Creideamh

I realise I am behind the curve that would have made this relevant but a few weeks ago I stumbled across the sermon that Karl Barth preached the Sunday after the Titanic sunk. This was 1912, almost a decade before the 2nd edition of Barth’s Commentary on Romans dropped a bomb on theology. This was the 26 year old Barth preaching to the congregation who was just getting to know him. This is the liberal Barth, before he discovered the strange new world inside the Bible. He later called it a “monstrous sermon” and he probably wasn’t exaggerating. And yet I don’t think I am imagining it when I find fascinating pointers to what he would later discover already in this text. There is one strand that I think is very interesting, where he writes about the economic motivation that led to the tragedy. He writes:

It is entirely God’s will that the world’s technology and machinery attain to higher degrees of perfection. For technology is nothing other than mastery over nature, it is labour, and the divine spirit in humanity ought to expand in his labour and prosper. If people do not invent things, or if they did not wish to make proper use of thing that have been invented, that would be the work of the devil.

So there is no space for Ludditism. But there is another hand (dialectic is obviously his method here):

There is a way of using technology that cannot be called labour any more, but playful arrogance.

This, in the mind of young Barth, is what happened with the Titanic.

It is true that God set the iceberg on its course, but no one was compelled to get in its way.

All the “intellectual brilliance” and “diligent hard work” that went into building the ship was undone by the pride and money-lust of the ship line owners who sought to break records to generate publicity. There was “one faulty link” which was that:

the captain did not just have the safety of his passengers to think about, but also, principally, the commission he had been given by the shareholders who were employing him, to break the speed record.

Of the president of the company who “made this a fragile chain” out of their desire for praise and profit, Barth goes out of his way to be blunt. He who “was also travelling on the Titanic and is among those who have been rescued – unfortunately, we are almost tempted to say”!

Fundamentally, Barth is able to declare that the loss of these many lives is “a crime of capitalism.”

He goes on:

But ultimately not even this shipping company bears all the guilt for this disaster, but first and foremost he system of acquisition by which thousands of companies like this one are getting rich today, not only through shipping but across the whole spectrum of human labour.

Do you know any preacher that brave today? Or congregations so foolish they’ll listen to sermons that make no pretence of discussing the actual passage (which was Psalm 103)?

Your Correspondent, Starting to see why Barth was nicknamed “The Red Pastor”

If you encounter me during the week as I walk about my business I inevitably am wearing two ugly white earphones. If I am smiling that is because I am listening to This American Life and Comedy Bang Bang. But if it looks like I am furiously thinking or close to tears it is because I am listening to the sermons that Tim Keller or Trevor Morrow preached the previous week.

Each week I listen to Keller it is a masterclass in preachifying. The man is simply peerless. And the sermon from two Sundays ago, on a part of the sermon on the mount was yet another contender for the best message I have ever heard. In just over thirty minutes he floored me repeatedly with his exegesis and his examples and his applications. But he masterfully utilised Luther and Calvin to support his point (that God doesn’t split the world into the religious and irreligious but looks instead for people whose heart motivation is driven out of grace) and I wanted to share the quotes (if only to be able to reference them again).

Keller told us how Luther advised us in his Preface to his Commentary on Galatians to speak this to ourselves when we feel trapped by a legalistic mentality:

Law, you would climb up into the kingdom of my conscience, and reign and condemn me and drive me to desperation. You have over-stepped your bounds! You are a guide for my actions but the Gospel, Jesus, is my righteousness and everlasting life; not you. So trouble me not! I will not allow you to reign in my conscience which is now the seat and temple of Christ my sweet Savior and Mediator. He shall keep my conscience joyful and quiet in the knowledge of my righteousness in Him.

And then Keller quoted from a preface Calvin wrote for a translation of the French New Testament:

Without the gospel everything is useless and vain; without the gospel we are not Christians; without the gospel all riches is poverty, all wisdom folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God. But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinner justified, the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free. It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe.

Fellow townsmen with the saints. Brothers of Christ through whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free… those joyless puritanical Calvinists do seem to have a different set of priorities from what you’d imagine from popular culture’s depiction of them.

But he goes on.

Oh we can thank God he goes on:

It follows that every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone. For, he was sold, to buy us back; captive, to deliver us; condemned, to absolve us; he was made a curse for our blessing, sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair; he died for our life; so that by him fury is made gentle, wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal despised, debt canceled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subjected, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered, assaults assailed, force forced back, combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss, hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal. In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune.

War is warred against as mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune!

With such powerful articulation of the truth, you start to see why 6 million Frenchies converted under the preaching out of Geneva.

Your Correspondent, Cool as Kim Deal

Yesterday there was an editorial in the *cough* paper of record *cough* that was so bad it made my recipe for turnip and pritt-stick cookies seem like an excellent thing to read. It was written by a fellow who I presume is very lovely called David Robert Grimes and one can assume that the headline was not his work. “Evil, militant anti-Christian secularism is simply a myth” sets the alarm bells ringing. Whose evil? Which secularism?

In the first major paragraph, we read:

“militant secularism” makes as much logical sense as “aggressive pacifism” or “hardline tolerance”

I am a relative newcomer to the non-violent camp but I find I have to be very forceful whenever my pacifism becomes a topic of conversation. I may not be a Frenchman, but I think “Hardline Tolerance” would be an excellent title for a book on recent issues in that nation.

The concept of secularism is separation of church and state; one has the right to practise whichever religion one likes but not to have their particular belief mandated for others, nor the right to impose their viewpoint.

That is one model of secularism. (A model which comes in at least two forms since the secularism of France is very different from that of America.) Sweden is a secular state many people in Ireland would aspire to be like but the Lutheran Church plays a considerable formal role in that State’s activity. The same holds for Germany and Britain.

Grimes goes on to say “Secularism is a relatively recent development for Ireland”. On one hand, I get what he is saying and we must make allowances for the fact that he only has a few hundred words. But then again:

The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

That sounds like secularism. But it is from the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. Interestingly, the call begins: “Irishmen and Irishwomen: In the name of God…”

So we can suggest a re-write and propose: “Secularism is relatively old and complexly developed idea in Irish society.”

The bit that got me the most was Grimes’ claim that when Michelle Mulherin talked about fornication in the Dáil “she dragged religion into a human rights issue.” This is a “jarring but common practice.” Mulherin’s speech was many things including internally confused and poorly phrased but it certainly wasn’t an articulation against secularisation. Its religious logic seemed more heavily inspired by free church evangelical Christian thought than anything remotely Roman Catholic. Very little of the comment, even in the published press, about Mulherin’s speech evidenced engagement with what she actually said. I am not suggesting that what she said was worthy of much attention! But if we are going to quote her as an example of some primitive throwback religiosity, then at least make sure she is an example of such.

Also, no serious engagement with a concept as abstract as “human rights” can be discussed independently of religious concepts. Historically, rights discourse arose directly out of theological language and still assumes metaphysical structures drawn from the three Middle-Eastern monotheisms.

Grimes’ next paragraph begins, “On matters of society and science, religious belief should not even be a consideration.” Few in Ireland would disagree. We are mercifully untroubled by Creation Science or any other similar movements. So what is Grimes referencing? “Stem cell research, gay marriage and abortion rights are just some of the issues where frank discussion is clouded by often misinformed religious objections.”

Religious influence is not exerted on the actual research surrounding stem cells but is rightly at play in conversations about the ethical frameworks we will implement in this State so as to encourage flourishing. So Christians (almost entirely Catholics) are consulted as laws are drawn up but their input is as appropriate as that of non-religious moral philosophers who will cite Aristotle or Martha Nussbaum.

Abortion rights is not a matter of society and science. I am reliably informed that we knew how to perform abortions before modern science. It is a matter of society and ethics which naturally is not opposed to either scientific or religious input, if well-placed.

Gay marriage is not a scientific issue.

(Add that last paragraph to the file “Sentences no one should ever have to write.”)

Grimes continues:

If Ireland was a truly secular society, a TD would have zero interest in sin and every interest in solving the actual problem at hand without reference to religious belief.

As a man who advocates consistently for increased secularisation, I pose Grimes a problem. He either has to kick me out of his secularisation gang or he has to recognise that secularism is not against religion. I do have an interest in sin. I think anyone seeking to protest the bailout, the treatment of asylum seekers or the care of children in this State would be at a severe disadvantage if they couldn’t use the cognates of sin when they debate things. And that is not even dealing with the fact that Grimes’ blunt suggestions are so ill-formed that he effectively would mean Irish political discourse would have no space for Presbyterians or Mennonites or Muslims or anyone else with thick religious convictions.

Then we have some Census statistics. But at the same time “numbers don’t matter.”

About half way in Grimes starts saying something I really do agree with. He brings up the recent writings of John Waters. I had initially intended to parody Grimes’ opinion piece by writing in the equivalent tone of nuance-denying, self-righteous ignorance from a religious perspective. It turns out, John Waters had already done it, but in earnest.

But Grimes loses my support entirely by then describing religious instruction in our schools as “religious indoctrination.” He is apparently unfamiliar with the curricula in Irish schools.

And then we descend into the true depths:

In any case, I find it strange that some would see existence as pointless if it is not preordained and controlled by a curiously anthropomorphic higher power. Surely our existence on this wonderful planet, rife with staggering beauty and steeped in discovery is incredible – regardless of how we got here. Why denigrate all life just because it mightn’t have begun as described in a Stone Age tome?

Everything is wrong. Finding other people’s beliefs strange is inevitable. But to quote Grimes, “just because a notion is unsettling to some does not mean it lacks veracity.” I don’t want to suggest that Grimes is actually describing any belief held by religious people in Ireland. His paragraph is as accurate an account of religious belief as a scarecrow I build in a field is a portrait of Darwin on the Galapagos.

His next paragraph is spot-on, taken on its own.

There is a related fallacy in the form of a mantra which states that those without religion must be without ethics; this is bunk. Ethics exist independently of religion. The Catholic church staking a claim on morality ranks as an act of ultimate hypocrisy in light of the sexual, emotional and psychological abuse they facilitated for decades. If religion alone made us “good” this never would have occurred.

But then he destroys it all again.

Belief in the existence of a vindictive, jealous Sky God with an unhealthy fixation on the customs and sex lives of his creations is one I find unsettling, but yet I would defend anyone’s right to believe in that entity.

Let me be clear. This is not a description of what Christians believe, formally or in popular devotion. This is not an argument. This is just a set of words reminiscent of internet-atheist tracts of the last decade that has very little semantic substance. Offering to defend someone’s right to believe in that entity is as pointless as offering to defend my right to play football on ice-skates. Your virtue will never be tested.

Since those people don’t exist, their beliefs can be afforded all kinds of “special treatment” over beliefs that I hold or that Grimes holds. Let’s grant anyone who believes in the vindictive-jealous-Sky-Goddery the right to turn iron ore into gold and pornography into chocolate bunnies! Since these folk don’t exist, we can grant them any claims we like. Or we can move on and discuss the views that people actually do hold and hold dear.

I do not want to be harsh on Grimes. The central conviction of the piece is spot-on. “The truth is that there is no evil secularist movement hell-bent on depriving Christians of their rights.” Amen and amen! I agree! I also agree with secularism! I also recognise that this kind of sillyness is the natural and inevitable response to the rights-speech of Waters and his ilk.

Christianity and secularism are not foes. They are not logically opposed to each other. But many of my atheist friends seem to think they are. Many of my Christian friends seem to think they are. I have theology lecturers who cite “increasing secularisation” as a synonym for “not believing in God”. We have an editorial in today’s Irish Times as bad again that compares secularists to fundamentalists as the two extreme points on a spectrum (where presumably Catholicism is the perfect balance). Now I also have atheist commentators in the press talking about how secularism would remove speech about sin from our public square. What’s a Presbyterian to do?

Why is Ireland so stupid about religion?

Your Correspondent, Dropping science like when Galileo dropped the orange

There is a scene before the plot really kicks into action, in this novel set in an information-saturated not-too-distant future where one character, seemingly shallow beyond description, toasts the pregnancy of his friends:

“I think they are the only people who should be giving birth, the only peeps qualified to pop one out.”

“Right on!” we call-and-responded.

“The only peeps sure of themselves enough so that, come what may, the child will be loved and cared for and sheltered. Because they’re good people. I know folks say that a lot – ‘They’re good peeps, yo’ – but there’s the kind of plastic good, the kind of easy ‘good’ any of us can generate, and then there’s this other, deep thing that is so hard for us to find anymore. Consistency. Day-to-day. Moving on. Taking stock. Never exploding. Channeling it all, that anger, that huge anger about what’s happened to us as a people, channeling it into whatever-the-fuck. Keeping it away from children, that’s all I’m going to say.”

It is a novel about how we know that we don’t know what we’ve lost. Or maybe lost isn’t the right term because we know our memory of what we had isn’t reliable so it is about how we know that we don’t know what is missing.

Your Correspondent, Has escaped the anxiety of theological influence by never stepping foot inside a church

Contra Declan, I declare this to be the action movie of the year and a smashingly excellent film that features the scariest space ships of all time.

Your Correspondent, Likes Scarlett a whole lot.

There has been much in the news in Ireland this week about how dreadful and preposterous a thing Canon Law is. And indeed, much harm has been caused under the illusion of fulfilling Canon Law but pretty much every time any journalist has mentioned it, they have demonstrated profound ignorance of what it is (and what it says).

I am not an expert in Canon Law. I am a barely-passing student of Canon Law. I never wanted to know about Canon Law. I definitely never wanted to be a student of Canon Law. When Martin Luther got the Reformation party started he burned the Canon Law texts. On December 19 1520 he piled together all the books of Canon Law in the library at Wittenburg and set fire to them. Explaining his actions, he complained of church leaders who “constantly exalt their own ordinances above the commands of God” and that in all the pages of rules, Canonists had managed to “say nothing about Christ.” I deeply empathise with him on this position.

Studying Canon Law is fiendlishly difficult because my brain is allergic to it. It is spiritually and emotionally agitating to begin the day reading the parables and spend the rest of it reading Canons. One instinctively reacts against a system that codifies church practice into 1752 laws. This doesn’t square with the Gospel.

One can legitimately suggest this week that Canon Law does not encourage justice, compassion or even the effective functioning of the church. But having just submitted what I hope is my final Canon Law essay and having finished my final lecture of Canon Law yesterday, I do want to introduce you to one section that at least might demonstrate why people ended up trusting so fully in it.

In Chapter III of Title III of Part I of Book II of Canon Law (see what I mean?!), we find a short section entitled: “The Obligations and Rights of Clerics“.

Evangelical Christianity is often hit by scandals as well. They don’t tend to take the form of violent abuse of children but they do tend to centre around the misconduct of our leaders. But Canons 273 through to 289 lay out what would be a pretty good guideline for how Christian leaders are meant to conduct themselves.

I naturally disagree with Canon 273, that clerics have “a special obligation to show reverence and obedience to the Supreme Pontiff.” Every bone in my Reformed body says “NEIN!” to that proposition. But then it starts getting good fast. Canon 274 suggests that there are jobs set aside that only clerics can do and these jobs they must do. In my setting, I can say the same is true of ministers and elders.

Canon 275 is really quite beautiful:

Since all clerics are working for the same purpose, namely the building up of the body of Christ, they are to be united with one another in the bond of brotherhood and prayer. They are to seek to cooperate with one another, in accordance with the provisions of particular law.

I bet you didn’t expect such lovely, relational and spiritual language to be found in Canon Law? Or at least you wouldn’t expect that if you were relying on Irish media for your impressions. 276 says that clerics have an obligation “to seek holiness in their lives” and they do this in part by nourishing their spiritual life through sacred Scripture and Eucharist and to pray according to the ancient tradition of Daily Hours. In a move that could be fruitfully written into every job description in the evangelical church, “they are also obliged to make spiritual retreats.”

Canon 277 is specifically about their celibacy but it begins by challenging them to “perfect and perpetual continence.” Whether married or single, this is our challenge as well. Canon 278 encourages priests to form groups, initiatives and associations that serve their work and also they are to refrain from joining associations that cannot be reconciled with their obligations. In other words, you should join that ecumenical prayer group and you should not subscribe to pornography websites.

Canon 279 says that clerics should continue their study after ordination. They should “avoid profane novelties and pseudo-science.” Your church leaders should be adding to their qualifications. Your church leaders should not encourage you to visit a reiki healer or to take coffee enemas. They are to attend “pastoral conferences”, “theological meetings” and other occasions that allow them to “acquire further knowledge of the sacred sciences.” Section three of 279 says something very interesting that we definitely don’t have in the evangelical world: “They are also to seek a knowledge of other sciences.”

Canon 280 suggests they live in community. Canon 281 says they should be paid a living wage, be covered in case of illness or other hindrance and have pensions provided for them. The American evangelical church especially fails on this issue. But at the same time, Canon 281 says that clerics are “to follow a simple way of life and avoid anything that smacks of worldliness.” Does that mean I probably shouldn’t be adding an iPad 3 to my list of things that “I really need to perform my ministry”?

Canon 283 says they should live where they work but they should still take holidays (four weeks a year). Canon 284 is one that doesn’t apply to us, advising clerics to wear suitable ecclesiastical dress (one presumes that means sackcloth and ashes at the moment?).

Canon 285 says that clerics should “shun completely” that which is unbecoming and “foreign to their state even if it is not unseemly”. So while it isn’t wrong to join a political party, priests shouldn’t do it. If you think I am reading my own biases into the code, check out section three of this clause: “Clerics are forbidden to assume public office whenever it means sharing in the exercise of civil power.” They are forbidden to handle secular finances, to trade, to pursue personal profit and instead are called to “always to do their utmost to foster among people peace and harmony based on justice.”

Finally, canon 289 says that “military service ill befits the clerical state.”

There is much of worth here, much to learn from and not a whole lot anyone could disagree with. The Canon Law is an ancient and highly evolved text that on its own deserves merit as a considerable intellectual wonder. That is not to suggest I agree with it (or even the idea of a canon as such) but it should counteract the sense in which Canon Law is seemingly becoming a codeword for “maze-like fantasy-fortress in which members of the Catholic hierarchy think they can retreat from reality.”

The willful ignorance displayed in the actions of Cardinal Brady cannot be overcome with ignorance on behalf of his opponents. Defences composed of empty words cannot be overcome by more empty words. If you want to go after those who say they are following Canon Law, the least you can do is have a sense of what it actually is.

Your Correspondent, On the bright side, black hell does have a jukebox

Yesterday I wrote about how the Presbyterian Church might respond to the abuse scandal that continues to horrifically unfurl in the Irish church.

Something occurred to me that I should have written. We need to be thankful for female leaders. Without wanting to support any rigid ideological position about what gender is, it seems clear to me that female elders and female ministers create the possibility for a different culture in our church.

This is not to be mis-read as a pragmatic argument in favour of women in leadership. I am convinced that argument is entirely sound on Biblical grounds, historical grounds and the reality of women gifted by the Holy Spirit. What I do want to put on record is that if women had been in the room at these depositions taken from teenaged boys who had been the victims of abuse, women with gifting, training and authority, then the story would have gone in a very different, much more positive and just direction.

It is one more feature of our denomination’s structures that is worthy of appreciation and acknowledgment. It is not that women are better than men. It is that men and women together are better than men alone. I think the recent history of Christianity in Ireland should demonstrate that we need to appreciate this and maintain it.

Your Correspondent, Is officially disapproving of you

Introduction
The readership of this blog is basically my friends or the cousins of my friends. Since I work for the Presbyterian Church I have an inordinate number of friends who are ministers, youth workers, students for the ministry, elders, people who will soon become elders and other committed members of Presbyterian congregations around Ireland.

I want to write a post that is addressed to them. I am very happy for this to be passed around.

The abuse scandals in the Catholic Church are a cause of great heartache to me. The worst thing a priest ever did to me was give out to me when my altar serving wasn’t up to his standards. He humiliated me in front of my friends and I never returned to serving the altar again and it undoubtedly fed into my alienation from the church but I have mostly encountered priests who are inspiring men who can teach me much about being a Christian.

It has become painfully clear that my experience was not shared by thousands of boys and girls who were systematically devastated by horrendous physical and sexual abuse at the hands of clerics and religious. I have written about this on this blog for almost ten years. It fills me with shame that Irish Christians allowed this to develop and continue. It is a theological problem for me because I don’t know if one can repent on behalf of another even though I desperately wish I could. It is a missional problem because the reality is that this abuse will make it immensely difficult to speak with any authority about the gentle love of God in this land for many decades. But fundamentally it is a human problem that lays bare a profound violence and immorality that was rampant in our society (and is not that far from the surface even today).

The This World documentary aired last night by BBC Northern Ireland was not a surprise but it was a shock. The kind of mulch offered up by Cardinal Brady in the aftermath of that programme’s airing last night has caused me much unrest this afternoon. I wanted to write about what I think this means for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, in part as a means to simply render constructive the feelings I am mired in.

1. This Is An Ecumenical Matter.

There is an iconic scene in Fr. Ted where Fr. Jack is painfully trained to answer all questions from a hierarchical superior with the phrase: “That would be an ecumenical matter.”

Presbyterians believe in the Catholic Church, we just think it needs to be reformed. In the face of the scandals we must avoid all moves towards sectarian self-satisfaction. We after all, are in no place to cast stones when it comes to having dreadful impacts on Irish society.

Ecumenics is a fraught idea. It makes us worry that we’re about to sell the Reformation down the river Tiber and dilute the truth of the Gospel for the sake of the appearance of agreement. The Reformation isn’t over but ecumenics needs to really get going when it comes to the abuse scandal. We must not distance ourselves from our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church. We must re-emphasise the need for Christians on the ground in the towns and villages of Ireland to get together in prayer. We can’t share communion, we can’t do mission together but we can read the Scriptures and pray. This we must do.

There is never time for ecclesial triumphalism. Now especially is not the time to score points. This is a generation when we must sacrificially love our Roman brethren, priests and lay people, as they seek to relocate what they are about.

An action to consider: How can you personally be a source of Gospel encouragement to your Catholic friends as they struggle with the response to these revelations?

2. This Is A Time For Child-Protection.
The PCI has a robust set of policies around child protection and quite brilliant staff dedicated to its implementation. The way we most commonly experience the Taking Care Initiative is in our ongoing training sessions. Whenever the time comes round to do the child protection training I see people roll their eyes. I do it myself. “We’ve done it all before!”, I think. “What more can I learn?”

There are good pedagogical reasons for forcing us to keep going over the territory of best practice in this area but this is also crucially important because it sets the tone of our corporate culture. We are aware of the dangers because of the current media flurry but Taking Care allows us to always stay on our toes about responding quickly and fully when accusations are made or suspicions raised. We must be enthusiastic proponents of Taking Care.

I know in my church there is a touch of exhaustion about getting Garda clearance approval. We all realise that just because someone doesn’t have previous convictions, it doesn’t follow they are safe to care for our children. But it does mean that we can identify those who are certainly not safe! And the problem is largely legislative and/or based on the Gardaí’s inactivity. That means we should not just be enthusiastic and committed practitioners of Taking Care but we should be lobbying and arguing for better tracking and more refined systems from the civic authorities.

An action to consider: How certain are you that your congregation is up to speed on all aspects of Taking Care? What do you need to do to know it is meeting all requirements in letter and in spirit?

3. This Is A Time To Be Thankful For Our Dreaded Presbyterian Structures

There are many complex reasons why a similar scandal didn’t happen in our tradition and few of them are because we are naturally amazing and brilliant as people or as an institution. However, the relatively flat structure of our denomination and the accountability of our democratic governance make it hard to even imagine the continued presence of repeat offenders in our midst.

The fact that congregations call their ministers and that no one is ever under the authority of just one other individual means that there are built-in feedback loops that allow us to react decisively if one of our number turns out to be a wolf. We should be cognizant of this and thankful for it.

But it requires vigilance. Cardinal Brady is most disappointing to me in his insistence that he did his duty. He fulfilled his remit. He completed the job he was assigned. This is all true, all irrelevant and all deplorably sub-Christian. We must be willing to confront others, in love and in truth to make sure that justice is being done.

We won’t suddenly magic up the moral backbone to call a superior (whether in our home congregation or in the wider denomination) to task if we are suddenly confronted with suspicions about negligence. We must habitually be practicing the Christian skill of confrontation in the day to day of life to be ready to intervene when much is at stake.

Conflict is a Gospel issue: both how we do and that we do it. We are not bound by the hierarchical culture that caused Cardinal Brady such moral confusion. But structures won’t save us. We individually must be fast to speak up for those who don’t have voices.

Lest we get caught up in how subtle and sensitive a skill this is, let’s cut to the chase: our job is simply to tell the truth in love. If a question arises, we do justice to it by speaking it truthfully. Speaking the truth in love does not mean alluding to the truth in such a way that no one gets offended. It means speaking the truth in a gentle fashion that is humbly aware that you could be wrong regardless of who is offended!

Marilynne Robinson has been preaching some variation of this everytime she speaks in public this year. May it become a slogan we can own:

The only obligation I recognize is to say what I believe to be true and to say it with kindness.

An action to consider: Habitually pray for your leaders but also pray daily that God would cultivate a courageous commitment to truth, especially when it has to be fought for, in your own life.

Conclusion
The churches of Ireland have much to repent of. The scandalous state of our legacy can only be grasped if we are living out of grace. Otherwise, desperation and an endless depression on the one hand or refusal to face up to just how seriously we have fucked up on the other would be the only possible responses. I don’t mean to step out of line and tell other people how to live. But I do want to suggest that there are things we can helpfully do to improve the situation now, to ensure that children in our midst are protected now and that we can have safer and more transparent and accountable church communities in the future.

Your Correspondent, Go ahead. Make fun of the super handsome guy who belived too much.

“Ireland is in uproar”. Allegedly. Did you notice? I look out my window and see a tranquil suburban scene and there is nothing on the radio warning me about going into the city this evening. According to an American blog, we’re in uproar, not over the Austerity Treaty (vote no!) but over a protest by Catholic priests against reporting child abuse.

That paragraph doesn’t scan right not simply because I am a crappy writer but because its all bullshit.

Last week the Justice minister did indeed publish the Criminal Justice Act and he did restate previous declarations that the laws on mandatory reporting would have no exceptions for abuses reported during acts of the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation. In America, land of crazies, that prompted the following tweet:

So let’s clear up a few things.

1. Can Priests Report What They Hear In Confession?

No.

In no circumstances.

Code 983 of the 1983 Canon Law of the Catholic Church states (in §1):

The sacramental seal is inviolable. Accordingly, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other fashion.

What this means is that if the situation arose where a court, using a law like the Criminal Justice Bill, sought to coerce a priest to divulge reports of abuse made in the confessional, the priest is trained to keep quiet and merrily serve his time in prison for contempt, or indeed the five years proposed as a punishment for those who don’t report. So when some people, suggest that this law proves that state law is superior to canon law, all they are proving is that they don’t know what the Catholic Church is or how it understands itself.

2. What Does This Law Do Then?

This law gives the State a firm foundation to prosecute anyone who withholds information about abuse. Fullstop. It is a shame on our society that we are still having such conversations.

3. So That Means We Can Prosecute Priests Who Don’t Report What They Hear In Confession?

No.

Priests do not know enough about the person they are receiving confession from to serve as viable witnesses in serious trials. The simple brute fact of Irish church architecture renders such witness, even if it were forthcoming, highly dubious.

4. So What’s The Fuss About This Law?

There is no war against Catholicism in Ireland and nor can wars “crest”. But there is a political conversation in Ireland about the decades of abuse that doesn’t engage with the reality of the systemic nature of violence that plagued thousands of Irish young people. The Catholic Church was complicit and active in this abuse. They have not sufficiently repented, socially, culturally or juridically for the crimes committed under their watch.

Yet for every case of abuse in a public institution run by the Catholic Church, we have not considered the most pertinent sociological factor- they were public institutions. Schools, orphanages and hospitals were run by the church on behalf of the State. The State was complicit and indeed active in the abuse as well. Society was complicit and active in the toleration of a general culture of deference to authority, out-sourcing of personal ethics to religious codes and the sheer fact of common-place violence enacted in everyday life, by adults against children, by adults against other adults and inevitably, amongst children.

By centering the conversation about child protection on the idea of tracking down priests with tight-lips, we avoid the conversation about how State and society have failed (and continue to fail) to protect young people in our nation. (Plus, it sells newspapers.)

5. But It’s Still Immoral To Withhold Information Garnered In Confession, Right?

Wrong.

Imagine I confess my sin to Fr. Christopher. The following week we are having lunch together in my house. We are alone. Fr. Christopher is not entitled to say, “Hey Kevin, remember that rampant adultery you mentioned last week… I have a friend you could talk to to get help for that.” The priest is trained to ask for explicit permission to even discuss the issue with me, face-to-face, at this time. (Let us presume that my lisp is a give away that allows the priest to identify me!) It is not sufficient that only the two of us are involved. The theological weight of the beliefs related to the Sacrament of Reconciliation place a burden on the priest, in his priestly duties, to respect the secrecy of the confession in all cases at all times. The priest can ask permission to share the confession, with a counsellor say, a doctor perhaps, even the police; but they can never have a conversation with me or anyone else about my confession without my permission.

This is a good thing.

Even if you are not a Christian, you want to live in a society where Catholics can practice their faith and this is a key aspect of being Catholic. It has officially been this way for over a thousand years. The Irish minister for Justice might be a grand lad altogether, but he ought not to have the power to change such practices. When serious and heinous crimes are confessed in that booth, we ought not to make that space public because of special circumstances. The existence of special circumstances renders that darkened room fit for its purpose. You might not believe that there is a God or sin and therefore no reconciliation needed but even from that stance you can recognise the psychological health of having space where people can speak of their violence and mistakes and sin, secure in the fact that the one listening is trustworthy.

There is no evidence that breaking the seal of confession would have made any difference to the abuse scandals that beset our nation. Breaking the collusion between church hierarchies and state hierarchies would make a difference. Secularism in the positive and constructive sense should recognise that going after red herrings like this is pointless politicking.

When politicking over protecting children from abuse, one is not in a position to call others immoral.

I believe as a Christian, that there is a third person involved in the act of Reconciliation. I believe as someone in favour of increased secularisation that the State, which ought to be agnostic on the existence of that third person is not well served legislating in His place.

Stop the bullshit. Go after the places where actual travesties occurred. Leave spaces where religion can be practiced even if (especially if) you don’t agree with it.

Your Correspondent, Wants you all to know you’re his subordifriends

I hugely enjoyed Talal Asad’s Formations Of The Secular, which Eoin O’Mahony has been pressing into my hands since I first met him. It is a worthy ally to Taylor’s A Secular Age. It is one of those books that I suspect I must carefully re-read because even taking close notes, I reckon I got about 30% of what was on offer.

It is probably bad form to use as a quote, something that he quotes but I’ll do it anyway. Footnote 65 on page 47 lets us into a brilliant conversation Asad begins. When I talk with people about secularism, the Christian usually thinks it is about politically laying the ground for mass persecutions to follow and the non-Christian usually thinks it is about fostering reasonable conversation and secure freedom in the face of faith-based irrationalism. Cutting through this shite, Asad asks us (as one of many perplexing and illuminating questions) instead to consider whether pain has a meaning or not. Secularism won the day not when it drove prayer out of schools but when it stripped our owies of certain kinds of metaphysical explanations. Thus:

Their pain became totally secular since pain as well as illness were seen as nature’s punishment for omissions in one’s regimen, while mental illness was perceived as a sign of conflict between the demands of each individual character and the constraints of the social order; this interpretation called for a fundamental social reorganization when its standards (chastity in particular) went against nature. This explains why, as a leitmotiv, the physician of the Enlightenment maintained that in order to be a good moralist, one must first be a good physician, thus reversing the traditional relationship between medicine and morality.

- Roselyne Rey, The History of Pain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 107.

Your Correspondent, Is off home to think of a lie