Citizenship Sunday - 6 th November 2005

Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin.

1. Citizenship and Leadership

It is some six months ago since Dean Desmond Harmon kindly invited me to preach the homily at today's Annual Citizenship Service. I accepted the invitation with a sense of privilege and a degree of apprehension. Had the invitation come at any time in the past two weeks the sense of privilege might have remained but the degree of apprehension would almost certainly have led to a polite refusal of that privilege.
My very dear friends in Jesus Christ,

I just hope that when one feels a real sense of brokenness and when confidence in one's own wisdom is at a low ebb that one can call more humbly on the wisdom of God to come to one's aid. In order to draw a little on that wisdom of God I repeat some lines from the Gospel passage which was read in our Churches on Sunday last. And how appropriate that Gospel passage was on that day -

Addressing the people and his disciples, Jesus said:

" The Scribes and the Pharisees (who were of course the religious leaders of the time) occupy the chair of Moses. You must therefore do what they say: but do not be guided by what they do. They tie up heavy burdens on people's shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they."

And the word of God is indeed sharper than a two edged sword!

One of the qualities of good leadership in any society is to lead by example; to practise what we preach; not to demand of others what we are not prepared to do ourselves.

Recent years in Ireland have too often shown those of us who have been in positions of leadership in our society to have feet of clay. Too often we have failed to lead by example, to practice what we preach. Too often we have expected others to live by rules which we ourselves failed to obey.

Many of the principal institutions in our society have been found wanting in that quality of leadership. This has resulted in a serious lack of trust in and disconnection from these institutions.

A spate of enquiries in recent years have cast a dark shadow over the world of politics, over banking and the business world. Recent revelations have significantly damaged the good name of our Gardaí. Our legal profession has come in for considerable criticism in relation to what appears to most of us as exorbitant charges for their services. There is mistrust in the management of our health care system.

But probably the most shameful of all has been the breach of trust by some of us who claim to be about the Mission of Christ.

It is indeed a time for all of us who have the privilege and the responsibility of leadership to ask ourselves very serious questions as to how and why so many of us have failed. We in the Roman Catholic Church must surely ask why such evil continued to go unchecked for so long. And we must ask ourselves more difficult questions as to why men who must have entered priesthood with high ideals could perpetrate such evil acts.

• Was it human weakness or was it an unhealthy and distorted understanding of the meaning and purpose of the gift of sexuality?

• Could our rule of celibacy have had a negative influence ?

• Was the virtual absence of women in our decision making processes a significant factor?

These are somewhat frightening questions for us to face but not to ask them at this point is more frightening.

And while I do take the opportunity to assure you that considerable work has been done in recent years to ensure as far as humanly possible that this dreadful abuse will not occur again, nonetheless I believe that deeper questions must still be addressed.

It is not for me to frame the questions that need to be asked in political, business, banking, legal and medical worlds. But wherever there has been regular failure of leadership there is need to question why. It is only after answering the deeper questions that one can confidently put in place structures which will ensure that these failures do not recur.

There may be different questions for each one of us to ask but there is one common goal which must be pursued by all of us. That goal is truth. I began by saying that when I had lost confidence in my own wisdom that I hoped the wisdom of God might break through. And truth is surely the wisdom of God - the truth about ourselves, the truth about who we are, the truth about what we do. The search for truth must be never ending even when that truth is painful to ourselves.

One of the most powerful instruments in that search for truth in our world today is of course the media. In so many cases over the past 20 years courageous journalists have pursued many of us in positions of leadership in search of truth. We have sometimes been evasive and even misleading

While paying due tribute to the media for their contribution to a more open and honest society dare I say to some: "You have charged us, and not without reason, as being an arrogant and oppressive force in Irish society for many years. It would be a great tragedy if you were to now to occupy that place which you have helped us to vacate".

For the media there is always the attraction of the sensational, the outrageous, the salacious and the prurient and recent weeks have seen examples of that. Truth ought never to be sacrificed in the cause of sensationalism.

And if on occasion some of the judgments we make prove to be wrong, it is not always true that wrong judgments are the results of corrupt motives.

2. Citizenship and Right Relationships.

Good citizenship is about living in right relationships with others and indeed with the environment in which we live.

Living in right relationships with others involves having a deep, deep respect for each person. Each one of us is a wonderfully unique and special creation - no one ever quite like me before, no one ever quite like me again, no one ever quite like you before, no one ever quite like you again. In our short journey through this world there is a wonderful opportunity for each one of us to work to make the world a good place to live for ourselves and for others, and to eventually leave this world a better place for those who make that journey after us.

The privilege and responsibility of those in positions of leadership is not only to try to live in right relationship with those around us but also to try to promote conditions which will facilitate others to live in right relationships. While we tend to see this as the responsibility of government whether local or national all of us have responsibilities in this area - all the more if we are in positions where we can influence public opinion. It is easy to say that the government must provide better childcare facilities, better infrastructure, better housing etc. And while it is the task of our political leaders to provide many of these things we can and do often prevent them from doing more by our refusal to be generous. Paying our fair share of taxes, not allowing self-interest to dominate over interests of the community are hallmarks of good citizenship.

Right relationships and good citizenship involve accepting and fulfilling the laws of our society. And in this regard I take the opportunity to state that as a citizen of this state I regard it as a duty to obey the laws of this state. I do not accept that ecclesiastical or canon law, which governs Church affairs, is in any way in conflict with our state law. But should any such conflict arise I will feel obliged to obey the law of the State. And I honestly do believe that all of my bishop colleagues would say the same despite recent suggestions to the contrary. We are privileged to live in a democratic society and there is no justification for any group be they motivated by political, religious, or whatever other interests to place themselves above the law.

1. Citizenship and Inclusion.

If, of course, I am to live in right relationship with others and to respect the laws of our society I need to feel that I am a valued and respected member of that society. I need to know that I have a part to play. If I feel that I cannot make a difference, if I feel I do not belong, if I feel excluded from the ordinary participation in the daily life of society then I cannot be expected to respect others, and their way of doing things. And there are many individuals and groups in our society today who, not without reason, feel excluded from that normal participation.

I think of travellers, of asylum seekers, of people who for a variety of reasons have fallen into the poverty trap through lack of education, lack of decent housing, breakdown of family life, or simply being born in a deprived area. I think too, with sadness, of various forms of exclusion which we appear to operate in our own Church.

I do not suggest that there are simple solutions to these issues. There aren't but unless all of us who are privileged - and I suspect that nearly all of us here this afternoon are to some extent privileged - unless all of us are genuinely committed to breaking down those ugly walls of exclusion which sometimes deface our society we will continue to have conditions which create dissent, disillusion, despair and at times downright destruction.

Recent years of economic progress have brought most of us to a more comfortable place but they also have created an aggressive individualism where the strong grow stronger and the weak often go to the wall. There appears to be a growing number of people who understandably find themselves unable to cope in this stressful environment. The frightening phenomenon of people feeling they have no part to play and that life is not bearable anymore is surely manifested in our increasing suicide rate especially among our young males. The abuse of alcohol and the continued tragic carnage on our roads are further sources for serious worry.

And speaking of inclusion and exclusion may I be permitted a modest piece of boasting. I live in Ennis in County Clare and we were winners of the All Ireland Tidy Towns Award this year. A small number of people did an enormous amount of work to achieve that award.

The real secret of their success, however, lay in including as many people as possible in the effort. They managed to convince most of us in our own local area that the task of caring for that area belonged to us, that each one of us had a part to play. Inclusion is at the heart of right relationships; inclusion is at the heart of good citizenship.

1. New Hope

We are privileged to live at the beginning of a New Millennium. Over the past ten / fifteen years many of our powerful institutions have been found wanting. These findings have at times brought pain and shame. The emergence of the truth, however painful, must always be beneficial. I believe that the painful truths which have emerged will have a cleansing effect on all our institutions.

The virtue of hope is at the heart of our Christian faith. Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday. Sin and failure is part of the human condition, but so also is forgiveness, healing and love. I do believe we can, and that we are moving to a better place, a place where there is increased respect for the wonder and sacredness that is each one of us; a place where right relationships can be fostered and where inclusion allows each one of of us to have a meaningful part to play.

And can I be permitted to end on a personal note of hope. While I have experienced very understandable anger, and listened to heart breaking stories over recent weeks, I have also experienced quite extraordinary goodness, love and even forgiveness from victims and their families whose lives have been blighted by the evil of abuse. It is in this goodness and love, in this forgiveness and even in this belated expression of anger, that I put my hope in a better future for all of us.

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