In the second in a series of articles, Children’s Express reporters interview Father Aidan Troy, who found himself in the world media spotlight at the height of the blockade at Holy Cross School in Ardoyne, north Belfast.
| More time should have been spent reaching out to the victims of child abuse than defending the priests who did it. |
Father Aidan Troy freely admits nothing could have prepared him for what he would witness soon after he was appointed to the Ardoyne parish.
Having previously lived in Italy for seven years, he arrived in North Belfast in August 2001.
Barely a month later, as chair of the Board of Govenors of Holy Cross Girls’ School, he escorted parents and children to school at the height of the Glenbyrn dispute.
“It was a stressful time particularly for the children because some of them were just as young as four years of age.
Born in Bray he attributes his chosen career to boyhood years spent hanging out in church youth clubs.
“I don’t know what I would have been if I hadn’t been this. I think being in contact with the church as a youngster growing up that gave me the idea.”
“I didn’t tell an awful lot of people that I was going to do this. I certainly didn’t tell the fellas at school because they would have all jeered and laughed and said, ‘Oh my goodness, you know, you can’t marry, you can’t have children, you can’t go out with girls and all’.”
What strikes you first about Aidan Troy is his openness. It’s unusual to hear a priest talk so openly about the subject of relationships; what’s even more of an eye opener is his stance on some of the most sacred of the Catholic church’s doctrines.
“I would examine the rule of celibacy for the priesthood. If the rule of celibacy went in the morning it wouldn’t affect me because I've already taken a vow voluntarily.
“But I think for the diocesan clergy it is a human-made rule, and for the development of some people... they could make brilliant priests and I don’t see why they have to remain single.”
Whether he hoped a more modern view would help the church integrate into youth culture is unclear. What he is certain about is the suspicion that now dogs the church.
“The image of the Catholic priesthood in Ireland is extremely low because of the awful scandals to do with child abuse,” he said.
“The only thing to do was to say, ‘this was wrong, totally 100% wrong’. I think more time should have been spent reaching out to the victims of this awful abuse than trying to defend the priests who did it.”
His own childhood was ‘wonderful’ and ‘full of happiness’ and he’s honest enough to admit he didn’t know what real problems were until he got older. Instead, his views and opinions seem to have been informed by his travels around the world.
“If you draw a line across the world you will find in the southern hemisphere there is a whole growth of the church, all the sects, they’re all flourishing. Go to North America and Europe and it’s pretty dead,” he said.
“There are a lot of problems like alcoholism etc, but people live a very strong community life. In Africa, they’re all sitting around the hut, eating, drinking, chatting to each other, and you can walk up and say ‘hello’, and the priest lives the same way. Here, we have become so private that it’s even hard to get at us.”
“I think in Ireland we've lost that whole sense of community, and that’s one of the problems when you try cross-community work. I often think that one of the biggest problems is we have to get community in, in any sector, never mind cross-community,” he said.
Father Troy remains the parish priest of Holy Cross and it’s comforting to know this honest, straight speaking man is part of the community.
He possesses a genuine interest in the lives of young people and though he has witnessed extremes of human depravation on our planet, remains optimistic about the world that we are growing up in.
“I would love to be young now, I really would,” he told us. “I genuinely believe that the people of your generation have a lot more courage and a lot more determination than I ever had.”
About the team
Father Troy was interviewed by members of the Children's Express Belfast bureau. An abbreviated version of this article was published in the Belfast Telegraph.
