Cathal BarryAmid claims of an ‘epidemic’ of bullying in the Methodist Church, Cathal Barry investigates whether the Catholic Church has the same issue
Bullying is “rife” in the Methodist Church, the Unite trade union has claimed, calling for it to be “stamped out” immediately and not “swept under the carpet”.
Unite, which includes a 2,500-strong Faith Workers’ branch, insisted that there is “an epidemic of bullying” within the Methodist Church and that it was dealing with a number of “very serious cases”.
The trade union’s concern comes in the wake of the British Methodist Church’s commissioned review which uncovered nearly 2,000 reported cases of abuse – including 914 allegations involving sexual abuse – dating back to the 1950s.
Unite national officer Sally Kosky said that while “it is to be welcomed that the Methodists are apologising for historic abuse – there is still much they need to do to eliminate racism and bullying”.
“We are dealing with a number of very serious cases of racism and an epidemic of bullying within the Church,” she said.
Unite have also claimed that bullying is an issue not just confined to the Methodist Church either. It is an issue “across all churches and faiths,” they stated.
Claim
Investigating such a claim in relation to the Catholic Church, this newspaper spoke to Fr Tony Byrne of Awareness Education, who provides a service to victims of bullying in the workplace, home and schools as well as in ministry and religious life.
The Spiritan priest insisted that bullying “can be a big issue” in the Church.
“It’s part of life, I’m sorry to say. It happens in society and the Church is part of society,” he said, adding that some people “can be aggressive and use unchristian methods” to achieve certain aims.
Although Fr Byrne has never personally dealt with cases of lay faith workers who have been bullied by priests, he has encountered priests and religious who have felt bullied by lay people in the Church.
He has also counselled priests and religious who have claimed to be bullied by a superior or bishop.
Qualifying his claim, Fr Byrne said that although he was not aware of any cases personally, “maybe there are cases where there are lay ministers bullied by priests”.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I just haven’t come across it,” he said.
Defining bullying, Fr Byrne warned that “very often the word bullying is used without any basis in the real world”.
“Bullying is not a once-off act of aggression. It is persistent and repeated act of aggression, verbal, psychological or otherwise,” he said.
The Spiritan priest explained that perceived bullying can, in fact, be as a result of a mere misunderstanding between two parties in the Church.
“In a pastoral situation people can say that they are being bullied when they want to do their own thing,” he said, citing parishes, pastoral councils, and Church choirs.
Fr Byrne said his “personal impression” is that “lay people in the Church who are victims of anti-clerical propaganda may claim that they are bullied by priests when, in fact, they want to dominate and bully priests who are trying to insist that a parish has to be run in an orderly and reasonable way”.
“Some lay people can say they are being bullyed when a parish priest will not allow certain practises which are not allowed by official regulation or the bishop of the diocese,” he said.
Fr Gerry O’Connor of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) said that “there is a culture” in the Church “where you are expected to toe the line” and that any deviance from that can result in “anonymous abuse”.
“There’s a lot of anonymous complaining that goes on that is a form of bullying and intimidation. That’s the most direct experience of bullying that I have witnessed,” he told The Irish Catholic.
On the other hand, Fr O’Connor noted that the Church sometimes “doesn’t get enough credit for allowing a diversity of opinion”.
“There is a tendency to say the leadership clamps down but actually that isn’t always the case. It’s often the anonymous faces that do the bullying rather than bishops or leaders,” the Redemptortist priest said.
Fr O’Connor said that he “hears stories of priests being afraid of their bishops feeling they could be moved and that their life could be turned upside down overnight if they express an opinion that was a variance with an opinion that a bishop would want”.
However, that has not been his own personal experience in religious life where he said “there is generally a freedom to debate and put points of view forward without any risk of being alienated for that”.
The Redemptortist added that in the Church, like in many other organisations, “those who are in situ are not always prepared to welcome new blood”.
“They ring fence their role, their ministry and can give the cold shoulder to new faces. So some Church communities aren’t as welcoming as you would like them to be,” he said.
While Fr Byrne and Fr O’Connor would concur that bullying is an issue within the Catholic Church, Fr Tony Flannery disagrees.
Fr Flannery, who was suspended from ministry in 2012, said he doesn’t consider bullying to be a major issue in the Church.
Fr Flannery said he “wouldn’t be inclined” to describe the “sort of dealings” he had with the Vatican “in those terms”.
“It was a difference of opinion,” he said adding that he “wouldn’t categorise that as bullying”.
“Bullying, I suppose, is part of every society and community to some degree but I wouldn’t really see it as a particular problem within the Catholic Church,” he told The Irish Catholic.
Some research, however, indicates the contrary.
Nóirín Deady, First Year Experience Co-ordinator at University College Cork has conducted a study into the lives of priests’ housekeepers, capturing stories of tragedy and injustice which have generally been overlooked.
In her research, Ms Deady set out to discover if and how priest’s housekeepers were made feel like ‘relative beings’ by their employers, as theorised by the French writer Simone de Beauvoir.
In her interviews with 14 women who worked as priest’s housekeepers Ms Deady disclosed “major imbalances” in their relationships with their employers, noting “confidence, sometimes arrogance on one side, deference, sometimes powerlessness and resignation on the other”.
Ms Deady said that they had “little choice about excessive and demanding working hours, trapped in their place of work”, adding that some were “exploited financially and found it very difficult to save money”.
“The exploitation is particularly sad as it was at the hands of those who posed as moral guardians, as the promoters of fairness, justice and charity in our society,” she said.
Although most of priests’ housekeepers interviewed never admitted to feeling bullied or exploited, Ms Deady told The Irish Catholic that most of the women were “subservient”.
“They didn’t believe they werebeing exploited. The word ‘bullied’ never came up but they were subservient. They were religious women with a strong belief in God who, for the most part, admired the priest they work for.”
Additionally, a number of priests’ housekeepers Ms Deady interviewed during the course of her research were left with nothing at the end of their working lives.
“They gave everything to the priest and had nothing in the end. The Church may have looked after some, but of the 14 women I spoke to the Church did not look after them,” she said.
Putting all opinions aside, it would be remiss to presume a Christian Church would be free from any form of bullying. As Fr Tony Byrne put it: “It’s part of life.”
