RITE AND REASON:I decided to be unfashionable and reveal a different episcopal image, writes OTTO HERSCHAN
VARIOUS FRIENDS suggested that as I was a good seanachaí and never stopped dropping names, I should write a book of memories. Following an article some seven years ago about me in The Irish Times, still more said I should add some of the story of my life. Hence my book Holy Smoke?
Since the discovery of the paedophilia avalanche, bishop bashing is the vogue. So I decided to be unfashionable and reveal some of my encounters with bishops that unveil a different image.
My first meeting with the formidable archbishop John Charles McQuaid was in 1972. He had publicly voiced criticism of a Christmas crib by Fergus O’Farrell at Dublin airport. I told the archbishop that I did not agree with his criticism. He replied: “I am so glad.”
Now I am very deaf and conscious of the disability in others, so I thought he had not heard. I repeated: “I said I disagreed,” which evoked the reply: “Yes, Mr Herschan, I heard clearly, you disagreed. You need to know that in nine cases out of 10, people who come to see me say what they think I would like to hear.” Apparently it was a welcome change.
The lack of communications by bishops had not been restricted to paedophilia. They simply had little appreciation of communicating. Before the crisis there were only two bishops, Eamonn Casey and Brendan Comiskey, who were born communicators.
In 1981 the then archbishop of Dublin Dermot Ryan suggested that I meet his then auxiliary bishop Brendan Comiskey. The result was an invitation to Brendan Comiskey to write a column in the Irish Catholicnewspaper but his boss said no.
So I wrote to the archbishop and complained. In his reply he said: “As a columnist he would put his head on a block every week.”
I countered: “Where else does a bishop’s head belong?” The result was that he wrote a weekly, entertaining and stimulating column until August 1995.
In the early 1980s I decided to take in hand the image changing of bishops. I knew that both cardinal Hume, the archbishop of Westminster, and archbishop Ryan were keen squash players.
I suggested organising a match between them to be televised and that the fee (which should have been considerable) be given to named charities.
Both tentatively agreed.
Alas, in 1985 when I wrote to archbishop Ryan, by then pro-prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome, I received no reply. He had just died that February.
The father of archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban in South Africa came from Cork. Denis always insisted on being called by his Christian name, but in letters always added OMI. He was was very proud of his Order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (better known as “Oblates”).
Ordained an archbishop at the age of 31, he was the youngest one in the world. He had been on the Preparatory Commission of Vatican II, but abstained from clerical language and preferred to use the vernacular, as it would be better understood by the laity.
When I had been with Catholic newspapers for 50 years, he wrote to me: When a batsman reaches 50, he waves his bat to the crowd, takes a fresh guard and sets out for his hundred. I hope you have gone through the process.
He died on the 13th of February 2004. The diocese had to hire a football stadium in Durban to accommodate the crowd for his Requiem Mass, which was also attended by Nelson Mandella.
In Holy Smoke?I have indulged in more name-dropping of bishops to show another side to their image. Maybe now they will follow suit.
Otto Herschan, who was born in Vienna in 1927, published Catholic newspapers in the UK and Ireland for over 50 years. His memoir Holy Smoke?is published by TAF