Why I now keep my Catholic faith in a biscuit tin

Sunday Tribune, 7 March

I have a battered old biscuit tin in the attic. It contains tokens of my past: little pebbles that make up a shifting bank of memory. I took it down the other day and sifted through it.
There was a bead from a long-forgotten teenage girlfriend's bracelet, once-significant ticket stubs, a souvenir from the Isle of Man and a lighter from Ayia Napa. Letters, cards and negatives were neatly bundled under the Crawford's Assorted lid. There were also two grubby rosettes: white and red. The medallion is missing from the first, but the confirmation rosette still bears its depiction of the Holy Spirit descending.
There is a picture, too, of my class from the Harold, Glasthule, posing in our confirmation gear. It is 1978 and I am wearing a corduroy safari jacket, brown trousers and a polo neck. I look 100% nerd. We all do: with our rosettes, we're like a herd of prize-winning prats. The innocent expressions point to our childishness: the jackets and rosettes point ahead to adulthood. It is a watershed picture.
That same year, another boy my age was probably also looking goofy in his confirmation gear in Wexford. Colm O'Gorman's journey from confirmation to adulthood couldn't have been more different to my own. He suffered appalling clerical sexual abuse in his teens.
Last week, he reacted to the suggestion by Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, that parishioners might help pay the diocese's €1.2m debts accrued while fighting abuse victims. O'Gorman says when he began proceedings in 1998, it was against the church, not the parishioners. His calm response was at odds with the prevailing anger. All week, I seethed with rage when I thought of Brennan's 'suggestion'.
O'Gorman has an article on his website about the death of his Catholicism. It struck a chord. His early memories are comforting ones. Many will remember flickering Sacred Hearts and prayers to ward off evil. Or looking over your shoulder for a guardian angel with superhero powers. Or asking silly questions like "did Baby Jesus get Easter eggs?"
As a youngster, I had unshakeable faith in the church and uncomplainingly endured the boring bits like Mass and the horrors of confession.
For a month, my pathetic sins would stack up like missals on a pew, before being scattered by a couple of Hail Marys. I would walk home clouded in sanctity. Then thoughts about the girl down the road would steal back in…
Watching the church's own slow confession over the years has been like watching an onion being peeled layer by layer. It ended in tears – of anger – as my Catholicism died. As the lies made a mockery of the trembling prayers and incantations whispered sotto voce.
There is a palpable feeling of emptiness when you lose the church. When you realise the spiritual crutch is gone and you want the moral guardian of your childhood forced to its knees.
There's no joy in typing those words and they are not cathartic. They go against a pre-conditioned emotional grain. Losing faith is, arguably, worse than never having it.
According to the 2006 Census, 86% of us are Catholic. The figure doesn't reflect the à la carte nature of that Catholicism. After Brennan's crass suggestion, many will find even an arm's-length association with Catholicism too close.
How many times will we have to hear the church say sorry before it's genuinely sorry? How can it apologise and then suggest someone else shares the tab for its crimes? All we hear is the meaningless mantra of "we must forgive, share the pain, reflect…" The Beatitudes have been replaced by platitudes.
It's not truly sorry, because the whey-faced, pompous old men, in their silly hats, are still too far removed from hardship to understand it.
Bishop Brennan's abuse tax suggestion is appalling. The parishioners of Ferns must not pay it. There was national anger before Christmas when friends of a convicted Listowel sex attacker queued to shake his hand in front of his victim. Putting money in the abuse tax basket will have the same effect on the victims of Ferns.
There is another way Brennan can generate money. Every June, the church sends a tribute to Rome. This collection is called Peter's Pence and is used for "the material needs of poor dioceses… etc". In 2008, Peter's Pence raised €50m worldwide and Ireland was the sixth biggest contributor.
Ferns could declare itself a "poor diocese" and ask for Peter's Pence to pay its legal bills. The price of asking would be utter humiliation. Humility is something the Irish church badly needs.
Any argument that this would create a precedent can be ignored. It should create a precedent and Pope Benedict should be happy to pay up.
I still wear a cross, not out of loyalty to Rome but as a symbol of the Christian philosophy I try to live by. It's also a reminder of the Catholic faith I now keep in a biscuit tin.
Rome knew of the sex abuse claims in Ferns and did nothing about them. It stole the faith of a generation. We're in Lent, the season of sacrifice, Bishop Brennan. Let Rome sacrifice its tribute money this year. For all the pain it has caused, ask it to turn Peter's Pence into Peter's Penance.

dkenny@tribune.ie