Writing for life

Published as an opinion piece in The Evening Echo on the 06/02/2008

Take a human being and scratch away at the thin veneer of civility, and before long you’ll reveal the true nature of the beast beneath. For all our trappings of a sophisticated society, culture and civilization, at our very core we’re driven by a much more basic set of rules. The instinct to secure the resources we need to survive; to protect ourselves, our families and the members of our particular “tribe”.

Every now and then you’ll notice our thinly veiled tribal roots bubbling to the surface. It happened last week, when former Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, secured a temporary injunction to prevent a State inquiry into clerical abuse from accessing Church documents. This was in spite of a promise by current Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to allow the inquiry “open access” to church files.

To the layperson this turn of events is incomprehensible. It flies in the face of reason, but then the urge to protect members of one’s “tribe” is a base human instinct that can sometimes by-pass reason, common sense and even common decency.

On the other side, of course, are the abuse victims, their supporters and now, finally, the State, who are equally vehement in pursuit of truth and justice for members of their “tribe”. They, by any measure, occupy the moral high ground on this modern-day tribal battleground. But then moral values, even among clerics, can it seems be supplanted by more basic instincts. And therein lies the very root of the problem.

As a parent with young children my first reaction to news of the injunction was one of outrage. Once again the Catholic Church closes ranks to protect individuals who have not only committed what is perhaps the most heinous of all crimes, but have blatantly flaunted the core values of the Christian faith they purport to represent. It simply beggars belief.

It’s only reasonable for people to question Cardinal Conell’s motives in scuppering the State’s attempt to view these documents. It smacks of yet another cover up of potentially incriminating information.

Whether born out of a desire to protect the “tribe” as a whole, particular individuals in that “tribe”, or from the even more deeply rooted instinct of self preservation, the move is utterly reprehensible, and ultimately damaging: damaging to the victims, damaging to the enquiry and damaging to the Catholic Church itself. For goodness sake, hasn’t the reputation of the Church in Ireland suffered enough through it’s inept handling of the clerical abuse scandal? The last thing it needs as an organisation is something like this to further tarnish its already muddied image.

As humans we have a unique ability to consciously overrule instinctive patterns of behaviour. Although we don’t always embrace it, we have the capacity to transcend our default state of “what’s best for me”, and to consider the broader impact of our actions. In many way’s that ability to look at the bigger picture, to consider elements beyond the scope of our own situation and experience, and to regulate our behaviour accordingly, is a characteristic that underpins human society. It’s what makes us different – what sets us apart from our animal cousins.

Except of course when it doesn’t.