Interview with Father Brian D’Arcy

…in Hot Press. Conducted by Jason O’Toole some intriguing stuff in there. He didn’t come from a family that was keen for him to become a priest – indeed he says they went ‘berserk’ when he raised the idea. But by 17 he was in a monastery and this after he was abused by a priest as a child and later in the monastery. And there’s this:

Sex abuse was brushed under the carpet. How will history view Cardinal Sean Brady – who took the confessional notes from the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth and chose not to report him to the authorities or police?
The one thing you will always say about Sean Brady is that he’s a decent man. But he would probably know himself now that the system had him so brainwashed that he didn’t do the right thing. He was wrapped up in this whole secrecy thing. But there was more than him to blame. There’s an awful lot more than him to blame.

Speaking of the Catholic Church and ‘clericalism’ he terms it dysfunctional.

So, what’s dysfunctional about it?
As things developed, the institution became its own survival and its original mission was forgotten. The institution now is hell-bent on saving itself. Sometimes many of the institutional movements actually forget what their mission should be, mainly spreading the compassion of Christ to a world in need of it. It’s very helpful when the present Pope says precisely the same thing. He said, “I don’t need clerics who are more interested in their own self image. What I need is clerics who, like a good shepherd, will have the smell of sheep off them.”

And he suggests this:

So, out of sheer desperation, unsuitable candidates are being accepted.
That’s the issue here more than anything else. What kind of Church do we want and what kind of priesthood can best serve that Church? That’s the question – not “should we pray for more vocations?” There are plenty of vocations all around us, but we’re not using
the vocations that God sent us. So is it any wonder we’re a dysfunctional Church because we’re going against God’s will? God is sending absolutely wonderful laymen and laywomen and they are rebutted at every turn.

No fan of Grindr either it appears… or at least seminarians going on Grindr. Though he’s no fan either of ‘compulsory’ celibacy. He doesn’t believe sex between committed gay couples is a sin either ‘Promiscuity is wrong, but committed love is rarely wrong”.

I find this very interesting in a way, the manner in which some of those inside the Catholic structures are attempting to come to terms with both those structures and the actuality of life as it is lived outside of them. And beyond that as O’Toole notes, and D’Arcy agrees, there’s now an existential crisis facing the Catholic Church here.

And only three future priests!
There’s 99 parishes in Dublin and you’ve only three priests to come in over the next decade! Is that not a bigger issue? So it doesn’t matter where he puts them – it’s not going to work. We simply have to have the sense to reappraise first: what message are the people receiving from the Church at the moment – and it’s not a healthy one. And so we have to work extremely hard. The Hot Press group who are reading this, I’m sure there’s not too many of them who are interested in what a Church man says about anything! And I understand that, because it’s not talking to their world and we simply have to find ways of speaking to their world.

I’m not being facetious when I say some of the problems facing the RCC sound oddly familiar.

Part two next week…