Clergy needs to participate in truth recovery, not get a free pass to design it - Sunday Independent, January 29th, 2023
MAÍRÍA CAHILL
One of the most disturbing television programmes I have ever seen involved a clergyman, a killer, and the relatives of a victim who he murdered. The killer was Michael Stone, who still haunts my nightmares, because as a child I lived near Milltown Cemetery, the scene of one of his attacks. The BBC programme, Facing the Truth, aired in 2006.
As Stone bobbed and weaved between the gravestones at an IRA funeral, ruthlessly lobbing hand grenades and shooting those chasing him, he looked deranged. On screen, facing the family of Dermot Hackett, the 37-year-old man he killed one year before Milltown, the cameras didn't capture anything different.
Narcissistic and keen to stress his "soldier” side, Stone sat motionless as Dermot's wife, Sylvia, pleaded with him for answers. As she told him he had "destroyed” her, his face remained blank. As she tried to get through to him the hurt and harm he had caused, the only thing that betrayed he was alive was the blink of an eye.
He attempted to justify the "assassination” by falsely labelling Dermot Hackett an IRA man. Then, the ultimate insult as he rowed back from his previous confession, insisting that someone else pulled the trigger.
At the end, quietly encouraged by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sylvia Hackett shook Stone's hand. Traumatised by his touch, she screamed and ran off set. As I watched it, I thought: if anyone ever thinks this model for Northern Ireland truth recovery will work, they would do well to keep their opinions to themselves. Stone wasn't remorseful. Which part of that is helpful if replicated elsewhere?
We haven't yet agreed a way forward on this issue, and with the Tories seemingly hell-bent on destroying any chance of victims achieving truth or justice, a void has been created.
Last week, speaking at a service in St Anne's cathedral, Archbishop Eamon Martin suggested that Northern Irish churches could "offer to help develop an agreed truth recovery process to address the legacy of pain and mistrust…” Martin means well, no doubt, and he has a consistent position on "shedding light” on the truths of a troubled past that remain "hidden and festering”.
Did it ever occur to him, though, that his words might ring hollow in the ears of church sexual abuse victims? Wouldn't they perhaps reflect on their truth recovery process? Here is the Catholic Church's legacy on that issue. Evasion, denial, cover-up.
Frustration of legal processes, gagging orders for some victims, movement of priests around parishes. Has its extent been fully uncovered? In fairness to Martin, he has a strong track record in trying to address the wrongs of church sex abuse. The fact remains though: perhaps given its previous behaviour, the church isn't best placed to design anything.
Something else to ponder in the grand scheme of all things truth recovery. I'm old enough to remember certain Presbyterian clergy sharing platforms with paramilitaries like Billy Wright. It wasn't so long ago, either, that others tripped over themselves to deliver eulogies for Martin McGuinness. Would Wright's or McGuinness's victims appreciate a truth process designed by clergy?
A Police Ombudsman report in 2010 named Fr James Chesney as a suspect in the Claudy bomb. It also alleged state and church collusion to protect him. He wasn't the only Provo priest. Elsewhere, some former paramilitaries turned pastors on release.
Killers like Shankill Butcher Basher Bates became born again. A few years ago, BBCNI's Spotlight revealed that Alan Oliver, a former UVF man suspected of multiple murders, was working in an Elim church in Portadown. I'm all for rehabilitation and reconciliation if it provides truth, but its absence is a hard pill to swallow for the bereaved. Are we expecting they do so for God and Ulster?
There were other clerical hypocrites who sought to excommunicate women who had abortions yet happily doled out communion for decades to terrorist godfathers. And, don't get me started on churches who preached reconciliation, yet perpetuated sectarian division by refusing to support integrated education. I could go on and on, but it wouldn't be entirely fair.
On the whole, our clergy consisted of kind, decent individuals who endeavoured to help in appalling circumstances. Sometimes first at an atrocity's aftermath, they saw unspeakably traumatic scenes as they gave the last rites to the dying and comforted the bereaved. They negotiated, advocated and provided succour to parishes who had violence perpetrated upon them. In the round, their contribution to peace is important.
All of that should be recognised. And, if some victims wish their clergyman or woman to aid with truth recovery through pastoral support, more power to them.
But for those still with questions to answer? Far from designing any process, church entities should instead give up their auld sins and simply participate like everyone else.
