A safe pair of hands and ecclesiastical protocol

This column appears in today's INM Irish regional newspapers.

By Michael Commane
Last Tuesday I arrived home shortly before the main evening news on RTE One television. I had one eye on the news and the other on the cup of tea I was making. RTE’s Tony Connelly was reporting from Rome, talking about the political crisis in Italy. He then switched to how Pope Benedict was preparing to leave the Vatican. Though I only half heard it, I can still remember what he said: that the Pope would no longer be wearing his red, Prada shoes, but would instead, wear brown moccasins. Connelly then explained all about the clothes, the pope, in retirement, would be wearing and how people should address him.


It so happens that on that same day the English newspaper, The Guardian, made its lead story the resignation of the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. Its lead editorial took up the subject. Elsewhere in the Guardian was a further news story, an analysis piece and a comment article, all on the archbishop, how he came to resign and what might happen because he did.

Also on that Tuesday, the theologian and Augustinian priest, Gabriel Daly, wrote about changes that are necessary in the Roman curia. The previous evening on the BBC’s Newsnight, Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, who writes for The Catholic Herald, said that that same curia was not fit for purpose. Fr Lucie-Smith neither sounds nor looks like a crazy liberal and The Catholic Herald is far from being a free-thinking, publication.

I studied in Rome from 1974 to 1976. It was a breathtaking experience to live right in the heart of 'the eternal city'.

The Dominican priory where I lived is on the Via Labicana, a stone's throw from the Colosseum. The university I was attending was not much further.

I was 25 when I went to Rome. The university was a melting pot for men with strange accents, unusual appearances. In retrospect, I was probably one of the oddest of them all. But there was a group of students, separate and particular, who intrigued me. Every single one of them dressed in identical clerical suits and roman collars. All carrying similar briefcases, wearing similar shiny shoes, looking similarly perfect. Looking back, they were a kind of canonical Stepford Wives. In my Dunne’s Stores jumper, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But most of the time I found myself laughing. Not at them, but nervously for myself and my group. We seemed almost biblically unclean for these visions of perfection. We were out of place in such lovely order.

In fact, these uniform and ‘uniformed’ men were members of the Legionaries of Christ. Their founder is the now-notorious Fr Marcial Maciel.


But back in 1974, as a 25-year-old from Ireland, I was profoundly struck with the ‘strange’ and exclusive behaviour of these men. They were like an army – a weird army. They never engaged in small talk. They seemed veterans of some bizarre drill. At the time I got the distinct feeling they were brainwashed.

It's now eight years or so since I contacted the Legionaries of Christ to ask questions about their founder and then superior general. I was given a glowing report about him, and told how graced the order was to have such a ‘holy man’ as their superior.

Since those early days in Rome I have been observing aspects of clericalism in church life that I find nothing less than extraordinary and at such a far remove from the message of the Gospel. Over the years I have expressed my opinion loudly and clearly to individuals and groups.

If anything, the situation is getting worse. Nothing is being done. Apologies, that’s not correct. If you show any whisper of liberal thinking or criticise any aspect of the Roman curia or curial appointments, you will quite likely be sanctioned.

Once you are a ‘safe pair of hands’ and are a fan of ecclesiastical protocol and loads of lace you are on the fast-track to ‘promotion’.

And if there is any thorny or difficult issue, which requires attention the institutional church makes a mad dash to its expensive lawyers.

It is shocking.

But what to do?