Flannery criticises CORI

The article below, written by Fr Tony Flannery, a Redemptorist priest, appears in yesterday's Irish Times.

In the article Fr Flannery is critical of the direction in which CORI is moving. He is of the opinion that CORI has 'become part of an exclusive and powerful body and so has lost its ability to critique what is happening'.

Over the years CORI has brought important issues to public notice. It is still doing that today.

But reading the article one is forced to ask the question is it ever possible for anyone who is part of a world-wide multi billion euro organisation to empathise or understand the plight of those who experience any form of poverty, insecurity or marginalisation?

In the current climate of economic upheaval, where people are genuinely greatly concerned about their livelihoods, is there a sister, bishop, priest, who needs to be concerned about their financial situation?

When one is protected or isolated from the daily shenanigans of the world where people live, can their words ever have any significant meaning?

That is a genuine question and in no way a flippant or any type of snide comment.

Anyone who becomes institutionalised surely inevitably loses some sense of much of what happens and exists outside the institution.


What follows is the article in The Irish Times

CORI, THE Conference of Religious of Ireland, an umbrella body for all Roman Catholic religious congregations in this country, has been in existence for over 30 years. It is probably best known for its justice section, which has played an active part in social partnership.

I believe this was a big mistake. Cori became part of a ruling elite and so lost its ability to truly represent the interests of the poor and marginalised in society.

The dramatic collapse of our economy in the recent past has caused people to examine many of the assumptions we had taken for granted. One of those assumptions was that social partnership is a good thing. It was argued that it created industrial peace and, as a result, productivity increased.

That begs the question as to whether it was social partnership or prosperity that allowed for consistent and substantial increases in wages, year to year, leading in turn to industrial peace.
The main criticism of social partnership is that it created what one commentator called a cosy consensus which worked to the benefit of the better paid. Examples include benchmarking in the public service, a scheme that masqueraded as reform involving increased levels of efficiency and productivity.

In fact it meant substantial pay increases for the better off to a far greater extent than for those in more lowly paid jobs. Something of the same happened in other professions. For instance there was an increase in posts of responsibility for teachers which often involved a rise in salary with nominal increase in responsibility.

All of this contributed to the inflated, inefficient and in some cases overpaid public service that we have in this country and which we can no longer afford. This happened under the auspices of social partnership. It could be argued that the social partners became the real governing body in the land, and that decisions were made at this level rather than in the Dáil.

Revelations, particularly relating to abuses of public money at Fás and other State bodies, brought another aspect of this cosy consensus to the fore. It was one I, and I assume many others, would not have been aware of – the presence of so many members of the different social partnership groups on State boards.

This is of great concern, because it suggests a clique of people had a stranglehold on policy-making while being ultimately answerable to nobody, since they had become so closely aligned to the government of the day. This group of people got perks, unavailable to ordinary members of society.

I do not have the expertise to make an economic judgment on all of this. My concern as a religious is that the body representing Irish religious is a member of this partnership. Cori states that its aim is the same as that of its constituent groups – to promote the message of Jesus Christ.

It would be hard to think of anybody who was less part of the consensus than Jesus Christ. He stood outside of, and radically criticised, both the social and religious thinking of his time. Anybody representing religious should be, at least to some extent, on the margins rather than at the centre of power.

Cori justice desk, by allowing itself to become part of an exclusive and powerful body, lost its ability to critique what was happening, and is now unfortunately seen as a contributor to the problem rather than being in a position to propose a real alternative. In its early days it was a strong voice for the poor but, somewhere along the line, it got sucked into the complicity that promoted inequality.

I am not suggesting that religious should not be involved in political and social action. I think of people like the late Michael Sweetman and Austin Flannery, and, in our own times, Peter McVerry. Equally there have been many religious sisters who have given a lifetime of service to the less well off.

I cannot imagine any of them talking about “T16” (Toward 2016, for those outside the in-group) which became shorthand for the plan for Ireland worked out, not in the public arena but in late-night negotiations that were the preserve of the few.
I would hope that Cori can free itself from the shackles of power and become again a voice for the voiceless.

Fr Tony Flannery is a Redemptorist priest and columnist with Reality magazine