Brendan Hoban writes in the Western People in the wake of the recent Rome meeting on ‘The Protection of Minors in the Church’
“No one, reading what Francis has said, could find any kind of doublethink, evasion or prevarication. Or indeed any room for equivocation. He clearly means what he says and there’s a real sense that he is now giving the abuse of children (and how the Church has dealt with it in the past) his full and undivided attention. And, by announcing his ‘defrocking’ of former cardinal, a few days before the Rome conference he’s sent a clear signal of his intent.”
Oh, the dangers of predictive text even for a bishop/archbishop – especially when it’s in Latin. I’m sure Bishop Dermot’s motto, ‘Auditorium nostrum in nomine Domini’, would be meaningful when he comes to opening a new auditorium or aula maxima somewhere in Dublin. But I see his motto in Ossory has in fact been the more traditional, ‘Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini’.
I wish Dermot Farrell every good blessing and inspiration for the enormous task he is taking on as the new AB of Dublin.
The following headline has appeared from his address today – “New archbishop pledges to hear voices of women”. This sounds good and well intentioned. I think many women and the rest of us are tired of this talk of men saying we must ‘listen to women’. Listening to women seems to imply – let them talk and then we get on with business as usual or maybe make a few nominal changes but nothing to upset the patriarchal clerical church structures.
‘Listening to women’ over the past few years has become an empty tired catch phrase. Women have spoken out here in Ireland and all over the world. It is very clear what they want.
The gap between society (women and men are equal/even the GAA are seeing this) and the Church is getting bigger and bigger. Women are speaking loudly but men at the top of the Church/our leaders are deaf. We don’t need any more nice semantics. We need ACTION and big changes in our Church NOW.