What links recent events in Drogheda to The Da Vinci Code? It is Rome's obsession with secrecy and crushing dissent, writes Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent
AS The Da Vinci Code goes on view in cinemas worldwide tomorrow, the Catholic Church holds its breath. Many of its most loyal adherents anticipate what may be the outcome with anxiety and incredulity. They cannot believe that this badly written piece of hokum, albeit with a clever plot, has captured the imagination of so many and rocked the faith of not a few.
How has it happened, they wonder, that people could believe the Catholic Church would be capable of creating and perpetuating such a hoax and for so long? How has it come to pass that some people are convinced it would resort even to murder to protect its interests? There is history surely, but "that was then", defenders of the faith would retort.
Yes. But Drogheda is now. Of course the usual suspects will rush, as always, to defend the church's actions, announced on Monday, following that Easter Sunday Mass concelebrated by three Augustinian priests and a Church of Ireland minister.
Rome's handling of the Drogheda Mass is a key to why the world so readily believes it capable of what is described in The Da Vinci Code.
In this life, where little is constant, some few things remain certain: death, taxes and Rome's response to dissent. Which is simple - crush it. Suppress it. Beat it down, and quickly.
And if, perchance, Rome may get it wrong and - an even further "perchance" - it admits that, it can always turn such to advantage with a humble apology. As it did where Galileo was concerned in 1992 - 350 years after his death. In his life, Galileo was forced by Rome to recant his belief that the earth moved around the sun. He was placed under house arrest and had all his books banned.
More than anything else, it is this pattern in Rome's practice when confronted with dissent which disturbs many about the Catholic Church, its unhealthy but wholly predictable reflex to suppress. Indeed the outcome of this tendency can be remarkable even in terms of its belief, as observed in a comment from a report to the Church of Ireland General Synod last week.
That report on the agreed Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission document dealing with Mary, the mother of Jesus, published last May, observed of the Catholic Church's teaching on the Immaculate Conception (that Mary was born without original sin) "the process by which this doctrine came to prevail in the Roman Catholic tradition is itself problematic as it appears to have involved, not a genuine discussion, but the gradual suppression of dissent". You might say it is the means by which many teachings in the Catholic Church have come to prevail.
It does not do so always through convincing the faithful so much as by exercising the brute force of authority. Once a Catholic - Rome asserts - you must believe.
So Fr Iggy O'Donovan has come to recant on what he described to this newspaper on April 19th , not yet a month ago, as "the most meaningful Eucharist I ever celebrated".
He, and the other two priests involved, Fr Richard Goode and Fr Noel Hession, "having reflected on the seriousness of their actions", have written to the Catholic Primate, Archbishop Seán Brady; the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto and the Prior General of the Augustinian Order, Fr Robert Prévost, apologising "unreservedly for the ill-considered celebration". They also gave them "an absolute commitment as to future conduct in matters liturgical". Now there's a firm purpose of amendment - they will never, ever do it again.
And how do we know all of this? We were told in a statement from the Irish province of their religious congregation, which also said that "neither the Augustinians involved nor the Augustinian Order, will be making any further statement in relation to the matter". The three priests concerned have been silenced - those awful, dreadful would-be agents of Mass destruction, as it seems Rome would have it.
An editorial in this newspaper on April 21st forecast: "Fr O'Donovan and his colleagues cannot hope to escape the consequences of their actions. As members of a religious order they are outside some of the usual rigours of diocesan discipline. But, in the long run, Fr O'Donovan risks being suspended or even dismissed from his teaching post in Rome, and may even face a dreadful choice between a humiliating climbdown and being forced out of the ministry." Fr O'Donovan, it would appear, has chosen the "humiliating climbdown" route.
What has been forced on this man is morally repugnant. Clearly someone of conscience, he has had to, effectively, publicly negate what he himself believes to be right. At that Easter Sunday Mass he said: "The Christian church of the future has to be one in which the different traditions are united in a shared service of the Risen Christ and in which we are enriched not threatened by our differences. That is why I am delighted to welcome the Rev Michael Graham and members of his congregation here today." For that he had either to be humiliated or thrown out. It says more about the institution which forced such choice than it does about Fr O'Donovan.
At a hearing of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse last Monday, barrister Noel McMahon queried the role of the vow of obedience in the culture of industrial schools run by the Sisters of Mercy. He read from the order's constitution: "The Sisters are always to bear in mind that by the vow of obedience they have for ever [ sic] renounced their own will and resigned it to the direction of their Superiors. They are to obey the Mother Superior as holding her authority from God." He continued: "They are to execute without hesitation all the directions of the Mother Superior, whether in matters of great or little moment, agreeable or disagreeable. They shall never murmur, but with humility and spiritual joy carry the sweet yoke of Jesus Christ."
The barrister was questioning Sr Margaret Casey of the Sisters of Mercy, western province, who told him there was more dialogue and consultation since Vatican Two where that vow was now concerned but that on any issue "the ultimate decision would be with the superior". She also explained how, particularly in the past, "it wouldn't have been accepted for somebody to complain to the person in authority" as to do so "would have been seen not merely as a kind of personal failing but it would also have shown in some way their inability to cope with the challenges of religious life".
You have to wonder about an institution which demands such unreasonable obedience and which so regularly and ruthlessly overrules individual conscience. Who then can cavil when so many believe it capable of such savage amorality as suggested in The Da Vinci Code? Let us wish Fr O'Donovan, Fr Goode and Fr Hession well as, without murmur, "but with humility and spiritual joy", they too now must carry the so-called "sweet yoke of Jesus Christ".