SEAN O'CONAILL,
Sir, - Ciaran Coleman (June 13th) takes Patsy McGarry to task for being critical of the Catholic Hierarchy, on the grounds of his "lack of knowledge and understanding of large organisations and how they function".
What Mr Coleman forgets is that Catholic bishops and clergy generally have had privileged access to Catholic children because of the unique nature of the Catholic Church as an organisation - that it claims to represent the body of Christ. We laity are taught to see bishops as spiritual fathers and supreme moral exemplars. No heads of any other organisation have that role in relation to their members - not even the editor of The Irish Times.
And this is the heart of the problem: when it came to a decision on which of a bishop's conflicting responsibilities would determine his actions, child victims always came second to the sense of obligation to the mystique of clericalism itself. This happened not just here in Ireland, but throughout the Western Church. It tells us clearly that the Church is systemically dangerous to its own most vulnerable members, and therefore must face systemic change.
Ominously, most bishops appear unable to grasp this simple fact. Until they do they will be unable to regain the confidence that laity once placed in them. - Yours, etc.,
SEAN O'CONAILL, Greenhill Road, Coleraine, Co Derry.