The US Conference of Catholic Bishops apologised on Friday for the church’s role in traumatising Native American children at boarding schools until the mid-1900s.
The bishops’ apology on Friday did not refer specifically to sexual abuse, even though the Washington Post found at least 122 priests, sisters and brothers at 22 Catholic-run boarding schools who were later accused of sexually abusing Native American children under their care.
The bishops said, “These multigenerational traumas continue to have an impact today, one that is perpetuated by racism and neglect of all kinds. Through our listening sessions, we heard that many Indigenous people feel unaccepted by and unwelcomed in society and even the Church.”
That all reads fine, and the church has had no alternative but to clean up its act. But the oxygen that allowed all this to happen is still alive in the Catholic Church.
Fr Eugene Duffy, a priest of the diocese of Achonry, in an article in the Furrow refers to how the merging of the dioceses of Achonry and Killala was a ‘hierarchical event’. He believes a far more synodal approach needs to be taken.
Fr Duffy says that the way the two diocese were merged shows how the church leadership talks the talk of synodality but doesn’t walk the walk.
And that’s how the hierarchical church continues to behave in so many areas of its life.
It would be interesting to do an audit of how much the Catholic Church in Ireland and, indeed, across the world pays in legal fees and compensation to victims. In the case of Ireland, that figure surely is available, as the Catholic Church is registered as a charity.
It’s relatively easy to apologise for historical events, and apologies are needed, but they sound hollow unless the behaviour of the church today complements those apologies.
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