Former president, Mary McAleese, has criticised the lack of
opportunities to study canon law in Ireland, and expressed concern over
the fact that the Pontifical College in Maynooth has wound down its
course.Speaking from Rome, the former head of state said she believed it is, “absolutely essential,” for more people to become canon law literate in view of the, “utterly scathing,” findings on canon law in the Murphy Report in relation to the Irish Church.
Describing the paucity of courses in Ireland as, “utterly remarkable,” in view of the impact the Church’s legal system has had on Irish society and the Irish Church, Mary McAleese revealed that the canon law faculty in Maynooth has been closed, although, “anybody reading their website would not be aware of it because regrettably the website still talks about it as if it is open and current.”
The Church, “doesn’t make it easy for people like me to become literate in canon law and yet we are expected to obey canon law. It’s rather odd,” she commented.
She paid tribute to the Archdiocese of Dublin’s Vicar for Religious, Sr Dr Elizabeth Cotter, IBVM, who, on obtaining her doctorate in canon law in Canada, returned to Dublin and, “opened up through Milltown, and latterly through Mater Dei, the opportunity for lay people and clergy to become canon law literate.”
By studying canon law in Rome, Mary McAleese describes herself as, “drilling down to the foundations.”
Having drilled to those foundations she hopes in a few years’ time, “to be able to construct, with the help of colleagues in Ireland and elsewhere, a new way of pedagogically delivering to our children,” the means to an age appropriate legal education.
“They live in a society where they are surrounded by a miasma of legal rules and regulations,” she said, adding that society, “fails miserably” to equip children with the knowledge they need in civil law and canon law.
“It is very important for kids to understand that there is a threshold of responsibility. But nobody tells kids this and so how are they supposed to find it out? Generally, they probably find it out when a police officer knocks at the door or when they come within the ambit of the probation service or the juvenile liaison officer or a social worker.”
She urged the Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn, to consider including a legal component in schools.
“We need to ask what do children already know about law and what do they need to know and how can we as teachers and as people who care for our kids prepare them and give them the information they need to know in an age appropriate way and in a pedagogically effective way.”
“We have an extraordinary education system in Ireland. It seems to me that as we develop that education system and ask ourselves questions about the kind of skills our young people need to be equipped with to be fully conversant and comfortable in the world we live in, then the issue of legal literacy is important”, she said.
Mary McAleese credits faith-based schools with providing, “a rudimentary introduction,” to children of broadly legal concepts, “even though they might have a theological base,” through, “quite complex metaphysical ideas, to the ideas of right and wrong, to the idea of sin, to the idea of personal responsibility.”
In relation to wider society in Ireland, Mrs McAleese said that since the 1960s, the number of people completing secondary education was very high as is the number going on to third level education.
“We have a bright, intelligent, confident and educated public who in the public space, that is outside of the Church, have enormous freedom to debate everything to death. Ireland must be one of the most open democracies in the world.”
However, she said this freedom to discuss and debate and access information in the public sphere is in increasingly stark contrast to the Church where no such forum for discussion or debate exists.
“Realistically, what we have in the Church is a centralised primatial system of governance, a style of governance which relies on the brain power of one man, the Pope, and whoever is permitted to feed into him. So he is the author essentially of governance and decisions and we as a lay faithful or indeed as the clerical faithful don’t have much input into those decisions.”
She added, “We have a system of command and control where we are obliged to respond in obedience to the teachings of the Church and to accept certain things. I think the issue of obedience is quite difficult due to the erosion of trust in the judgment of those whom we are expected to obey. That really falls at the feet of the abuse issue,” she explained.
Speaking as the Church marks the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, Mary McAleese said that she feels the Council did not drive home sufficiently the way in which the Church was to be governed for the future.
“It was very evident at Vatican II that the bishops felt the need for change; that they felt that the college of bishops would be recognised and should be recognised.”
She suggests that Vatican II left, “no roadmap,” as to how collegiality would develop, “apart from a relatively clear wish from the Council that there would be opportunities for much greater collaboration, much greater co-responsibility and a handing over to the Pope to decide how it would develop.”
One of the conclusions of her book, Quo Vadis? Collegiality in the Code of Canon Law, is that post conciliar collegiality is chaotic.
She also believes that this chaotic development since Vatican II, “looks more and more like arguing against ever having another Vatican council.”
Discussing the synod of bishops, which was not a creation of Vatican II but a creation of Paul VI, she highlights that it has, “no decision-making powers whatsoever. The Pope could actually give it decision-making powers but he never has. The agenda is set effectively by the Pope and the Curia and they don’t take on major controversial issues that are being debated out in the public domain but fairly safe phenomena.”
She believes there is scope for developing greater synodality.
“If the bishops had more input into the decision making, by almost a process of osmosis, they would be obliged to have a much greater input into their own decision-making processes. Greater collaboration, greater discussion, greater access to the views of laity and clergy, in order to inform the views that they would then bring in turn to the governance of the universal church.”
“But because they have no real direct involvement in the governance of the universal church, we have this logjam right back down the line and the only person who can unlock that logjam is the Pope himself. He is the only person with the power under the code of canon law to change and to create new structures for co-responsibility and governance. Vatican II clearly wanted him to do that so that he would co-govern the church with the bishops,” she said.