Scottish Catholic Observer

The weather was not always kind to the pilgrims at the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin but it was a different kind of climate that organisers and visitors had dreaded the most: a climate of fear and hatred, of clerical abuse, that threatened to cast a dark shadow over events. Thankfully, these fears about the congress turned out to be fleeting, in many ways much like the sunshine in Dublin last week.

Bishop Stephen Robson, Auxiliary Bishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, blogged on the congress as it happened for the SCO. The newly ordained bishop spoke of the spirit of openness with which participants met and gathered for IEC events. In Ireland, a country that still has to heal from the scars of clerical abuse, it was very appropriate for Papal Legate Cardinal Marc Ouellet to not only visit the penitential island in Lough Derg, that was and is site of Irish penitential practice, but also to meet with abuse victims.

“I come here with the specific intention of seeking forgiveness, from God and from the victims, for the grave sin of sexual abuse of children by clerics,” Cardinal Ouellet said. “We have learned over the last decades how much harm and despair such abuse has caused to thousands of victims. We learned too that the response of some Church authorities to these crimes was often inadequate and inefficient in stopping the crimes.

“In the name of the Church, I apologise once again to the victims.”

The abuse crisis was a theme revisited throughout the Congress, by Cardinal Sean Brady and then the Holy Father himself (above) in a message broadcast to pilgrims at the closing Mass at Croke Park. It was not the only theme of the Congress, which calls on all Catholics to prepare for the coming Year of Faith, but it remained an important and timely one heard by all bishops, priests, deacons and lay Faithful present at the congress—including Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop Mario Conti, Bishop Philip Tartaglia and Bishop Joseph Toal—and far beyond.

Prayers are needed for the Irish Catholic community, the victims of abuse and for anyone who is struggling to stay ‘in Communion with Christ.’

The story this week of Martha and Mary is perhaps not one of Biblical proportions, but it is a real David and Goliath tale none the less.

Martha Payne is the bright, creative 9-year-old author of the NeverSeconds blog on school meals, a web-based project that gave readers the option to donate to Mary’s Meals.

The Lochgilphead Primary schoolgirl started posting photographs of her school lunches on April 30 but became an internet sensation last week after Argyll and Bute Council banned her from posting photos of her school meals on her blog.

The ban was later overturned, after a storm of protest, and donations to Mary’s Meals from her blog rocketed to more than £80,000 this week as support for Martha’s efforts, and the Scottish-based charity, spiked.

Martha has now raised enough money to build a new kitchen shelter and feed an entire school for a year at Lirangwe Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi, as part of Mary’s Meals’ Sponsor a School initiative. The schoolgirl has chosen to name her kitchen in Malawi as ‘Friends of NeverSeconds’ in recognition of the worldwide support.

While justice would seem to be done, it is a sorry world we live in that officialdom would censor a schoolgirl, and that it takes an incident such as a ban—and the subsequent celebrity protest that followed—to spark charitable donations on this scale.

Food for thought indeed.