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By the time ye are reading this I will possibly be roasting eternally already in the hottest corner of hell for having dreadfully broken the centuries-old sacred tradition of the Seal of Confession of the Catholic Church.
Mighty priests and saints were burned at the stake in the past for refusing to break that seal, so this is a heavy moment indeed for all of us.
Maybe ye should stop reading here at this point to not become even laterally complicit in MacConnell’s. Those of you who are devoutly Catholic should take this suggestion seriously.
Anyway, for those of you still here, the context is that I also was devoutly Catholic and a regular Mass-goer until about 25 years ago when the frightening tide of scandals attached to my church began to surface in turgid waves.
It was a shock here in holy Ireland, for example, when it was revealed that both Bishop Eamon Casey and Father Michael Cleary, the hierarchy’s brightest stars of the time, were biological fathers as well as priests sworn to celibacy.
They were both good and charming men and that was a minor enough matter on the scale of things.
Far worse was the pedophile epidemic amongst our clergy and the sinful attitude of our church leaders here in trying to hide that from the laity by moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had access to minors, instead of reporting their misdeeds to the police and having them all sent to jail pronto.
It was during that time I dropped away from the church in silent protest like so many more.
In the intervening years I frequently drop into chapels to quietly talk directly to my God about matters that concern me.
And to light a little candle for the welfare of those I love. Continue reading
- Cormac MacConnell is a veteran Irish writer and journalist.
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