New departure in reputation-risk management by the Vatican

Toyota, is the largest motor corporation in the world in terms of sales volume and it sustained this position through achieving the highest possible standards in various engineering functions and processes.

Toyota recently had a spot of bother when some Toyota vehicles suffered major quality problems involving defective brake pedals.  The US Department of Transportation wanted to fine the company over $16 million following a spate of injuries and a number of deaths.

The president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, has prostrated himself in front of Toyota’s worldwide customers to redeem their goodwill and he also established a special committee of global quality experts to respond to its global crisis and product recall.

Compare this approach to that of The Vatican.   Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, gave an interview recently to L’Obsservatore Romano who described the criticism of the Holy See relating to clerical child sex abuse as ‘truly incomprehensible’ , a comment that I would describe as absurd, unworthy and mischievous,

Sodano claims that those who criticise the Pope and bishops' are transforming ‘individual guilt’ into ‘collective guilt’; that this is manipulative and part of a cultural battle that challenges the moral truths propagated by the Pontiff.  How would Toyota customers’ have responded to charges that they engaged in a cultural battle with the car company that challenged the quality of its engineering?

Those who criticise The Vatican are doing no such thing. They are seeking a degree of accountability and candour that has been concealed by decades of obfuscation and evasion to the point where too many bishops’ have lost the vital resource of their office – moral authority.

They are also seeking recognition that the civic processes in society are supported unambiguously by the Church and not impeded by anything. including canon law and diplomatic bolt-holes. They demand that the Holy See promptly replace bishops who have lost moral authority and stature because they have concealed wrongdoers’ from justice, or were implicated in doing so.  There is no justification whatsoever for the creation of a flimsy cordon sanitaire to insulate them and the Pope from accountability and consequences.

The Pope’s Letter is a starting point

Greetings from Istanbul!  I reflected on the Pope’s letter on the 4-hour flight to here today.  The Irish newspapers were filled with comment about it.

I welcome the Pope’s candid apology and the empathy reflected in his letter. His language is straightforward and direct.  It would have been impossible for a single letter to have dealt conclusively with the complexity connected to clerical child sex abuse in Ireland.  His letter has the potential to open a new relationship with Ireland - if words are followed by actions that chart a new direction which inspires confidence and recovery.  But much hard work is required to achieve this and it may not be possible for change to come quickly enough to satisfy many people.

The Pope criticises the Irish bishops for having failed - at times grievously.  Their errors of judgement and failure of leadership, to which he refers, will require a radical response from the Holy See in terms of who leads the Church in Ireland and what the nature, style and tenure of the desired leadership is.  One characteristic of bishops in Ireland is the extraordinary length of their tenure which extends up to 40 years in some instances.  Longevity of service does not equate with a disposition to change and an absence of accountability leaves them in a most undesirable position when things go wrong with devastating consequences.  There is no obvious method for those in difficulty to validate an impaired mandate.

The first response to systemic failure in an organisation, or institution,  are new faces at the helm, even if those effected by such change believe that they are not directly culpable for adversity uncovered.  The consequences of such change is to achieve effective accountability, inspire trust and a revitalise the institutional culture.

Ireland has had to deal with a plethora of such instances in the recent past and many of the new incumbents have arrived from outside the country to take over pivotal positions in various fields, such as financial services, the State funding of research, the investigation of venality and incompetence in banks, running a loss-making airline and the inspection of policing. 

Will the Pope need to nominate an archbishop of Armagh with the patience, eminence and stature of Senator George Mitchell to achieve what is necessary?  Does such an individual exist within the global Church hierarchy?  How would the incumbent bishops react to the imposition of a new broom from far away, untutored in their native habits and preferences?  Should they be innovative and demand a time limit to their tenure of, say, five to seven years, and be free to deploy their experience constructively in another role?

Cardinal Brady dances on the head of a pin

The 1975 oath of secrecy extracted from two child sex abuse victims to which Cardinal Brady was a witness is simply another vivid and catastrophic illustration of the consequences that arise when there is no accountability within an organisation and the vanity of leaders takes absolute precedence over the vitality and integrity of its mission.  What other organisation in the world facilitates the continued incumbency of a challenged leader merely on his own say-so with the echo of a few sychophants' audible in the background?  If there is no process of validation how is the calibre, acceptability and trust of a leader to be judged, tested and respected, especially when the mandate to lead is compromised or impaired?

This oath of secrecy was not time limited.  It does not seem to have been demanded to facilitate the expedited removal of Fr Smyth's priestly faculties. The basis of it was not attributable to a penitent making a Confession, which is legitimately guarded by secrecy. What purpose could this infinite oath possibly have had other than to enable Fr Smyth evade the process of criminal justice? 
This oath meant that one of the most heinous child sex abusers in Ireland enjoyed the freedom to rape and sodomise innocent children for a further 19 years without Cardinal Brady or Bishop MacKiernan, who resigned as Bishop of Kilmore in October 1998, over a year after Fr Smyth's sudden death, apparently not making the slightest intervention to have Smyth apprehended.  Fr Smyth might have abused for the rest of his life had it not been for the forensically researched 1994 UTV television documentary that exposed him - a programme the making of which was also impeded by self-serving bishops' protecting their interests and reputations.

The knowledge that is now in the public domain places immense constraints of credibility on Cardinal Brady to provide the calibre and agility of leadership that a Church dealing with crisis now urgently needs.  If he has been granted the gift of empathy and introspection with the same lavish abundance as he was granted the faculty of secrecy and the discipline of obedience, he will resign promptly and graciously, perhaps with deep personal regret.  He would recognise the limitations that this matter imposes on him and on the the role of Primate.  He would make way for another qualified candidate whose legacy is less burdened by history and the chains of secrecy.