Church leaders in Ireland have condemned the archbishop of Canterbury after he said the country's Catholic church has lost "all credibility" because of its poor handling of the scandal of paedophile priests.
The Guardian, 3 April 2010
Dr Rowan Williams said the child sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the Catholic church had been a "colossal trauma" for Ireland in particular.
But a Catholic archbishop and senior Anglican clergy in Ireland rebuked Williams over his comments, contending they were unhelpful and discouraging.
In an interview to be broadcast on Monday, Williams said: "I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it's quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now.
"And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society suddenly losing all credibility – that's not just a problem for the church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland."
Williams's remarks were condemned by one of the most senior Catholics in Ireland, the archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin. "Those working for renewal in the Catholic church in Ireland did not need this comment on this Easter weekend and do not deserve it," he said.
The comments are also likely to fuel the controversy surrounding the pope's visit to Britain in September, when he is expected to talk about moral standards and renew his attack on Britain's equality laws.
A protest the pope petition posted by gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell on the Downing Street website, objecting to the £15m cost of the visit which will be shared by the government and the Catholic church, has already attracted more than 10,000 signatories.
In his interview for BBC Radio 4's Start the Week, to be broadcast on Monday, Williams sounded less than enthused about the pope's visit.
"The pope will be coming here to Lambeth Palace. We'll have the bishops together to meet him. I'm concerned that he has the chance to say what he wants to say in and to British society, that we welcome him as a valued partner and, you know, that's about it."
He also predicted that few Anglicans would take up the pope's offer of conversion to Catholicism.
A spokesman for the Catholic church in Ireland described Williams's remarks as "strong words", and added: "No one denies that the church has both failed and has been damaged."
But Martin, who has called for full accountability in the church over child abuse, rebuked Williams, arguing his comments would discourage those working to address the damage caused by the paedophile scandal.
"The unequivocal and unqualified comment in a radio interview of the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that the Catholic church in Ireland has 'lost all credibility' has stunned me," Martin said.
The comments would be "immensely disheartening" for those Catholics dealing with the child abuse problems and would "challenge their faith even further", he said.
"I have to say that in all my years as archbishop of Dublin in difficult times I have rarely felt personally so discouraged as when I woke to hear archbishop Williams' comments," he added.
The Anglican archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, expressed his support for Martin, describing Williams's comments as regrettable.
He said: "I extend to archbishop Diarmuid Martin my support as he works for the proclamation of the gospel and the healing of hurt, including that of the faithful and their clergy whose ministry has been undermined by those guilty of the abuse of children."
The Anglican bishop of Meath and Kildare, Richard Clarke, branded Williams's remarks as hurtful and reckless.
"Whereas it is clearly true that the Roman Catholic church in this country is facing deep and serious challenges to its authority as a consequence of clerical abuse scandals, this careless and reckless use of language by archbishop Williams is extremely unfortunate.
"It is deeply hurtful to Roman Catholic clergy and laity alike, and indeed to those of other Christian traditions, that such a thoughtless remark should be made by Archbishop Williams," he added. "I hope that he will reflect on his comments, and I deeply regret the hurt that he has caused."
I'd really love to hear Bishop Williamson address this issue. There must be thousands of genuine priests who know what needs to be done. Funny how we never hear from them.
Anyone know who the fuck the Archbishop of Cant is?
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the boss of the Anglican/Episcopal Church worldwide and goes by the name of Rowan Williams.
I don't know whether he is playing a leading role in this sordid pageant or whether this is just a bit part, a little outburst of schadenfreude on his part. Anyway, Protestants in these islands who think that their house is squeaky clean would do well to remember the Kincora scandal from the 1970's.
Here's a bit from Ezra Pound on CHURCH PERIL:
#120 (1941) U.S.(142)
CHURCH PERIL
I am speaking as promised to the students of Fordham, and professors, and other Catholic universities. When I was a young man in America, one heard a good deal of talk about the union of the churches. It was very nice and humanitarian on the surface. And one heard less of a more bizarre proposition, namely, that of Anglo-Israel, all dressed up with the Stone of Scone on which Scotch’s King’s were recrowned, now it is in Westminster Abbey, and about the prophet Isaiah, and the rest of the stage set, “hast given us the gates of thine enemies” and so on. Well, comin’ to Europe I thought nothin’ about either of these movements or drags for the next 30 years and very probably you didn’t either, those of you who are old enough to have heard of the phantasies of the year 1900. But that is not the end of the story. A few weeks ago in London there was a powwow between the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Catholic Archbishop, or Cardinal, and a high Rabbi. And if I were a Catholic, I should want to know more about what that meeting was up to. I should want, quite seriously, to see that conventicle in historic perspective. That perspective is very clearly outlined, or indicated in a book called La Sibille, by Zielinski, a Polish writer who seems to me to be imbued with sincere piety. But who sees Judaism in direct contrast, spiritual, theological contrast, with the Christian faith.
Many other writers have written on the gift of earlier Mediterranean philosophers to the developments of the Church dogma. Zielinski calls this the MATERIAL influence of Hellenism on Christianity. But he takes what is, to me at least, a new angle of analysis. He speaks of the psychologic preparation for Christianity that was there in the Greek and Roman religions, both the religion of Delphi, that is of the cult of Apollo and in that of Ceres Demeter, Mater Dolorosa, and in less degree in some of the more— —cults.
Few of us know that the Mithraic religion identified their saviour with Love. As in the gospels we read: God is love, so in Mithraic worship, or in at least one praise of Mithra, we find the same words: is Love; Mithra is love.
Zielinski offers a fairly complete list of prototypes, of the essentially Catholic beliefs, I say essentially Catholic because they are quite patently NON-Jewish, and ANTI-Jewish, and they are specifically the features of Catholicism which Protestantism has wiped out.
I think you should consider these things. The Jews do not honor the Virgin, they do not honor the Mother of God in any form. Neither do the Protestants. Mother Mary gets a look in at Christmas, that is, on the anniversary of our Lord’s birth, on about the same footing as the Sheperds and Magi, just as the Catholic Church notices the Semitic period once a year in the prayer for the perfidious Jews on the anniversary of the crucifixion.
And Zielinski’s term for Protestantism is “REJEWdiazed religion.” But I am not so much intent on the theology as on the immediate ecclesiastical polity of the enemies of faith. He points out, I think uncontradictably, that the people who got converted to Christianity in the early centuries were, as Zielinski points out, the pagans, and the people who most pertinaciously opposed the new religion of Christianity were the Jews. Various attempts at syncretism preceded the Conversion of Constantine, and the formulation of the Catholic or general church and emperors of other empires had felt the need of a single religion for all their people. The Tarquins were converted to Apollo, there was a fusion of Delphi with the Persians, Ptolemy First wanted a single cult for his subjects, and Seleukos held out against Ptolemy and Lysimacus. In short, there is nothing essentially new in an emperor’s wanting a synthetic and inclusive religion for political ends.
And remains of these syncretisms persist in great beauty in Christian ritual, and in the Catholic disposition. Isis, Demter Mary, the fans in the Easter Mass at Siena. The Greek church held out against Rome in calling itself orthodox and not the General Church. The Greeks by that time were not a people ruling an empire. Given the Roman empire there was a political need of a general or universal religion for the whole empire, which claimed more or less to be the circle of lands, the whole world.
As to the seriousness of the Anglican church, Brooks Adams sums that up fairly completely when he remarks with perfect accuracy, the relation of Christ’s blood and body to the bread of the sacrament was changed five times in the course of a life time, by royal decree or act of Parliament.
The Brits are a theatrical and not a religious people. And the last meeting in London was not wholly religious in nature. The Anglican church is a national church. The Church of Rome was an imperial church at the outset. A Protestant sect is by definition cut off from universality. But today we are faced by a new INTERNATIONAL empire, a new tyranny, that hates and bleeds the whole world. I refer to the empire of international usury, that knows no faith and no frontiers. It is called international finance, and the Jew and the Archbishop in London are at work for that tyranny trying to draft a universal religion in defense of the infamy of the usurers. It is DEMOCRATIC in principles and I think the Catholic representative is ill-advised to put his head into the noose. As a democratic and usurious combine, the Catholic is in a minority of ONE against TWO. He will always be outvoted, and I can not see that this conduces to Catholic welfare. A universal church of the usurers would be very poor substitute for religion.
The collection of Pound's radio broadcasts is available with other texts at http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/