In the Phoenix

[Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha]

Just looked at The Phoenix Annual. I always go straight for the Clerical Errors column here. This is a bit more positive of Éamon Martin crediting him with the appointment of Rev Dr Niall Coll as Bishop of Ossory (I'm agnostic on that, but I reckon this is a good appointment - I know Father Coll, but I am surprised he didn't get a northern or border appointment). I think Goldhawk gets that Francis is not the great reformer people like Austen Ivereigh and Massimo Faggioli cheer lead, but I think that the hopes are pinned on Francis' successor (who could be anything). However, I just don't get the weight Goldhawk gives to Mary McAleese.

[Beinidict Ó Niaidh]

In the current Phoenix, Róisín Ingle is rightly taken to task for her very petty response to scandal in the Holy Ghost Fathers, particularly around Blackrock College. She shows a remarkable standard of missing the point by gloating, in the guise of reacting against the arrogance and sexism of Blackrock rugby boys in her days in Sion Hill (which is hardly a poor girls' school).

In the same issue, John Cooney is lionised. I knew there was a close connection between Cooney and what got into the Clerical Errors column when he was active, but the Black Rock issue was used to refer to Cooney's biography of the school's most famous principal, John Charles McQuaid. According to Goldvulture, the publishers included a written piece of innuendo by the late Dr Noel Browne in the book, insinuating McQuaid was a paedophile without Cooney's consent. This took greatly from the value of the book, and the fact is that the piece comes from a time in which Browne was very bitter and he wasn't around to give any context to his writing (Cooney received this from Browne's widow). But aside from this, which was a stick for critics to beat the book with, Cooney had some observations in the book which would require qualification - allegations about the Archbishop's collection of pornography for example. Whether it's workable or not, one duty of a bishop is to advise people in his diocese about suitable literature, plays or films and one consequence of this is amassing collections of what might be called pornography. Anyway, the valediction of Cooney was very much a case of throwing muck in McQuaid's direction and hoping it would stick, which connecting McQuaid with the CSSp scandals. Now I won't say that McQuaid is above reproach, but first of all, he was out of Blackrock College since 1939 and there are few enough cases dating to McQuaid's term as archbishop (they abound in Dermot Ryan's term) and the personal allegations against him seem very hollow. It's very hard to imagine Archbishop McQuaid visiting pubs even occasionally during his term of office. This was a man who always insisted the registration on his car was changed when ever he disposed of one. There are only two anonymous allegations made against the archbishop, both made after Cooney's book was published. This is hardly vindication - they are more along the lines of the allegations which Cardinal Pell was convicted on. I don't for a moment believe McQuaid to have been a candidate for canonisation (though I heard a lot about his personal charity and little is said now about his uncharacteristic support of the rights of birth mothers).

[hibernicus]

The Cooney profile is noteworthy for its dismissal of those who criticised his claims as no more than "moral vigilantes", dismissing the possibility that any of them might simply have found his claims unconvincing. To be fair to Noel Browne, the problem is not that his accusation is "innuendo" - it is stated plainly enough - it's that it is based on a claim made rally by a stranger whom Browne was never able to trace or identify. (John Horgan's biography of Browne does find someone who saw Browne talking to a man on the occasion in question and shows that he tried to trace him, so Browne's good faith is not in doubt; what is in doubt is the genuineness of the claim, especially since Browne chose to write it up in fictional form so it is not clear which details are authentic.) Cooney does regularly use innuendo in the book - he implies, without ever saying it in so many words, that McQuaid was running a paedophile ring in the archdiocese.
The big problem with Cooney's biography is his unremitting hatred for McQuaid, which leads him to portray the Archbishop as personally insane rather than behaving as a prelate of his generation expecting unremitting deference, and his assumption that it is impossible that anyone could have genuinely liked or respected McQuaid and they must simply have been afraid of him. (That said, a lot of people were afraid of him - he did have the power to wreck careers with a few words - and this is one thing that might give the allegations some credence; that he could do whatever he liked since nobody would dare complain; the thing is that he fell so spectacularly and died so soon after his fall that if he was acting with that sort of impunity one would expect more allegations to come forward, especially after the book was published in 1999.
The reasons why there are so few cases reported on John Charles's time compared to Ryan would include lapse of time and the fact that the terms of inquiry did not cover McQuaid - one horrendous case where his leniency to a priest left the offender free to molest again is reported on because the offender's crimes continued under subsequent archbishops.
The contrast with the stream of Blackrock College allegations since the dam broke is instructive.)

[hibernicus]

The PHOENIX also has a report on the recent troubles of the National Party - it seems that Justin's debacle in the Dublin Bay South by-election has led to at least one sidekick thinking he could do a better job as fuhrer, and the piece implies that NP insiders have been leaking to the antifa thugs who descended on the NP thugs' recent meeting in Fermanagh. Justin has also recently been caught quoting MEIN KAMPF without attribution (about the virtues of youth) on his social media platform; there is a similar unattributed quote in NATIONAL WAY FORWARD about the pointlessness of having opposition parties.

[hibernicus]

Two other Cooney/McQuaid points:
(!) Part of the problem with Cooney's unremitting pursuit of McQuaid is that it lets the rest of the Church apparatus off too easily. If McQuaid was uniquely malign, how is it that so many clerics behaved like buck-passing Pilates (which is putting it mildly)?
(2) When Fintan O'Toole called recently for McQuaid's role to be investigated, I suspect he was not thinking of Browne's allegation but of Cooney's hints, never spelled out or substantiated, that McQuaid deliberately covered up abuse because he was the leader of a paedophile ring running the dioceses.