and, of course, it’s so politically incorrect to make the point, but there is another category of people that will match the failure of the bishops, and probably surpass it; the wives and mothers of Ireland, not exclusively wives and mothers but far too many who failed miserably to deal with the abuse of their children by other family members.

A multitude of people are implicated in this cover-up.  I believe it is a significant percentage of the population.  Nobody in this once sovereign democratic republic wants to hear this.

Let me conclude by adapting the words of the Taoiseach: there is no shortage of dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism in the Republic of Ireland 2011, where the rape and torture of children are downplayed or managed, to uphold instead the primacy of the family, the family name, its power, standing and reputation, and where multitudes living in our midst, have turned a blind eye: not my business!

We don’t know it yet, or perhaps we don’t want to know it, but in terms of child abuse the Catholic Church is holding up a mirror to Irish society.

This time Enda Kenny has got to go all the way and all the way is much further than the Vatican!'

I don't think I'd have worded it in as inflammatory a way as this; I'd have been uneasy with the use of the term 'cover-up', and I don't think I'd have singled out wives and mothers, although given the matriarchal nature of the Irish household until quite recently I can see Banville's point. Such niceties aside, though, he's basically right. What's he's trying to show, in forceful language that is, nonetheless, in line with the facts as we have them, is that the problem of abuse in Ireland is far deeper and far more extensive than the most vociferous antagonists of the Church would have us believe.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Anybody who's been reading this blog will be familiar with such blunt facts of abuse in Ireland as revealed in the 2002 SAVI study as that 27 per cent of Irish adults had been sexually abused in their childhood, that barely one abuse survivor in 200 saw their abuser convicted in court, and that for every adult survivor of sexual abuse by a priest there were 59 other victims of childhood sexual abuse. The most prominent abuse survivors in Ireland -- the ones who appear in the media with depressing regularity -- are profoundly atypical.

The SAVI Study showed that 58.3 per cent of abuse survivors had been abused by people within what might be deemed the family circle: immediate and extended family, neighbours, friends, and babysitters. Nowadays, it seems the figure is far higher. The Irish Times ran an article in February 2009 which reported one Mick Moran, a Garda Detective Sergeant working with Interpol to fight internet paedophiles, as saying that 85 per cent of child sexual abuse takes place in the family home or in the family circle, and a few months later reported the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland as revealing that 97 per cent of those who had been sexually abused as children and who had sought the help of Irish rape crisis centres in 2008 had been abused by somebody within the family circle.

These are abominable figures and the incessant media focus on the Church has the effect of obscuring them, distracting people from the dangers on our own doorsteps.  Just that let sink in for a minute. Historically, 58 per cent of abuse in Ireland was committed within the family circle; nowadays it's at least 85 per cent, and perhaps as high as 97 per cent, and it seems that between a quarter and a third of that is committed by adolescents.

Right now, if you're attacking the Church, you're not attacking abuse. Worse, you're distracting people's attention from where it's really happening, and by doing so, you're faciliating it and are endangering children.

(And, for what it's worth, you're not even giving a moment's thought to the problem of neglect, which is apparently an even bigger problem than abuse nowadays.)


In what Circumstances would Somebody not want to Report?
Still, let's stay with this. Historically most abuse took place within the family circle, and nowadays almost all abuse takes place there.  We rarely read about it in the papers, but we know from the SAVI report that almost half of all abuse victims at some point disclose their abuse to somebody, with barely one abuse case in twenty ever being taken to the Gardaí.

That's the first thing. Almost half of Ireland's abuse survivors have confided in people about the abuse they've experienced, without passing it on to the guards, possibly because they knew that only about one in ten reported abuse cases leads to a conviction. In huge numbers of cases they must have told people of abuse they suffered from people who were still alive and still had access to children.  Husbands will have told their wives, for instance, of childhood experiences, just as wives will have told their husbands. They'll have had good reasons for not reporting it; it'll have been a long time ago, they'll want to move on with their lives rather than revisiting old pain, and besides, they'll hope their abusers will have changed.

These are understandable reasons. Frances Fitzgerald was talking the other day on the Frontline and rhetorically asking in what circumstances people might not want to report abuse. Well, those are circumstances that I think you'll find all over the country.

Hell, you'll see similar instances in the Cloyne Report, instances of people having come to the Diocese to report decades-old instances of abuse, but insisting that they didn't want the matter to go to the Gardaí. People hope that others can change, and don't want to trawl through their own childhood hells afresh.

But the fact is that there are people who'd argue that that constitutes the covering up of abuse. It's not a phrase I'd use to describe it, but I could understand that argument. If you're told of abuse, and you listen, and try to help the survivor, but don't try to punish the abuser -- is that covering things up?

(I don't mean legally, as unless the situation I've described counts as a 'reasonable excuse', anyone who acted that way would soon be deemed guilty of just that, and vulnerable to a five year prison sentence. I mean realistically.)


Remember Senator Norris' Letter

One of the things I talked about when the Norris affair broke a couple of months back was that I didn't believe Norris had reacted to Ezra Nawi's crime in a way that was at odds with how the typical Irish person -- or perhaps the typical person anywhere -- would react to such a crime. I said:

'Faced with the reality of someone he knew having -- let's be frank -- taken advantage of a child for his own pleasure, Senator Norris had responded with love and concern, but with love and concern that was directed wholly towards the person he knew.

This, as it happens, is how I think huge numbers of Irish people respond when they hear that people they know have been accused -- or even found guilty -- of such crimes. In their minds they rationalise the behaviour of their loved ones, they minimise the damage that was done, and say that whatever their loved ones may have done, they're still their brothers, or their sons, or their friends. This is, in fact, exactly how Denis O'Callaghan behaved in dealing with allegations of abuse in Cloyne. The Cloyne Report recognises his personal kindness but quotes him as admitting that he sometimes tended to show favour to accused priests, having been emotionally drawn to their plight, in such a way that that compromised his care for complainants.'

It's been observed by psychologists that when there's abuse in families, the family will often be more protective of the abuser than the abused. Sure, sometimes this is just a case of families wanting to protect their reputation, but more often there's something far more natural and wholesome -- but no less destructive -- at work.

While there'll be anger there, and horror, and a deep sense of betrayal, there'll also be a huge amount of confusion and fear. The tendency is to think that there's something wrong with the abusive child or brother or husband or whoever, and perhaps even that the parents or older siblings or wife are in some way to blame; they want to help the abuser. What's more, they fear for how he'd be punished in the hands of the authorities, and don't see how the shame of him being punished could help anybody; there's a lady I know who says that pride is the sin of the Irish, and she may well be right. Linked with this, there's a deep need to minimise in their minds the amount of harm that's been done to the victim; the less damage that's been done, the less culpable the abuser is.

All of this is natural. And in the main, it's driven by love, by loyalty, by forgiveness -- by the very best qualities we have. And it's terribly dangerous.

Because, of course, in so many cases, this doesn't seriously engage with the problems, and instead seeks to sweep them under the carpet and hope they go away. Would such behaviour count as a cover-up? Yes, I think it would, and potentially a very destructive one too. But not one driven in any way by malice, rather one driven by a confused and disoriented sense of compassion and hope.



Could the Church possibly be to blame for this too?
A few times over the years I've seen people take the view that even if it is true that most Irish abuse happens within families rather than within the institutional Church, it's still the fault of the Church, and I saw this line being wheeled out today in connection with Banville's article. The Twitter feed of Colm O'Gorman kicked off in spectacular fashion in connection with this, and Colm wasn't slow to pass comment on the article, saying, in a series of tweets:

'So now we know. Its the women of Ireland who are to blame for the covering up abuse across Irish society. So women are to blame as is the desire to uphold the primacy of the family. So a Catholic is attacking the primacy of the family? Bizarre. "In terms of child abuse the Catholic Church is holding up a mirror to Irish society" Of course it is. Obviously. Transparency is its mantra.

There is no doubt about the fact that society did deny the reality of abuse. We knew, and we chose not to name it or act. But to suggest that wives and mothers were THE problem? That the RCC is holding up a mirror to society? Such comment ignores the simple reality of the overarching power of the RCC in Irish society. It dictated public attitudes. IT defined them. It is vital that we honestly assess the 'Why' of our gross collective failures re child protection. But not by attacking an entire gender! [...] The RCC dictated societal attitudes and values. The culture of silence & deference was of their creation.'

This needs unpacking.


Breaking it down...
The line about the Irish Church holding up a mirror to Irish society has nothing to do with transparency, because mirrors are rarely transparent; rather, Banville's point is that the behaviour of the Irish Church reflects Irish society. If Irish priests abused, was this because Irish people abuse? If Irish bishops covered up that abuse, was this because Irish people cover up abuse? Given how many Irish familes until very recently had priests, brothers, and nuns in their ranks, it's clearly nonsense to distinguish between the twentieth-century Irish Church and twentieth-century Irish society. They were, in effect, the same thing. That the behaviour of clergy should have reflected the behaviour of the society that produced them isn't really that surprising at all.

The Banville article doesn't suggest that when it came to covering up abuse in Ireland, Irish wives and mothers were the problem; it does, however, say that their actions will have been a huge part in the problem, and I think that's true, especially given the structure until recently of the typical twentieth-century Irish household. Is this an attack on a whole gender? No, not at all; the Banville article simplifies matters on gender lines, such that while it explicitly holds that a huge amount of abuse was concealed by females, it implicitly takes the view that basically all abuse was committed by males.

Does it make any sense to blame the culture of concealment on the Catholic Church? I don't think it does, any more than to blame the culture of abuse in Ireland on the Catholic Church, attempts which Fintan O'Toole the other day rightly dismissed as cynical rubbish.

For such claims to be meaningful, they'd need to be compared with abuse and concealment data compiled using identical methods across a range of countries, both culturally Catholic ones and otherwise, and you'd need to work hard to explain, for example, why secular atheist post-Protestant Sweden seems to have remarkably high abuse rates. Indeed, that our own isn't quite so unusual is surely attested by O'Gorman's former organisation, One in Four, having been founded in the UK in 1999, three years before the SAVI study discovered that the rate of abuse in Ireland was slightly higher than one-in-four. One in Four must surely have taken its name from data relevant to somewhere other than Ireland.

The simple fact is that abuse is concealed pretty much everywhere it happens. It is a staggeringly under-reported crime in every country. O'Gorman says that Amnesty International Ireland is soon to publish research on the underlying dynamics that tolerated and permitted abuse in Ireland, but unless it relies heavily on data using the same methods from other countries, it'll tell us very little: it'll be highly misleading raw data, devoid of context or meaning, prone to mistaking correlation for causation.

I realise I'm prejudging it, but a tweet such as the following --  'It will address societal attitudes, the nature of power in Ireland of the time and lessons for today. Very in depth.' -- is hardly the sort of thing to inspire confidence. It suggests that this soon-to-be-published Amnesty study is hardly the massive pan-European study that's needed, but is instead merely another national study, and one -- unlike the SAVI study -- conducted by an organisation run by someone who has a very serious axe to grind.

Not without reason, of course, but an axe for all that.


Inflammatory Comments?
Was Father Banville over the top in what he said? Maybe, but unlike Enda Kenny with his claims in the Dáil, he wasn't actually wrong; he just painted in broad strokes. Was this inflammatory? Yes, it was, but at this stage I'm starting to think inflammatory language is needed.

Banville's saying nothing that wasn't already implied in the SAVI study, but how many people have ever heard of that? The Cloyne Report, which revealed little other than that two clergymen hadn't followed their own professed guidelines but in doing so had broken no laws, was mentioned in 163 Irish Times pieces in just one month, whereas over the previous nine years the SAVI study -- the most in-depth and far-reaching study ever conducted in Ireland into the phenomenon of abuse in Ireland -- had been mentioned in just 63 Irish Times articles and letters. The most important and revealing body of data on sexual abuse in Ireland had basically been ignored, save by Vincent Brown and Breda O'Brien, each of whom would occasionally try to alert people to its importance.

We're endangering children by keeping the media focus on the Church. We need to look at ourselves. If jolts such as Banville's are what it takes to jar us out of our complacency, well, so be it.

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week Eleven

It's been a rough week in the Brother's Painting Tour of Ireland. With time fast running out, and him having to crack on if he's to get home in time to tend to the dog and make some money, nature has conspired such that what should have been a week of hard pedalling has seen him in the saddle for just four days.

As you'll remember, he cycled into a bunting-festooned Donegal town last Thursday evening, and on Friday he was treated to a drive up to Slieve League, site of Ireland's highest cliffs.

And not many taller in Europe, as it happens.

Yes, I know everyone thinks the Cliffs of Moher are the tallest in the land, but they're not; the cliffs at Slieve League are about three times as high, clocking in at a terrifying 601 metres. They're not quite as starkly vertical as the Cliffs of Moher, but they are taller. After the drive it was time to set off through the hills of Donegal...

Taking his time, unaware of the storms within and without due to play havoc with the trip, he cycled on the bog roads between Barnesmore Gap and Castelderg in Tyrone, his twenty-second county, revelling in such simple pleasures as the sight of a red corrugated roof. Weaving his way around the back roads, he made his way through Clady to Strabane, having started the day tweeting for a host there, and was very kindly offered one.

Saturday saw him being taken out to Sion Mills which he painted the weir at breakneck pace, and to great effect, before leaping back on the bike. To hear him describe the day, it sounds like a bizarre sporting event, like a triathlon for creative types. It's been a while since painting was an Olympic event, but maybe it's time to reintroduce the practice.

It baffles me how this could ever have been done at speed.

North then, hopping on the bike at four in the afternoon, chasing the sunset and battling the rain as he fought his way along the main Foyle road into Derry, his twenty-third county, pushing on to the coast before cutting inland just before Ballykelly. The weather having been at his back till this point, the last climb was a bit of a struggle, and things didn't quite got to plan when he reached his destination, as his Dunbrock hosts were out, but he was temporarily rescued by friends in Limavady, and drowned though he was, he was able to relax after having safely finished cycling for the day.

Problems started to rear their head on Sunday, as Hurricane Katia threatened to ravage Ulster.

-- I might not paint tomorrow, observed the Brother. I'm just thinking of eating. And drinking. And sitting down, thinking mostly, but sitting down.

-- I think after twenty-three counties you deserve a good sit, he was advised.

Unfortunately, it was about at this point, with the storm on its way, that the Brother's mifi decided to pack in, leaving him scarcely able to roam. Given that the trip's about social networking as much as anything else, this was a bodyblow. And the wind was rising.

He stayed put on Monday too, watching the wind from rural Derry, all too aware that it would have been suicidal to attempt pushing on to Antrim. This, surely, was the right decision, given how one of his followers more than a hundred miles south had commented on how there were 'human kites everywhere'.

(It's not been calm here either, nearly 250 miles south-east of where the Brother was; my housemates' parents' conservatory was destroyed by huge branches blown from trees.)

Unable to tweet to update us of his exploits, he ventured out again on Tuesday, cycling by a furious sea all the way to Portrush in Antrim, his twenty-fourth county. It hadn't been a pleasant journey, as -- struck by a bug -- he'd vomited his way past Magilligan, Coleraine, and Portstewart, all the way to Portrush, where he was beset by chills and unable to eat and could but vicariously enjoy the lovely meal his hosts had made for him.

If there was any consolation in how the day had gone, it lay in how Maman Poulet had let him know that Jean Byrne, meteorological icon of the Irish twitterati, had been named winner of the European Meteorological Society’s TV Weather Forecast Award for 2011. Given the way the weather had so ravaged the Brother's week, it was surely worth letting him know about one of the Irish climate's silver linings.

-- Oh my, said the Brother. Super.

She was due to be presented with her award in Berlin today. I can't wait to find out what she wore...

Things had improved internally by yesterday, but not enough for the Brother to chance another day in the saddle, so he slept and suffered and missed the first clear blue sky in weeks. In the evening he found the strength to go for a little walk, and so went down to the harbour, afterwards reflecting on how soon it'd be that he'd be home, as he stood outside his hosts' house watching the sun go down over Donegal.

As for today? He painted till lunchtime...

.. and then set off on the north Antrim coast, visiting Dunluce Castle, the Giant's Causeway, and Dunseverick Castle, as he chased the sunset again, this time aiming for hostless Cushendun, and climbing the hills to get there while the daylight lasted

The climbs slowed him down a bit, so he just a few kilometres north of Cushendun when he rescued by a lovely lady from south Antrim, armed with soup, tiger bread, and -- I can only presume -- a special fine-toothed saw to cut his bike into small pieces so it could be fitted into her car and taken to safety. Or something. 

There's only one more week to go in the Painting Tour, with the Brother hoping to make it to south Antrim tomorrow and then onward through Down, Armagh, Monaghan, Louth, and Meath before like a weary Odysseus, and after seeing and learning so much, he comes home. 29 Counties, so. 30 if he's very lucky and can squeeze Westmeath in too. Not quite the 32 he'd hoped for, but something to be very proud of for all that. The Midlands may have gotten a bit shortchanged, but given the route he's followed, it's easy to understand why. And I'm sure he'll be back.

Eleven weeks under a somewhat tighter belt...

If you think the Brother might be passing within twenty miles or so of where you live as he winds his counter-intuitive way home to Dublin, and if you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, do get in touch with him. Or, you know, even if you have a whim to buy him lunch or tea and have a chat if he's passing through. Just let him know.

There's only a week left of the Painting Tour, and if you belatedly want to get onboard, you can follow it on the Brother's blog and above all on Twitter, where the hashtag's #paintingtour. The Brother's Facebook account's worth a shout too, but Twitter's where most of the real action is. 

Give Ireland's first digital nomad™ a shout -- the tour's about Irish social media as much as it is art and the Irish countryside, after all, and even if his equipment's misbehaving, I've no doubt there are people who'll pass on your messages.

Just tweet.

Even if Johann Hari said he knew where the bodies were buried...

Would anyone believe him?

I'm afraid I've had no sympathy for Johann Hari over the last few months; indeed, uncharitable though I've surely been to think such a way, I've found it hard to look on his predicament with anything other than a cynical sense of schadenfreude. Yes, I know he's not well now, but that aside, the last few months have simply struck me as a shoddy journalist getting something that's been coming to him for a long time.

We all know the story, of course, of how a couple of bloggers noticed how Hari's interviews, as published, seemed to have been a hybrid of original and previously published material -- the latter being books and interviews conducted by other people, in the main. Then we had Tim Worstall reeling off a litany of Hari's fallacious claims, and the Spectator's Nick Cohen describing some very peculiar experiences on Wikipedia in connection with a ridiculous review by Hari of a book Cohen had written.  David Allen Green, then, began digging further into Wikipedia, exploring the deeds of the peculiarly obscure 'David Rose', who was so keen to promote the brilliance of Hari, and who appeared to have a sideline in underage incest pornography.

Why does one chubby journalist matter?

The dominoes began to fall, as the extent of Hari's behaviour became clear. Smart people pointed out that given Hari's influence as a journalist, real answers and serious action were called for:

'I said before about Hari that I didn’t think he was a cynical liar out for the main chance, but a well-intentioned bullshitter. That’s why I quoted Peter Oborne, whose book is excellent on the subject of Good Cause Corruption, with particular reference to the career of Mr Tony Blair. If you have moral right and a good cause on your side, then surely inconvenient facts are just a distraction. Accuracy is pedantry. This is positively dangerous from politicians, with dodgy dossiers and the like potentially leading to lots of people getting killed. Which is why you need a press that’s honest, accurate, even pedantic. When journalism falls prey to Good Cause Corruption, it just becomes propaganda. Hari himself once said that he viewed his job as being a paid advocate for the causes he believed in, which might indicate some of the issues behind his journalism.'

Hari is a classic example of somebody who thinks facts and accuracy don't matter as long as you believe your cause is just.* He wrote a particularly offensive and inaccurate piece around the time of last year's Papal visit to England and Scotland, a piece which was carried far and wide, going no small way towards creating the poisonous atmosphere that surrounded that trip. As Caroline Farrow put it:

'This article was syndicated everywhere, even the Daily Mail published it, and it was responsible for a surge of criticism. Catholics everywhere were dismayed by Hari’s distortions, his hysteria and his patronising language. Hari’s implications were clear. Catholics were obviously very stupid if kindly and generally benign individuals who didn’t understand their own religion. Hari would condescendingly deign to explain to them what the Gospels really meant, what Jesus would really think and he would have absolutely no problem with them being Catholics, so long as they didn’t agree with a large portion of their Church’s teaching and they attempted to get their leader arrested on his say-so. “Catholics, I implore you” he bleated. If Catholics didn’t agree with him, they were either ignorant, bigots or defenders of child abuse, probably a mixture of all three, but to be despised at any rate.'

Others dismantled the article directly, whereas I used a day sick in bed to write an insanely long Facebook post so any friends of mine who were being fed lies by the likes of Hari, Richard Dawkins, Terry Sanderson, or Peter Tatchell could actually start to look at the facts for themselves.

I wrote a piece about him last February, but never posted it, mainly because I'd wanted to accompany it with an illustration I couldn't find. It strikes me that tonight, in the aftermath of Hari's mealy-mouthed and weasel-worded 'apology', might be a timely opportunity to post it, tweaked ever so slightly...

* * * * * * * * *

Unearthed from the Unused Pile...

I have a friend who once described his politics views as being left-wing, but not to the extent that he's able to read the Independent without occasionally wincing. Granted, the Independent is a mixed bag, and its columnists can be far from progressive in their opinions, and I'm not sure there's a better foreign correspondent out there than Robert Fisk, but I think my friend may have had the likes of Johann Hari in mind.

I'm no fan of Hari. I think he's a bore, and a sloppy one to boot, a journalist with no respect for factual accuracy. I don't think I've ever read a column by him that hasn't had me gritting my teeth in frustration at his claims. A few weeks ago, for instance, in an article which posed a decent question in response to one of Melanie Phillips' screeds, he claimed that:

'In every human society that has ever existed, and ever will, some 3 to 10 percent of the population has wanted to have sex with their own gender.' 

The thing is, of course, that this statement is completely speculative. It's impossible to make such a claim with any degree of historical certainty. We have no statistical evidence for the prevalence of homosexuality in any societies other than, well, our own one for just the last half century or so. Hari's claim might well be right, but it's utterly unprovable.

The same article claims that Christian religious texts mandate bigotry against gay people -- even though there was no concept of 'gay people' or indeed of homosexuality as a distinct phenomenon in Biblical times, and then, in a rhetorical flourish claims those same religious texts that allegedly mandate bigotry against gay people, also laud a god who feeds small children to bears.


Elisha and the Bears
Now,  I'm not for a moment saying that 2 Kings 2:23-24 isn't what a friend of mine has called 'a challenging passage', but it simply doesn't describe God feeding small children to bears.

It describes an episode in which the prophet Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, is accosted by a large gang of youths. The words the King James Bible translates as young children are the Hebrew words nah-ar and yeh-led; the former word means 'boys' and could be used to describe children, servants, soldiers, and even a man such as Isaac in his late twenties; the later means 'young men'. Elisha was being harassed by dozens of these young men. He prays for assistance, and two bears appear, attacking and mauling 42 of the youths; the sense of this is that were more than forty-two youths, and there's nothing in the story that says that the forty-two died.

Like I said, it's not an easy story to ponder, but it's certainly not a case of small children being fed to bears.

I think the great Brian Bolland can be forgiven for getting the details wrong...

Because it's not okay to lie about Mormons either...
It goes on to say that until 1975, when the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, Mormons didn't believe black people had souls. This, of course, is nonsense too: Mormons certainly held that black people couldn't be priests in their church, but they never said they didn't have souls; furthermore, while they did change this policy in the 1970s, but this was in connection with them expanding into other countries and having to face the reality of largely black congregations. I'm not saying they weren't racist, just that they weren't racist in the way Hari claims. How on earth does he believe the American Supreme Court could ever be empowered to rule on the doctrines and beliefs of any religious group anyway? Does he do any research?


Or about Muslims...
Anyway, today he's off on one about the Anglican bishops in the House of Lords, as though this matters, putting the boot into Nick Clegg who he regards as a hypocrite for not getting rid of them, and indeed for considering expanding the numbers of Lords Spiritual by adding rabbis and imams etc.


Or about Anglicans.
I hold no candle for the Anglican Church, but I happen to think removing its bishops from Parliament would be a bad idea. Well, I think it'd be a bad idea for the United Kingdom; I think it might well be the making of the Church of England.

He opens with:

'Here's a Trivial Pursuit question with an answer that isn't at all trivial. Which two nations still reserve places in their parliaments for unelected religious clerics, who then get an automatic say in writing the laws the country's citizens must obey? The answer is Iran... and Britain.'

He means the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of course, but even so, this is a bit on the disingenuous side, isn't it? Presumably it's meant to make us think that the Iranian parliament is stuffed full of unelected Mullahs, whereas the reality is that there are five seats in the parliament reserved for unelected clerics from the 2% of Iranians who adhere to a religion other than Islam! The Mullahs hold the reins in other respects, of course, but not in Parliament.

As for the UK, sure, 26 out of 786 members of the House of Lords, which at this stage has power only to delay for a year the implementation of laws passed by the Commons, are indeed bishops of the Church of England, but I think a 3% presence in an essentially advisory chamber isn't something to worry about.

Onward he goes, claiming that the 26 Anglican bishops vote on the laws that bind us, whereas they usually just vote on a small number of them, and  proclaiming that they 'use their power to relentlessly fight against equality for women and gay people'. There are many of things of which people can accuse the hierarchy of the Church of England, but putting all their efforts into misogyny and homophobia really isn't one of them.

Onward he burbles:

'But let's step back a moment and look at how all this came to pass. The bishops owe their places in parliament to a serial killer. Henry VIII filled parliament with bishops because they were willing to give a religious seal of approval to him divorcing and murdering his wives – and they have lingered on through the centuries since, bragging about their own moral superiority at every turn.'

Now, I'm no fan of Henry VIII, but to call him a serial killer for having had two people executed seems a bit -- well -- extravagant. But think about the general thesis here: we shouldn't have bishops in Parliament because Henry VIII, who was a nasty man, put them there. Well, look at the events that gave rise to the key features of the British Constitution: the Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution. Should you throw them out because Cromwell was a genocidal nut and because James II was driven from his throne because he wanted to introduce freedom of religion?

And do the bishops really proclaim their moral superiority? Really? I'd like to see some quotes in support of this. Real ones, not ones Johann's just plucked out of his backside.

Speaking of which, he's shameless with his next claim:

'According to Christopher Hitchens, though I haven’t been able to source this quote elsewhere, in 1965, the then Archbishop of Canterbury (Michael Ramsey) scorned the people who were campaigning for nuclear-armed countries to step back from the brink, on the grounds that "a nuclear war would involve nothing more than the transition of many millions of people into the love of God, only a few years before they were going to find it anyway". A previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, is reported to have said something similar a few years earlier and it may be that these sentiments should be attributed to him instead. In 2008 the incumbent Rowan Williams, said it would be helpful if shariah law – with all its vicious misogyny, which says that women are worth half of a man – was integrated into British family courts.'

Look at that. He doesn't even bother to source his quotes. He just throws them out, like a loud teenager in a student bar, confident that if he shouts loud enough nobody will challenge him. And did Rowan Williams really say that it would be helpful if shariah law -- 'with all its vicious misogny' -- were integrated into British family courts? Or did he say that he thought the adoption of certain aspects of it might be helpful and was, in any case, inevitable? In fact, didn't he -- in making those comments -- explicitly speak out against the misogyny of some aspects of Shariah law?

I know, I know, you can prove anything with facts.

I could go on, but it's hard to struggle through the gibberish of a bigot who claims that the Anglican bishops' prime motivation is to deny equality to women and gays, and that their 'second greatest passion is to prevent you from being able to choose to end your suffering if you are dying.'

I'm pretty sure it's not. I'm pretty sure that if you asked them what they care most about they'd talk about Jesus, saving souls, evangelisation, and helping people here on earth. The phrase 'social justice' might come up. It's entirely popular that tea, cake, wine, gin, or football would appear too. 'Opposing euthanasia' probably wouldn't make their top ten, though they might well mention having a belief in the sanctity of human life, such that they believe it's wrong for anybody to end any human life unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

They might say that. I wouldn't put money on it.

* * * * * * * * *

And with that, I left the post to gather dust. I didn't get into how the bishops are chosen, or the fact that they can't vote in parliamentary elections, or what obligations are imposed on local Anglican churches by virtue of being established state churches. As far as I can see, the British State gains far more from having a tame established church than the Church of England gets out of being so established. Of course, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that even were I drunk as a lord spiritual, I'd not be as wrong as Johann Hari.

*You know, like the Enda Kenny and the rest of the Irish Government, seemingly.

Visiting the Front Line

I'd never watched Pat Kenny's show Frontline until this evening, catching up on last night's programme after hearing from a couple of friends that it was definitely worth watching. The topic was mandatory reporting of abuse, and in large part it focused on the question of how such legislation could relate to the seal of Confession. I'm glad I was advised to watch it, as I was pleasantly surprised by how even-handed it was and by how much sense was talked in it.

Curiously, Frances Fitzgerald kept returning to Alan Shatter's recent refrain, that being that the whole issue of Confession is a side issue in this debate, something that's hardly relevant to the discussion. Early on she said:

'What's interesting, Pat, is that if you look at legislation that's been passed already, if you take the Offences Against the State -- for example -- legislation, you have the same requirement on everybody. Nobody's raised the issue of Confession in relation to that. If you look at the recent Criminal Justice legislation, the same applies, that if you have information -- as in Minister Shatter's bill which he will be introducing -- if you have information which is relevant to an offence as it's outline in the legislation, and you don't tell the Gardaí about it, then you are liable under the legislation. That applies in quite a number of pieces of legislation.'

This is all true as far as it goes: a requirement to report knowledge of crimes is mandatory, unless one has 'reasonable excuse' for doing otherwise, in at least three pieces of legislation, these being the Criminal Law Act 1997, the Offences Against the State Act 1998, and the Criminal Justice Act 2011. As I said about six weeks back, if the seal of Confession is threatened by Irish law, it's been threatened for a long time.

To be fair, Ministers, you started this

The problem with the line currently being taken by Ministers Shatter and Fitzgerald, which basically consists of smiling and accusing Catholics of reacting in a hysterical way to something that's never really been suggested, is that the integrity of the Seal was explicitly threatened on the day they announced their planned legislation. The Irish Times reported the following about Minister Shatter on the very day that the Cloyne Report was released:

'The Minister said that there would be no "legal grey areas" when it came to the implementation of this legislation, adding that the laws would also apply to the likes of doctors and priests, even in the case of the latter where this information is revealed in the confessional.'

There's no trace of such a claim in his official statement of that day, so I can only assume that he made this comment in response to a question, along with his saying that victims of abuse would be safeguarded so that they could not be prosecuted under the legislation. Wouldn't things have been simpler if the Minister had deflected any questions then about Confession by saying that that was a bogus issue, and had no real bearing on the situation? No, he went for the cheap anti-Catholic soundbite.

Since then, of course, we've had the Taoiseach blustering about how 'the law of the land should not be stopped by a collar or a crozier,' standing up in the Dáil and casting all manner of aspersions on the Vatican, and then getting huffy with the rest of the Government when the Vatican refuted the Government's charges. Is it any wonder that people don't trust the Government on this?

Disingenuous Posturing

In a manner staggering for its outright hypocrisy, the whole debate has been plagued by mock outrage on the part of the Government and media.

They've responded with fury -- as though this was news to them -- to the fact that the Vatican responded with caution in 1997 to the Irish Church's child-protection guidelines, despite the fact that the letter that warned the Irish bishops had been quoted from in the 2009 Dublin Report (7.13), with nobody getting angry about it then.

They've responded with fury -- again, as though this were a new development -- to the Vatican's 1997 insistence that the Church's child protection guidelines should be in harmony with canon law, despite the fact that that very injunction was quoted in the 2009 Dublin Report (7.13) and the principle was clearly stated more than once in the 1996 Framework Document itself!

They've responded with fury -- yet again, as though they had been unaware of this -- to the reservations the Vatican expressed in 1997 about mandatory reporting, despite these reservations having been quoted in the 2009 Dublin Report (7.13) and having been shared by the Government of the day, which itself chose in 1997 not to legislate to introduce mandatory reporting. That Government, as we all know, included several members of the current cabinet.

They've also thrown around a lot of baseless allegations, something which aside from being immoral strikes me as very unwise, especially given that they're coming from a small bankrupt country with no hard power and with far fewer  friends than it used to have.

Trying to have it both ways

A huge part of the problem now is that the Government is talking out both sides of its mouth in an attempt to look tough while knowing that if it looks barrel-chested that's due not so much to muscle as to hot air. On the one hand, having postured about there being no exceptions, not even in the case of confession, the Government's now trying to convince people that even though Confession won't be explicitly mentioned in the coming legislation, it will be covered by it. This seems to be delighting opponents of the Church in Ireland, and worrying its defenders.

The reality's pretty simple. 

Confession can't be mentioned in the legislation, as any such law almost certainly wouldn't withstand a Constitutional challenge. This is why it won't be singled out, and we'll have a vague statement to the effect that where an individual has material information that would assist the gardaí in the investigation of a given sexual crime, that they provide that information to the Gardaí, unless there is an undefined 'reasonable excuse' not to do so.

That means the definition of 'reasonable excuse' will be in the hands of the courts. It makes no sense to claim that the seal of Confession is in any way threatened by this. In interpreting the law, the courts will rule based on what the law says, not what its framers claim it says. The framers of laws can say what they like, but their intentions won't be factored into any subsequent legal decisions. Given the centrality of the sacraments to Catholicism, the Constitutional protection of religion, the existing common law protection of priest-penitent privilege, and the need for law to be consistent, there's no way that a court would ever convict a priest for failing to report information received while hearing Confession.

Bluffers

I find it all very depressing, to be honest with you.

I've become increasingly convinced that the Irish Government isn't in any way serious about tackling abuse in Ireland. Part of me doesn't blame it. A serious State-led attack on the problem would require a functioning HSE and an army of social workers and therapists,  and the reality is that the Government can't afford them. The country's broke. Instead, then, the Government's falling back on demagoguery and sabre-rattling.

Faced with the reality of abuse in the Irish Church, the Taoiseach saw fit to blame Irish problems on people almost 1200 miles away. In his speech on Cloyne he never once mentioned the key facts that the Cloyne Report revealed: that two Irish clergy had failed to apply Irish Church guidelines but had broken no laws, and that in failing to apply those guidelines they had potentially endangered children but that no children had been harmed because of them.

For all their talk of tackling abuse, Ministers Shatter and Fitzgerald keep banging on about abuse in organisations -- most especially the Church -- despite the fact that hardly any abuse takes place in organisations, with the overwhelming majority of it taking place in the family circle, in and around the home. Talk of the Church is particularly specious, as it's like grumbling about a tree when you're standing in a forest. Even when clerical abuse was at it's worst, for every child who was abused by a priest in Ireland, fifty-nine were abused by other people; nowadays, the difference would be even more stark. Abuse in Ireland is above all a family matter. I've yet to hear one concrete proposal for dealing with this.

Talk of a 'Sarah's Law' for sex offenders is nonsense, given how few abusers have ever been convicted compared to how many haven't. Remember what the 2002 SAVI Study indicated, that a decade ago, only one abuse survivor in two hundred had seen their abusers found or plead guilty in court. In other words, for every sex offender labelled as such by a Sarah's Law, 199 others will walk free.

Cheering on the Government when it shouts about the Church doesn't help; the reality is that if you're attacking the Church, you're not attacking the problem. I'm tired of the Government trying to make political hay from children having been abused. We have serious problems. We need serious solutions.