#334: When Irish Eyes Are Frowning

EXCERPT:
The concept that different organizations have distinctive ways of doing things--different cultures--has been around for more than 30 years; what began as a technical term in organizational theory has become a familiar notion to most people.

But over that time the Church’s way of doing things has become more and more targeted, both by its members and by outsiders. This targeting came to a head last week in Ireland.

It was, in fact, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny himself who denounced “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism--and the narcissism--that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.”

This was in response to the recent government report claiming that Rome had secretly discouraged bishops from reporting priest abusers to authorities. This led Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore to charge the Vatican with violating Ireland’s sovereignty by placing the Church’s canon law above Irish law. And it led to a unanimous “unprecedented denunciation” by the Irish parliament:

[Parliament] deplores the Vatican’s intervention, which contributed to the undermining of the child protection frameworks and guidelines of the Irish State and the Irish bishops.

What followed was equally unprecedented: Gilmore summoned Vatican Ambassador to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, for a face-to-face grilling, and subsequently Leanza was recalled to Rome.

Whether the accusations are completely accurate or not, they spring from the impression that church officials make on others by the way they conduct the Church’s business--that is, from the culture that frames their performance as church leaders. Prime Minister Kenny’s description of that culture as dysfunction, disconnection, elitism, and narcissism reflects a serious challenge to the Church’s mission. If people find Catholic leadership dysfunctional, disconnected, elitist, a narcissistic--how can the Church promote the Gospel message and the world?

Indeed, we can see this perception of Catholicism’s culture impeding our mission when Ireland proposes legislation making it a crime to withhold evidence of child abuse from the police--even evidence protected by the seal of the confessional! In short, Catholicism’s perceived institutional culture has provoked a reaction that intrudes on the very function of the Church.

All this begs the question: do the Prime Minister and the Irish government have a case? And if they do, is the culture they decry only a problem for them--or is it more than a local Irish problem?