{"id":8,"date":"2010-06-08T12:50:55","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T12:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/06\/the-two-faces-of-irelands-apostolic-visitation.html"},"modified":"2010-06-08T12:50:55","modified_gmt":"2010-06-08T12:50:55","slug":"the-two-faces-of-irelands-apostolic-visitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/06\/the-two-faces-of-irelands-apostolic-visitation.html","title":{"rendered":"The Two Faces of Ireland’s Apostolic Visitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the mission of the Apostolic Visitors who, the
\nVatican announced<\/a> last week, will be parachuting into the Emerald
\nIsle next fall? According to the official press release, they are
\nsupposed to deal with the abuse crisis:<\/p>\n

The Apostolic
\nVisitors will set out to explore more deeply questions
\nconcerning the handling of cases of abuse and the assistance owed to the
\nvictims;
\nthey will monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to
\nthe
\ncurrent procedures for preventing abuse, taking as their points of
\nreference the
\nPontifical Motu Proprio<\/i> “Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela<\/i>”
\nand the norms contained in Safeguarding Children: Standards and
\nGuidance
\nDocument for the Catholic Church in Ireland<\/i>, commissioned and
\nproduced by
\nthe National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But
\naccording to a report<\/a>
\nin yesterday’s Irish Independent<\/i>, the real mission is to
\nreestablish the auld time Irish Catholicism: doctrinal strictness,
\nregular sacramental observance, and ancient devotional practices. Not to
\nmention “to restore a traditional sense of reverence among ordinary
\nCatholics for
\ntheir priests” and “counteract
\nmaterialistic and secularist attitudes.”<\/p>\n

That does seem to be
\nthe approach being promoted by the Visitor responsible for seminaries,
\nArchbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who recently  told a
\ngathering of
\nIrish priests “to return to basics” and to ground their ministry in
\n“prayer,
\nhumility and a rediscovery of identity.” Not surprisingly, his talk
\npleased the Irish Primate, Cardinal Sean Brady, the staunchest defender
\nof the past.
 
On the other hand, it seems profoundly out of step
\nwith the ideas of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has become the
\nchampion of progressive reform in the Irish church. A few days ago, he
\ngave a talk<\/a>
\nat the Newman Club at Oxford University in which he called for greater
\nlay participation and, indeed, leadership in the church, to challenge
\n“any remnants of a culture of clericalism.” The church, he emphasized,
\ncould not and should not expect to play its old role in Irish society.<\/p>\n

Stressing
\nrenewal of the sacramental and spiritual dimensions of the
\nChurch does not mean that the Church intends to retreat into the
\nsacristy. The Irish Church may once have dominated social reflection.
\nThose days are gone and the Church must recognise that the weight of its
\nvoice in a much more secular society has changed. To return to my
\nfriend’s analogy, the Church must change its clothes, not just as
\ncosmetic change or to look more fashionable, but to have clothes which
\nmake us more agile for the task that is ours.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The
\nVisitor for the Archdiocese of Dublin is Boston’s irenic Cardinal Sean
\nO’Malley, but whether he’s there to strengthen or stay Martin’s hand is
\nhard to say. O’Malley, as Lisa Wangsness suggests<\/a>
\nin today’s Boston Globe<\/i>, is Rome’s go-to guy when it comes to
\ndealing with abuse-plagued dioceses. But, as Michael Rezendes also makes
\nclear<\/a> in the Globe<\/i>  today, Martin’s the odd bishop out in
\nIreland.<\/p>\n

The Vatican can’t have it both ways. So which is Ireland
\nto have once the mess is cleaned up, a reinvigorated clericalism or a
\nlay-led revival? You’d have to give me very good odds to bet on the
\nlatter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the mission of the Apostolic Visitors who, the Vatican announced last week, will be parachuting into the Emerald Isle next fall? According to the official press release, they are supposed to deal with the abuse crisis: The Apostolic Visitors will set out to explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Two Faces of Ireland's Apostolic Visitation - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/06\/the-two-faces-of-irelands-apostolic-visitation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Two Faces of Ireland's Apostolic Visitation - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What’s the mission of the Apostolic Visitors who, the Vatican announced last week, will be parachuting into the Emerald Isle next fall? According to the official press release, they are supposed to deal with the abuse crisis: The Apostolic Visitors will set out to explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/06\/the-two-faces-of-irelands-apostolic-visitation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-08T12:50:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Two Faces of Ireland's Apostolic Visitation - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2010\/06\/the-two-faces-of-irelands-apostolic-visitation.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Two Faces of Ireland's Apostolic Visitation - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk","og_description":"What’s the mission of the Apostolic Visitors who, the Vatican announced last week, will be parachuting into the Emerald Isle next fall? 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After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}