tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6348278268205456603.post4245748252345879912..comments2023-09-10T07:58:32.464-07:00Comments on Nelson's View: Dublin diocesan reportNelson McCausland MLAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11458324593112960421noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6348278268205456603.post-55727097187761154212009-12-22T10:23:22.079-08:002009-12-22T10:23:22.079-08:00That will all change. In the meantime we continue ...That will all change. In the meantime we continue to pray for Ryan.Shanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05256883057314825671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6348278268205456603.post-37842202958961199342009-12-22T10:21:48.409-08:002009-12-22T10:21:48.409-08:00I doubt in the long run whether the report itself ...I doubt in the long run whether the report itself will have that much of an effect on peoples' allegiance to the Catholic Church. <br><br>Catholic Ireland has been secularizing at an ever increasing pace since 1962. Most of that change was a result of reforms implemented in the Church itself (the fallout from the Second Vatican Council), combined with the worldwide 60s cultural and social revolution that took a very intolerant attitude towards the remaining vestiges of the ancien regime. As James S. Donnelly concludes (A Church in Crisis: The Irish Catholic Church Today, History Ireland, Vol. 8, No. 3, The Catholic Church through the Ages (Autumn, 2000), pp. 12-17) by the time Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, he was visiting an Ireland where the population (especially those under 40) had already become fairly secularized and radicalized, especially in social attitudes and this was beginning to be reflected in legislation (contraception in Ireland was legalized only 6 years after laique France, where it had been denounced to cries of “race suicide”).Shanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05256883057314825671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6348278268205456603.post-61760684334263756662009-12-22T10:20:02.631-08:002009-12-22T10:20:02.631-08:00The Dublin Report did not conclude that Canon Law ...The Dublin Report did not conclude that Canon Law impeded the prosecution of clerics, indeed it was never even applied. As Chapter 4 of the Report noted, after Vatican II there was a “collapse of respect for canon law [CIC] in archdiocesan circles … offenders were neither prosecuted nor made accountable within the church”. The 1917 CIC “decreed deprivation of office and/or benefice, or expulsion from the clerical state for such offences”. A bishop who heard of an abuse allegation was canonically required to investigate it, and expel the priest from the priesthood if found guilty in a canonical trial (which was to happen parallel and independently of a civil prosection).There was, and probably still is, a hesitancy in applying the more 'penal' aspects of canon law among the Irish Church Establishment. The Dublin report notes that despite canon law requiring priests found having engaged in paedophilia, Monsignor Sheehy, the archdiocesan “expert” in canon law and ultra-liberal, “considered that the penal aspects of that law should rarely be invoked”.<br><br>Veteran commentator/journalist/economist Joe Foyle made an interesting observation on the Studies blog about Diarmuid Martin’s remarks on RTE's Prime Time about the collapse of diocesan severity in the 1960s:<br><br>"It seems that around the 1960s a major policy change emerged. In line with the secular anti-punishment mood of the times, it was decided that the defrocking sanction was inhumane and that, instead, rehabilitation should be attempted to enable offenders to continue to work as priests. The policy change backfired when offenders re-offended. That hurt children and blighted lives gravely, cost Dioceses and Congregations hundreds of millions, evoked ‘cover-up’ allegations that undermined Bishops and the priesthood in general, and ushered in our current era of Catholic laity who are effectively priestless."Shanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05256883057314825671noreply@blogger.com