Applying both mercy and standards to ‘Golfgate’

While we think we have become a less judgemental society, we have simply found new things to be judgemental about, writes David Quinn

The revelation that 81 people, including some sitting politicians and other very senior members of the Irish establishment attended a golfing dinner in Clifden recently has caused understandable outrage among many members of the public.

It was organised by the Oireachtas Golf Society, something most of us didn’t know existed before now. Agriculture Minister, Dara Calleary was forced to resign almost immediately. Several senators in both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had the party whip withdrawn from them. Huge pressure has been placed on EU Commissioner, Phil Hogan. Supreme Court justice Seamus Woulfe now faces a probe by the Chief Justice. Ironically, as Attorney General under the Fine Gael-led Government, Mr Woulfe helped to draw up the law that imposed lockdown on the country.

He has escaped the same level of opprobrium so far that has been meted out to the politicians partly because the judiciary must be independent of the Oireachtas, but there has been a notable silence from his legal colleagues, such as senior barristers or retired judges. They could easily speak out if they wanted. Is this a lawyerly version of clericalism, that is, the tendency to protect your own?

Outrage

The reason for the public outrage is that what happened in Clifden appears to be a very clear illustration of the old adage, there is one rule for the powerful and another for the rest of us.

Only a few days before the golf dinner, the Government had announced new restrictions to curb an increase in confirmed cases of Covid-19. How could so many members of the establishment then think so little of attending an event that broke the rules, even though, in fairness, the hotel hosting the dinner had divided the guests into separate dining areas?

People have had to postpone weddings, very limited numbers have been able to attend funerals of loved ones, visits to family members in nursing homes were put on indefinite hold, cancer treatments and heart surgery have been postponed, tens of thousands have lost their jobs. The sacrifices have been huge, but the Clifden event went ahead anyway. You can see why there was so much anger.

And yet, it still brings up a very important issue, namely where does mercy fit into the picture? As we know, this has been a key theme of the pontificate of Pope Francis. Pope Francis wants the Church to show more mercy to those who fall by the wayside, and to apply the rules less harshly than in the past. He wants the Church to ‘accompany’ people, rather than simply condemn and judge them when they do something wrong.

The minister’s resignation should have been enough. He had paid the price. Why keep him in public stocks afterwards?”

By ‘accompany’ he means lead them gently to where they really need to go, rather than to hound and dismiss and make an example of them. But clearly we have decided to make an example of the likes of Dara Calleary. No mercy has been shown there. Francis does not intend that his comments about mercy be applied to the Church only, but to society as a whole. So, how should we apply what Pope Francis has to say about the subject to what has become known as ‘Golfgate’?

It is no easy task because within society there is always a need to balance mercy and standards. Even within families, parents have to work out the right balance between ‘accepting love’ and ‘transforming love’.

The former accepts a person, a child say, as they are and doesn’t try to make them into what they can never be.

Transforming love tries to make them into a better version of themselves, but such love can’t be too controlling. Again, there is a balance to be struck.

But what we are often talking about out in the wider world has nothing to do with love, it is simply about punishment. A certain standard has been set, and if it is not met, it must be dealt with ruthlessly and harshly.

Standards exist so that society can function. New standards have been introduced recently to protect public health. Many of our ordinary freedoms have been taken away in the name of the common good. We have been asked, and in some cases forced, to give up some of our freedoms in order to protect the lives of others. The vast majority of people, especially in the early days when we thought tens of thousands of us might die, were happy enough to obey the new rules.

It seems as though it will be a long time before we can go back to normal and therefore restrictive measures are going to come and go depending on how widespread the virus at any given timer.

If too many members of the public began to disobey the new laws and the new rules, it might spell disaster.

If politicians are allowed to get away with breaking the rules they themselves have set, then the message to the rest of us will be clear; we can break them too.

The trouble in the case of Dara Calleary isn’t so much that he had to resign, it is that the condemnations kept rolling in afterwards. His resignation should have been enough. He had paid the price. Why keep him in public stocks afterwards?

Here is where the lack of mercy is really on display and it shows that while we think we have become a less judgemental society, it really isn’t true. We have simply found new things to be judgemental about, in this case public health.

If Pope Francis was somehow forced to comment on ‘Golfgate’, he might well say that those who set the rules should have to obey those rules, but then that once they pay the price, we should be content with that and in the name of mercy, leave them alone and not continually hound them.