Church and State
The controversy over Cardinal Brady's involvement in the Brendan Smyth scandal has focussed attention on the relationship between the Catholic church and the state, north and south.
In part at least, the Cardinal's defence is that he did his duty so far as Church or Canon law is concerned. But even in 1975 in the Irish Republic, did sticking to Canon law afford someone any more protection than sticking, say, to the rules of the Church of Scientology? No doubt the question of what special exemptions existed for clerics will be tested definitively if and when the legal case brought by one of the victims, which prompted the latest revelations, goes to court.
Now the Catholic church's child protection procedures have been brought much more into line with the requirements of state law. But does the Church's failure to reform its protocols for so many decades provide any legal defence to those individuals who obeyed its rules, rather than the State's?
So far as the reaction of State leaders is concerned, the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has proved far more decisive than the Taoiseach who argued that it was for the church to sort out its own internal problems. In this regard, Mr McGuinness echoed similar sentiments from the Irish Green Party minister John Gormley.
But of course in the Deputy First Minister's case this involves layers of irony, as the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Talkback programme discussed, with members of the public asking how a self confessed IRA man in the 1970s could ask a priest to examine his own conscience from the same period.
Mr McGuinness would no doubt counter that so far as politically motivated violence is concerned there is now - to borrow a Catholic phrase - a general absolution for what went on during the IRA campaign, and when asked about matters of public importance today he has duty to show leadership.
Putting to one side whether he is or isn't the right man to deliver the message, listening to many of the calls and text messages to our programmes it seems the Deputy First Minister has his finger on the pulse and, notwithstanding today's apology, Cardinal Brady faces a stern test if he is to remain in his job.
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