Senator Ronan Mullen

On Morning Ireland this morning Senator Ronan Mullen has once again gone on record to defend the indefensible. This morning he also dodged the issue of those within the Church who have defended the Churches actions or refused to take responsibility for their own inaction while attacking the New Times for calling Pope Benedict to account.

Regretfully Senator Mullen has not been very vocal in calling to account those within the Church who acted to cover up and obfuscate clerical child abuse. By his own admission he has commented very little on this. He seems to share that 1950’s view of the Church as a sacrosanct monolith unanswerable and unaccountable to anyone but itself and its hierarchical authorities. In his speech last night Archbishop Martin clearly demonstrated that those days are gone and that those who love and cherish the Church, as I have no doubt Sen. Mullen does, have to face up to the reality of the situation and realise that the game is up and if the Church is to regain any credibility in the future it can only do so by coming clean on its past mistakes.

Archbishop Martin said last night that ‘there are strong forces within the Church that would still prefer if the truth did not emerge’. Senator Mullen has in the past defended the actions of the former Archbishop Desmond Connell when he tried to get a High Court injunction to restrain the current Archbishop from releasing child abuse files. He has been an unrepentant apologist for at least that section of the Church that wishes it could go back to the old days when the media, politicians and society in general were obsequious to the Church and its wishes. He should listen now to Archbishop Martins words and consider what is really in the best interests of the Church

Senator Mullen was elected to the NUI Seanad Panel. He sits as an independent but his track record clearly demonstrates the limits to his independent thinking and NUI voters should remember that at the next Seanad election.