Protest power

This is my editorial from last week's Cork Independent 

As I drove to work last Wednesday, I was delighted to hear on the radio that a protest against the attitude of the Catholic Church to women is being organised, for 26 September.

Finally, I thought, women are getting angry.

I have been angry for quite some time at the treatment of women by one of the world’s largest organisations. We in the West tend to look down on Islam for its perceived subjugation of women, but in this case we are almost certainly living in glass houses.

And the woman who got angry? Step forward ‘the monk’s mother’. So named by the Irish Times, Jennifer Sleeman from Clonakilty (who informed Morning Ireland  that, in fact, she has five other children), is very angry, and hurt.
She has cause to be angry. A former Presbyterian, she is one of very few people in Ireland to have actively chosen Catholicism. The rest of us simply accepted it as our birthright.

Well, most of us do. Some don’t – quite a number of Irish people have registered on the website www.countmeout.ie, which formally removes a person from the Catholic Church, and many more are practicing Catholics only insofar as they marry in churches, baptise their children and send them to Catholic schools, whether by choice or not.

But back to Ms Sleeman. At the age of 80, she is the only woman I’ve heard of trying to organise a response to the increasing disregard for women the Catholic Church, under Pope Benedict XVI, is purveying. She is asking women not to attend Mass on Sunday 26 September.

I have heard French women and American women being interviewed on Irish radio about this issue – mostly on Newstalk, funnily enough – RTE doesn’t seem that interested. But I have heard no Irish Catholic woman, before this, speak out on the issue as if it was one they wanted to do something about.

Could it be that the majority of us believe the Church has done us such a grievous wrong that there is no going back? Or, worse, could it be that so many see the Church as an irrelevance, something anachronistic that has no import on our lives?

For those who are believers, the most recent betrayal of women by the Church – proclaiming the ordination of women with paedophilia as equally serious sins – must have been devastating.

Leaving aside the terrible revelations about sexual and physical abuse, the mismanagement of these scandals, the suffering of women in the Magdalen laundries and other issues which have arisen in relation to the Church, this latest blow on its own was bad enough.

For women who have worked all their lives for the Church as cleaners, sacristans, flower arrangers, altar decorators, tea makers, choir mistresses, singers, housekeepers and all the hundreds of small, menial jobs the organisation requires to keep going – largely unpaid – it is nothing less than a slap in the face. They have not been given robes, homes or livelihoods by the Church. They are not adored; they do not have titles.

And now, they are discovering that they do not even have the respect of a religion many have devoted their lives to.

I have great admiration for Jennifer Sleeman. She loves her religion and wants to make it something worthy of that love and respect. While I am not myself religious, I hope that those who are will join her in her protest and make its deafening silence reach all the way to Rome.

2000 years

'I will put enmity between you and the woman...' 3:15

No, that's not a quote from Joseph Ratzinger at 3.15 this morning.

It's a quote from the Bible, a compilation of hearsay, rumour, innuendo, misogyny, fairytale, legend, biography, social history and advice written by various men over a period of a few hundred years.

The Bible has largely been the same since it was agreed upon as a fundamental part of the Christian Church, over 2000 years ago.

The world, however, has not.

None of this is news; none of it is even that outrageous. The quote above, put into the context of a 2000-year-old society, could even be considered enlightened, in that it doesn't place the blame on women for the enmity.

What is outrageous is the reliance of the Catholic Church under Ratzinger on the ancient tradition of misogyny within its teachings.

Ratzinger - I know he's the Pope, but part of my problem with the Church is the edification of its officers through mystical titles, robes and glittery accessories - has, during his tenure, taken the Church back many years. And it was already quite a bit behind.

The latest release from the Church, including the 'sin' of ordaining women priests in a list which mostly focussed on the 'grave' sin of child abuse, is almost mind bogglingly stupid, ignorant, and short-sighted.

I've been putting off writing this post since I first read of this last week, as I was afraid I'd merely spew expletives.

Contrary to some reports, the news from the Vatican did not precisely equate women priests and those who ordain them, with paedophiles.

They made the unfortunate mistake of including the new rules on ordaining women priests in the same document as the new rules on paedophilia. At least, that's their line on it.

It shows just how clueless the Church is when it comes to the gravity of paedophilia. It's like including late payment of your TV licence in the same legal provision as murder. Even if you believe they didn't mean it that way, it shows an astonishing lack of political nous, something that would be surprising, given its proud history as an Italian city state and how it got there.

But that's optics. It's well documented that the Church has no clue how to tackle paedophilia, and for a long time, didn't really care. I will give Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and some of his colleagues the benefit of assuming that now, they do care.

The part of this that really and truly astonishes and angers me is how the Church, after 2000 years of progress in almost every other sphere of society, can still believe that women have no place in its structure.

My relationship with the Church was a big part of my childhood and it was exemplified almost 100% by nuns, teachers (all female), priests' housekeepers, my granny and all the other old ladies who went to mass and kept the place going.
Women who cooked and cleaned for the Church and its many tentacles, who grew and arranged flowers for the Church, who sang at Church, who did readings at Mass, who visited the poor and the sick for the Church's charities and who arranged fundraisers and trips to Lourdes and the 'tea and sandwiches' part of the funeral. In the midst of this a priest wandered in, had his dress put on him by some overawed kids who spent an hour handing him things, ate and drank what he was given by the women, and went for a pint.

I am not saying all priests are lazy or that all priests or bad; I am not even saying all priests are like this. But every support service that I can remember ever seeing in the Church was carried out by women.

When I visited the Vatican a number of years ago on a trip to Rome, I became incandescent with rage and had to leave St Peter's Basilica. I've written about this before, and I won't go into it in detail again.

But as we wandered around between statues of 'holy' men, crypts (of men) with nuns beating their heads off the ground and wailing in front of them, pictures of men and astonishing wealth, held by men, we walked past nuns cleaning, and of course ended up in the gift shop. Where, if we'd bought anything, we'd have been served by nuns.

It was the biggest and wealthiest clubhouse I had ever seen and they did not want me in the club.

I have been raised to expect that I am equal to anybody. I know that I am equal to anybody. And yet, there is no chance that I or any other woman, can ever be in a position to change the Church. Because change has to happen on the inside, and we are not on the inside.

We are tolerated as tea makers and cleaners and mothers (to a point - only in marriage and only if we eschew contraception and impure thoughts and enjoying any sexual contact not designed for procreation). We are tolerated as 'handmaidens'.

Now, when the Church is in the throes of the biggest crisis since the Reformation, when it is desperately seeking vocations and forgiveness from the thousands, possibly millions, it has wronged, in one foul publication, it shuts out the 50 per cent of the population that has not been proven, over 2000 years of administration, to be completely misguided and wrong about how we do things.

I am not religious. But I feel some of the disappointment and shame that the Church's female adherents must be feeling now. There is a movement for women priests, and it is quietly supported by quite a few male priests.

It's time for them to raise their voices. Schism is an old-fashioned word, but it looks to me like the concept has never been more inviting.

Abuse and the Irish

The Listowel sex assailant is to appeal his conviction.

Speaking to a friend who is from Listowel over the weekend, some of my suspicions about this case were confirmed.

Without wishing to compromise her anonymity, the girl is from what would be considered a 'rough' area in the town.

Foley is from a GAA family and his brother (I think) played for Kerry.

This is not just small-town. This is a clear and simple class issue, made starker by being played out on a very small stage.

This case stinks.

In other news the revelation that Gerry Adams' brother is a paedophile and his father allegedly abused also is quite shocking. Between this, Listowel and the church scandals that finally seem to be hitting the Church where it hurts - captains resigning rather than footsoldiers - perhaps this is a watershed in this country's relationship with abuse and sexuality and where they intersect.

The Catholic Church in Ireland: the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?

After reading Theo Dorgan's thought-provoking piece in today's Irish Times, something struck me.

The horror and sorrow of those who trusted the Church at these latest revelations, and the bishops' sadly inadequate reactions to them, is not present among my generation.

To those of us who grew up in the 1990s, this is completely normal.

We do not know a Church that engenders fear. We do not even know a Church that engenders respect. We know only a Church that engenders disgust, anger and the desire for retribution and the toppling from pedestals of idols who have been falsely worshipped for too long.

My childhood was full of the Church. Small rural villages were still built around the GAA and the Church in the early 1990s. These days my cousins go to Ju Jitsu instead of camogie, and the Crescent Shopping Centre instead of Mass. And why wouldn't they?

I was the most dedicated member of our parish choir from 8 to about 15, when I got too cool. At about 9, I pleaded with my mother to let me be an altar server. The boys in my class had served Mass for years, and it was opened to girls later. She said no. Now, I know why. Not because she had any suspicions about our local priest,  a genuinely nice man, and one of the good guys. Because she wasn't going to let me serve at an altar I could never preside over. She didn't raise me to be anybody's handmaiden.

By the time my Confirmation came about, I'd decided I was an atheist. Or maybe an agnostic. I didn't really know the difference and I didn't really care. I knew I didn't believe in all the smoke and mirror, incense-scented hokum that had entranced me just a year or two previously. I have a bit more respect for the Catholic religion these days, but my views on the Church have steadily deteriorated.


Since my Confirmation, fallen idols like Eamonn Casey and paedophiles like Brendan Smith have become almost the norm. Throughout my teenage years there were reports upon reports, revelatory television shows and tell-all books that opened up the dreadful wounds of a country in its infancy where the price of freedom had been a new, more evil tyranny.

On a visit to the Vatican a couple of years ago, I found myself crying with rage. I was so angry I had to leave. The wealth and ostentation, and above all, cheek,  of a small group of Western men who are still telling the rest of the world how to live was like a ball of rage in the pit of my stomach. Comparing the splendours of St Peter's Basilica with the misery of people in, in particular, Africa, who continue to spread and contract HIV/AIDS because the Vatican prohibits contraception was eye-opening. The fact, too, that this was the biggest club in the world, and as a woman I couldn't fully join it, angered me. 

Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and the legion of books like it made the miserable Irish Catholic childhood almost fashionable, and most people my age have by now found out whether their parents experienced it or not. But it's almost a given, now, that they did. To some degree.


The shocked reactions of people their age - fifties and older - to the latest series of revelations, first from Cloyne and now from Dublin, is to us, disingenuous at best. We've all known this was about to burst for quite a while now. So why the shock?

Theo Dorgan's assertion that this is the beginning of the end for the Church in Ireland is interesting, because he is still in the mindset of somebody who grew up with an infallible Church. Find me somebody under forty who thinks like this. As far as we are concerned, the beginning of the end took place a long time ago.

Modern messages

I'm not a Mass goer. I eschew all things Catholic and have been known to sneer inadvertently at the very mention of religion - until I realised what a personal insult that was to millions of people, not least my own other half, who is religious.

A trip to the Vatican a couple of years ago left me crying with rage at the exclusivity and arrogance of the Catholic Church - one of the world's biggest clubs still to treat women as second-class members. St Peter's Basilica is cleaned by nuns, and the gift shop in the Dome is (wo)manned by them. Have you ever seen a priest clean anything, apart from the chalice the communion wine comes in?
Having worked in Development I also object to the ostentatious wealth of the Church, particularly when it is preaching against condom use in AIDS-afflicted communities.
I digress, but the scene is set: I'm not into religion, for a whole host of reasons.

Yesterday, I found myself at Mass in Ennis Cathedral, with my Granny, who is 86. I went because she'd have been upset if I didn't go. And I would rather feel like a hypocrite than upset my Granny.

Ennis is located in the Diocese of Killaloe, of which the Bishop is Dr Willie Walsh, who was a close friend of my late Grandad. I have positive feelings towards Dr Walsh, some of which come from this personal link, but many of which are related to his position as the only maverick bishop in this country.

"Maverick" may be too strong a word - he still made it to Bishop, so he couldn't be that liberal. But he is pretty out of the ordinary, and one of the few figures of religious authority to put his money where his mouth is - he is well known for offering his lawn to local Traveller families when the council refused to provide a halting site, something far closer to the message of Jesus than most of the Church's actions these days.

And his Diocese shows it in spades. It was the most interactive Mass I've ever been at (although I don't go these days, I was in a church choir as a kid and went every week for years).

There are banners around the Church that say things like "A good deed is worth a thousand prayers", and "Dream of tomorrow, live for today, and learn from yesterday". All very cheerful, positive, practical and pragmatic.

And the parish newsletter that I picked up had some very interesting reading: a meeting for anyone affected by the recession; charity fundraising initiatives, and calls for volunteers.

The congregation was invited to sing along with all the hymns - I could hear plenty of tuneless warbling, but it somehow made the whole experience a lot more interesting. Likewise, there was a call for a few more Eucharistic ministers, and up popped three or four people just out of nowhere. At one point those listening in at home on the parish radio were mentioned. And at the end, the priest had a chat about the weather, before telling a joke and wishing everyone safe home.

While many people in Ireland never really bought into religion 100%, almost all of us used the Church as a linchpin of the community. In fact, I don't think I heard the word 'community' until I was an adult - it was all about the 'parish'.

And, while a lot of the Church's message has been lost in scandal, indifference and irrelevance, my experience in Ennis yesterday showed me that the Church can be relevant, and it can still provide an outlet and a network for people who are struggling.

The Cathedral was almost full. A cynic would relate this to the recession, and maybe that's part of it. But the Diocese of Killaloe has managed to keep up with events and with people's lives, and to stay relevant.

I wouldn't say I'm converted - my issues around religion run deeper than that. But I'm impressed.