The church is always in need of reform

This week’s mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Nelofer Pazira, an Irish based Afghan-Canadian journalist and film maker, wrote an opinion piece about Afghanistan in ‘The Irish Times’. 

She quoted Bengali poet Rabindranath Tafgore, who said that the Mujahideen ‘spiritualised politics’. He argued they used religion to achieve political victory. Pazira adds that it was the Taliban who perfected the art of brutality through religion.

Pazira’s piece rang all sorts of bells in my ears.

 

During the Northern Ireland Troubles I spent many days and nights trying to explain to Germans that the violence in Northern Ireland was not caused by religion. I argued that it was a mix of injustice, incompetence, gerrymandering and wrongdoing. 

I still say that today but in the intervening years I’m sure I’ve learned more about human behaviour and how religion becomes immersed in other areas of our lives.

I’ve experienced many positive aspects of religion. I have seen how faith and belief in God has nurtured the lives of people. I’ve also met remarkable priests, great people of God. I have been privileged to meet outstanding priests. 

But I’ve also seen how religion can be abused. I’ve seen how easy it is for fanatics to use religion for their own purposes.

Just as extreme elements in other religions can misuse religion for their own ends, crookedness too, so it is with the Catholic Church.

Could it really be a mortal sin not to attend Mass on a Sunday? The expression ‘a holy day of obligation’ sounds greatly off-putting to me. I can still remember all the rules and regulations about the three-hour fast before receiving Holy Communion. Was God ‘up there’ with a stop watch? I doubt it. If I ate meat on a Friday was it really a mortal sin?

What exactly is a mortal sin? What do those words mean for people today? Has our theological vocabulary broken down?

It has always intrigued me how the hierarchical church seems so often to mismanage its affairs. I’ve seen crass behaviour by a small minority of priests. It has been a source of great mystery to me how these same men seem to know so much about God? 

The church is always in need of reform but right now there really is a need for an open and honest debate between all Christians of good will.

The new Catholic archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell has set up a task force to begin an assessment of the needs of the people of the archdiocese. It’s a great idea. The chairperson is a priest. I’d much prefer to have seen someone who is not a member of the clergy appointed as chair.

Would that be too much to expect?

In an interview with Alan O’Keeffe in the 'Sunday Independent' last Sunday week Archbishop Dermot Farrell quoted philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who said to his Irish friend Maurice Drury:

"Only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.”

He also said that the housing and climate crises must be addressed with urgency nationally and globally. 

That gives me hope.