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Eamon McCarthy tells his story
From BASIC Newsletter, 19 January 2000, pp. 26 - 31.
B.A.S.I.C., Saint Francois,
Avoca Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin; with permission of the author and the
publisher.
In
1970, for the first time in several hundred years, a Catholic Chaplain was
appointed to Trinity College Dublin. Arrangements worked on between the Board
of TCD represented by its then Provost, the late Albert McConnell and Dublin
Diocese in the person of the then Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, saw Fr
Brendan Heffernan appointed to take on the post of Roman Catholic Chaplain at
the beginning of the Academic Year of 1970.
In
1973, after spending six years as priest teacher in the technical Institute in
Ringsend I was asked to join Brendan in TCD to bring the RC Chaplaincy staff to
two. That November witnessed the beginning of the shared use of the College
Chapel. when the Church of Ireland generously made it available to us for use.
It
was towads the summer of 1974 that I first met Soline Vatinel, a young French
student. who was part of the RC worshipping community in College. It was
sometime later that year or early in 1975 that I first heard her say that she
had a sense of vocation to priesthood. For me, to hear that, in a Church that
had Dermot Ryan as a relatively newly appointed Archbishop and in a world
Church that was full of the promise of Vatican II but still in a ‘not
quite yet’ mode, it presented a problem or two. Mind you, literature on
the subject then was available and came in a way that hinted at exploration of
possibilities, in sharp contrast to the total closure attitude of today’s
leaders, but in practical terms it became a question of listening and
accompanying and supporting a calling that seemed very genuine and so deserving
of such support.
Applying for a sabbatical in June of 1997 and being granted it, commencing in
August 1998, the opportunity to look across the path of life that had been mine
was available. It occurred to me that just about now marked twenty-five years
since first hearing that call expressed by Soline, years that were marked,
firstly by no great enthusiasm on the part of thc Church to listen to her
calling; .later, by her marriage to Colm Holmes in 1980, the birth of sons
Killian in 1982 and Jonathan in 1984 and a very strong resurgence of her
calling to priesthood in 1990. Since then, much work has gone into trying to
discern the genuineness of that call and to both support it and the known call
in other women, particularly through the establishment of Brothers and Sisters
in Christ (BASIC), launched in 1993.
My
honest and considered response has been and is: that were Soline to be male and
celibate, any diocese would be very proud to recommend that her vocation would
be tested through admission to a seminary and its courses of formation and
study. And so, as a result of trying to pray out of the circumstances of life
that are mine, I was moved to write to the Archbishop of Dublin, and my
archbishop, Desmond Connell, outlining that I would have to recommend that due
consideration would be given her call and that I was asking him to say as much
to leadership in Rome so that the reality of what the Spirit of God was doing
in people’s lives in the diocese of Dublin could be made known there, out
of which discernment could be validly made. (It does strke me that, if. at the
very least through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the Church claims
that the Spirit is given us, then the most modest courtesy ought to be that
leadership would listen to what the Spirit is saying in the lives of people ).
Being
at an age when the office of Parish Priest could possibly come one’ s way,
it happened that this summer, the lot was about to fall on me. .. but it posed
a problem for the Archbishop. The terms of appointment include an oath that one
would be true to the current ‘de fide’ package, which this year has
added to it ( it would appear by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), the item that
‘Ordination is to be reserved to men alone’. As my written
recommendation to the Archbishop in relation to Soline would seem to have
indicated a different and opposing stance, I was invited by the Archbishop to
reflect on my position and was given time to pray and return my decision. I
replied, some days later, that I respected the Archbishop’s conscience on
this matter, but that I would not be in a position to take such an oath. That,
of course, has closed the offer that was about to come my way to take on the
position of a parish priest, and an alternative posting has been offered, and
accepted.
In
the intervening time, several reflections have come my way. Firstly, I feel
very graced to have written the initial letter outlining my position to the
Archbishop, for had I not done so, one of two possibilities might have
occurred. In being offered to take on the posting as a parish priest, I might
not have looked carefully at what was included in the ‘de fide’
package and taken whatever promises were required; or indeed, having studied
the content, might have been tempted to make a ‘mental reservation’ -
in keeping with that hallowed process that has played such significant parts in
the course of Irish history, both of Church and of State.
Either way of responding would have allowed me to take on the position offered.
Accepting such a posting would offer a person a sense of taking on a recognised
office within the structure of the Church, perhaps a sense of
‘arriving’ after a long journey through the chaplaincies and curacies
of the diocese, perhaps a sense of being accepted at last within the
‘middle management’ structure of the institution, a moment or two in
the sun!
There
are those among the clergy who have no issue with the ‘de fide’
package as it is currently constituted, but I know there are many who would
question areas of its content, particularly the recent statement that
precludes, for ever, women from ordination. For several reasons, I think it is
a great shame that the latter grouping, when offered the position of parish
priest find themselves forced to take on the ‘mental reservation’
route.
In
the first place, we have an ailing church, devoid of many of the essential
signs of healthy life, apparently incapable of listening to what the Spirit of
God is saying in the hearts and minds of its members. Secondly, on the
particular issue of the ordination of women, MRBI polls show, latterly, that
over 70% of the people are in favour of women’s ordination in Ireland.
However, if priests who, in conscience, are at odds with the new
‘teaching’ from Rome on the matter opt to keep silent,
- What hope will
there be for the Church of the future, where souls are sold for a short term
personal gain?
- How will there
ever be a witness to conscientious leadership, especially when many of the
people of God struggle in conscience, within the Church, to deal with the
demands of Humanae Vitae or indeed the call to priesthood that they hear
from the lips of women?
- In what clearer
way will current leadership hear the Spirit speak in people of conscience,
thereby affording the possibility of breathing new life into the dying embers
of our institution?
People are not fools, and the current level of ‘practice’, i.e. Mass
attendance on a Saturday night/Sunday, reading in some Dublin parishes at 12%
or 15%, carries within it, in part, at least, a statement of how people
perceive the leadership offered locally by both priests and bishops. They see
men not prepared to rock the boat, not even prepared to report the reality that
they see on the ground, nor indeed make adequate space locally to encourage the
people of God to proclaim their experience of life, so that real and valid
discernment can be made. Was it Catherine of Siena in a moment of insight
arranged to let the Pope of the time know exactly what was happening on the
ground so that quality discernment could be made? Unless priests and bishops
are prepared to risk rewards and ‘levels of advancement’ for the
overall good of the Gospel, then who can expect anything but a very leaky
‘barque of Peter’?
Personally, the whole episode brought to mind for me the Robert Bolt play,
produced in many a seminary in the 1960s, ‘A Man for All Seasons’, in
which Henry VIII was pressing those around him to take the oath in which they
would acknowledge him as the head of the Church. Thomas More, meeting Sir
Richard Rich, chides him for accepting, with the comment concluding, “....
but for Wales?” where Richard had been appointed as head of operations in
Wales for his ‘loyalty’. I remember an episode of some ten years ago
or so, when a colleague was being offered the position of
‘Monsignor’. I was uncomfortable with the process and asked out loud,
in company, “What century are we living in?” A senior priest, on
hearing me, pointed out that I was naive in my comment, saying that in any
organisation, such postings and positions had to be on offer to enable
leadership to keep in check the desire for advancement that was in the hearts
of many! To quote William Gilbert, “Small titles and orders for mayors and
recorders and people that I’m interested in.....”
Effectively the process of the ‘mental reservation’ enabling someone
to take on a posting while squashing conscience a little, in the interests,
perhaps, of making a change when operating within the new position, leads to a)
leaving a man in debt to whoever has asked him to take on the job, thereby
buying his silence or at least squashing his freedom to comment, having sworn
publicly to uphold a particular stance and b) enables diocesan leadership to
pick off, one by one, every single person within its employ.
The
hope of future generations of the Church, in addition to the hope for our own
times, lies in the lines from John c16. vv12-13, where Jesus says “I still
have many things to tell you but you cannot bear them now. When he, the Spirit
of truth comes, he will guide you into the whole truth”. That Spirit has
been entrusted to all Christians: it has to be our job, in our time, drawing on
the experience of life and circumstance that is ours, to make sure that the
voice of the God’s Spirit is heard through the hearts and minds of
faithful people, so that leadership can both hear it and make due discernment
as to future need and call and direction. It would indicate the possibility of
growth and change and the flowering of the Spirit in time to come within the
Church: it would put to one side, for ever, the engagement in a barren logic -
it hasn’t happened in the past 2,000 years, so it can’t happen from
here on out - and it would allow space for the return of the many millions of
people of faith and good will, worldwide, who, in these latter years of
hard-line retrenchment, have distanced themselves from it.
Eamon McCarthy (email him?)
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