Mary KennyMary Kenny considers the impact of reflecting on life choices and ‘what ifs’
Fr Brian D’Arcy was in rueful mood when he reflected, on The Late Late Show that – “Nobody put a gun to my head and said, ‘you must be a priest’. In fact everybody said to me ‘you shouldn’t be a priest’. But I would have been a far better priest had I married.”
Such reflections are just part of the thoughts everyone has in the evening years of life. What if I had done things differently? What if I had emigrated to Canada: or taken up that job I declined: or married B instead of A: or gone to university instead of starting work? What if I’d had children, or more children, or no children?
In the last section of the movie La La Land, Emma Stone’s character, Mia, re-runs her life choices, imagining that she had married Sebastian, rather than the blank guy she did marry, and re-running the whole story as a parallel narrative.
Different
Things might indeed have been different, but she has no way of knowing in what way they would have differed.
Brian D’Arcy might have been happier and more fulfilled if he had married: but then again he might not. His marriage might not have been a success: his wife might have fallen in love with someone else: his wife might have fallen seriously ill and he might have had to spend decades caring for her.
He might have had wonderful children, but he might have had problems with his children too. Perfect families are rare, and I’ve known everything from drug addiction to suicide to schizophrenia to violent personality disorder arise among families where the parents were beyond reproach and harmoniously united.
Fr D’Arcy cannot say whether he would have been a better priest if married, because he cannot know.
But many who have had pastoral contact with Brian D’Arcy say he is a very good priest, especially to families bereaved by suicide, and that, surely, is a source of gratitude.
Re-running the Reformation
Is ‘Brexit’ a re-run of the Reformation, when Henry VIII broke with ‘Europe’ by rebuffing the Pope’s authority? That’s a theory that’s been around for a while, and it’s being advanced by Lord Hattersley in a new book about British and Irish Catholics. He suggests that Henry VIII was “soft Brexit” (he wanted to keep some links with Rome) while Elizabeth I was “hard Brexit” (she wanted complete separation). It’s a piquant idea, somewhat contradicted by the fact that many modern British Brexiteers are Catholics – Paul Nuttell of UKIP, MPs Bill Cash and Edward Leigh, and commentator Charles Moore.
Recalling Cardinal Connell
I spent some time talking with the late Cardinal Desmond Connell during the 1990s, when he was in the throes of the unfolding clerical abuse scandals. My abiding impression of him was a well-meaning man who was completely bewildered by the storm swirling around him. I was pretty bewildered myself, as I had no experience whatsoever, at that time, of anything sexually improper among the clergy. So I sympathised with him in finding some of the claims almost unbelievable.
But I also thought he seemed isolated. He was surrounded by young, somewhat deferential clergy who addressed him as “My Lord” and “Your Grace”. Archbishop’s House in Drumcondra struck me as a mournful old mausoleum, set in its own grounds, almost deliberately designed to keep a pastor at arm’s length from the world.
Dr Connell didn’t appear to have any close family links, which must have added to the isolation – I had cousins who were priests, always surrounded by a gaggle of sisters, brothers and extended kin which provided a window on the everyday.
He was upset and disturbed by the growing power of the media, and was particularly obsessed with The Irish Times. Born in 1926, he had grown up in a world where the media was more decorous, and usually more respectful of rank.
The Murphy report was harsh on Desmond Connell, judging that he had failed in his responsibilities in that he had failed to address the abuse scandals adequately.
But: walk a mile in another man’s moccasins – which of us would have done better, given the circumstances, the context, and the temperament with which we are born?
One of the best aspects of Pope Francis’ pontificate is the example that he has given in terms of contact with people, and outgoing lifestyle. Francis refuses to live in a papal palace, eats in ordinary canteens, drives around in a modest car. This puts him in touch with people in a meaningful way.
I felt sorry for Dr Connell, because he seemed to be walled up in a Victorian pile, raging against an outside world that assailed him, but also puzzled him.
And desperately hurt, too, that the Irish Church tradition he so clearly loved was being brought low.