Wednesday, 10 March 2010 19:25:57
yourcomments@ultimatedisposal.com
Remote User:
Date:
01 Mar 2010
Time:
01:00:14
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Have we got someone like this on this site?angry, furious, idignant, irate, ireful, mad, wrathful, an angry retort, a furious scowl, and indignant denial,irate words, mad at friends, wrathful acts.Who fits the bill, this guy has four loyal Disciples who he serves quite well, essere arrabbiato, keep well.
Remote User:
Date:
01 Mar 2010
Time:
08:59:36
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Carmelites say zoning change an attack on property rights A RELIGIOUS order has said it will take legal action against a local authority in south Dublin if a plan to change the zoning of its land goes ahead. The Carmelite order, which has land at Ballinteer, has said it will seek a judicial review of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council development plan if amendments to the plan are endorsed by councillors. The amendments change some of the zoning conditions of institutional lands. A submission to the council from Auveen Byrne Associates, on behalf of the order, described the changes as an “unjustifiable attack” on its property rights. The Order of the Legionnaires of Christ, which has land in Sandyford, has also objected to the changes, along with Cosgrave Property Group. The amendments were agreed by councillors at an earlier stage in the plan’s development process and are due for final ratification next month. One amendment stipulates that institutional land used for development must retain at least 25 per cent for open space and amenity. A second amendment, by way of a footnote definitions of zonings, alters what is permitted under certain zonings. It says uses “open for consideration” on land zoned A, A1, B, NC, DC, MTC and E, including institutional land, “will be considered, except in instances where the lands are designated by the planning authority as being required for a public road, public hospital or public school”. The Carmelite submission said the proposed amendments would “significantly diminish the development potential” of the order’s lands and devalue them.
Remote User:
Date:
01 Mar 2010
Time:
09:31:07
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RELIGIOUS ORDERS TO THE FORE IN PROTECTING ............. PROPERTY RIGHTS! A RELIGIOUS order has said it will take legal action against a local authority in south Dublin if a plan to change the zoning of its land goes ahead. The Carmelite order, which has land at Ballinteer, has said it will seek a judicial review of the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council development plan if amendments to the plan are endorsed by councillors. The amendments change some of the zoning conditions of institutional lands. A submission to the council from Auveen Byrne Associates, on behalf of the order, described the changes as an “unjustifiable attack” on its property rights. The Order of the Legionnaires of Christ, which has land in Sandyford, has also objected to the changes, along with Cosgrave Property Group. A Fighting Survivor
Remote User:
Date:
01 Mar 2010
Time:
19:58:09
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Sexual abuse of boys by Roman Catholic clergy and the growing exodus of Catholics from the Church are expected to dominate discussion at a conference of Austrian bishops starting today (Mon). The four-day Austrian Bishops Conference in the Lower Austrian capital St. Pölten is expected to discuss ways of empowering diocesan ombudsmens’ offices to enable them to improve screening of candidates for the priesthood by weeding out potential child molesters. Graz Diocese Bishop Egon Kapellari said last week that the Church needed to deal with such cases in "a candid manner, without any false considerations." Helmut Schüller from Pastors Initiative, a co-founder of the Vienna archdiocese’s ombudsman’s office, called today for the same rules for all in cases of sexual abuse and an open and aggressive response to it. "The bishops should cooperate in that regard to the maximum possible degree," he said. The bishops are also expected to look at stemming the flow of Catholics leaving the church. Preliminary figures indicate that 53,216 Catholics left the Church in 2009, the highest number since 2004, when 52,177 did so, according to Catholic press agency Kathpress. The number of departures last year, which amounted to 0.96 per cent of Austrian Catholics, was 30.9 per cent higher than in 2008. The number of Catholics in Austria at the end of 2009 was 5.53 million, down by 0.8 per cent from the 5.58 Catholics at the end of 2008, Kathpress said. The increase in Church departures last year was highest in Linz diocese - 43.5 per cent. Many observers said that had been largely the result of Pope Benedict XVI’s nomination of conservative Windischgarst Pastor Gerhard Maria Wagner as auxiliary bishop. The ultra-conservative priest had labelled the Harry Potter books "the work of Satan," called homosexuality "curable" and said natural disasters like the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans had been God’s punishment of human sin. The Pope later withdrew the nomination after the subsequent public outcry. Diocese official Gabriele Eder-Cakl added that the Pope’s lifting of the excommunications of some bishops of the Pius Brotherhood last year had also caused some Catholics to leave the Church. The Pius Brotherhood rejects some of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and includes a bishop who has denied the Holocaust. Austria has the eighth highest percentage of people claiming to follow a religious faith - 79 per cent - among European Union (EU) member states, according to EU statistics.
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
08:11:20
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Health board 'failed raped boy' Son's three-year ordeal at abuser's hands could have been prevented, court told Tuesday March 02 2010 THE systematic rape and sexual abuse of a boy by his father could have been prevented if a health board had been more proactive in protecting the child, a court has heard. The comments were made as the now 20-year-old man read an emotional victim impact statement in which he said his childhood was stolen by his father and he could never forgive him. He began to cry as he said his father had given him a "life sentence" and should be given a "life sentence behind bars" for what he had done. The 52-year-old man was found guilty last month of 47 counts of rape and abuse in one of the most harrowing sex abuse cases in recent years. During the trial, the young man described how he was raped by his father on an almost weekly basis from 2001, when he was just 12 years old, until 2004. The man's sentencing has been put back until Friday. But Mr Justice Barry White has indicated that he will not give the rapist a life sentence. During the sentence hearing yesterday, counsel for the guilty man pointed out that the sexual abuse started in 2001 when the boy was 12. Care That year, the local health board went to the district court to try to take the boy and his siblings into care. "The health board had put a course of action in progress for putting the children into care," the court heard. "The mother went to the High Court to stop the health board. . . It goes without saying that if the health board had pursued it, the offences would never have happened." He said the failure to pursue the matter led to "this tragic result". He said social services were involved with the family since 1989 but became "more seriously involved" in 1996. The court heard that a psychiatric evaluation was carried out on the guilty man last month. "It indicates that (he) does not suffer from any illness of psychosis of the mind at all," the court was told. In evidence, the son told the court his father sexually abused him for the first time when he was 12 or 13. "It was wrong," he said. "He was my father." He said he would be abused three or four times a week and often told his father to stop but would be hit by him. The prosecution said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) believes the offences lie at the upper end of the scale because of the "systematic rape and abuse of a young boy by his father", the court heard. The accused man -- who cannot be named to protect the identity of his children -- was found guilty after a nine-day trial of 11 charges of anal rape, 12 charges of oral rape and 24 charges of sexual assault of the boy between April 11, 2001 and June 23, 2004. He had denied all allegations. - Edel Kennedy Irish Independent
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
08:25:14
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A MAN who sexually abused his six-year-old stepdaughter while her mother was at work was jailed yesterday for 11 months. Kevin Guihen (39), Bridge House, Bridge Street, Carrick-on- Shannon, Co Leitrim, pleaded guilty before Galway District Court in February to three sample counts of sexually assaulting the girl on various dates between April 1st, 1997 and March 31st, 1998, at a Galway location. The matter was adjourned to yesterday for sentence. The victim, who is now 18, told the initial court hearing in February that she wanted her former stepfather identified even though that meant her own privacy might be compromised. She explained to Judge Mary Fahy she first made a complaint to gardaí in 2005 but did not feel strong enough to proceed any further at the time. When she turned 18 last year, she said she decided to pursue the complaint again. The assaults, she told gardaí, had occurred while her mother was working nights and the accused was left in charge. The victim said she had felt suicidal and depressed as a result of the assaults but was receiving counselling from the Rape Crisis Centre since the DPP directed the charges be preferred against the accused. The victim’s mother and Guihen had since separated. Defence solicitor Valerie Corcoran said her client was issuing an unqualified apology to the girl. He had been abusing alcohol at the time of the offences but he had sought help for his alcohol and psychiatric problems long before the girl made the complaint and was now rehabilitating himself. Judge Fahy said this had been “an appalling breach of trust in relation to a very young child” where the accused who was acting as the girl’s father had abused her when she was just six to seven years of age. The judge said the girl had found it very difficult to cope with this abuse and would continue to do so but she noted that if the accused had not pleaded guilty it might have been very difficult to prove the case, given the girl’s very young age at the time. She sentenced Guihen to seven months in prison on the first charge and imposed a consecutive four-month prison sentence on him for the second charge. She imposed a further eight-month sentence on the third charge which she suspended for 12 months on condition he be of good behaviour and not make any contact with the victim during that time. Placing Guihen on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years, Judge Fahy said the sentences would have been much longer but for the fact that the offences were committed while the accused was under the influence of alcohol and reports handed into court stated he was now successfully getting treatment for that. Speaking to the victim, Judge Fahy said, “All I can say is I hope you continue with your counselling and that you will find some closure now that the court proceedings are over. I also thank you for coming in and explaining the incident to us as there was no victim impact report available. “I feel it’s a fair sentence. I’m trying to keep the balance right between a man who is seriously remorseful and what he did at the time.” The judge noted from reports handed into court that Guihen’s risk of reoffending if he continued with his alcohol treatment programme was deemed “insignificant” but that if he were to resume drinking that risk would increase. Leave to appeal the 11-month sentence was granted
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
09:25:24
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Megan’s Law not the best way to protect children from predators.............By Claire O’Sullivan Tuesday, March 02, 2010........... Sexual crimes inflict deep and dark damage upon the mind and body of victims, damage that blights future relationships with partners, family and their children. Sexual offences against children bore even deeper into the human psyche, robbing children of that vital foundation for adult happiness: a stable childhood. A sexually violated child is put through such terrifying and calculated physical and emotional ordeals that their mind is terrified to risk trusting again and most suffer emotional trauma and flashbacks throughout their lives. From a parent’s point of view, it’s easy to understand the motivation behind Megan’s Law in the US where parents can track the whereabouts of convicted paedophiles on release from prison. It makes parents feel that they are somehow armed with knowledge that will ensure they can protect their children. But is the law actually making any difference beyond that? Is it not just an illusion giving false confidence engendered by panic? Rape and sexual assault is clouded by myths and fallacies and one of Western societies greatest misconceptions is that rape and sexual assault is committed by that man who steps out of the shadows as you run from a bus stop by night or jog through an empty park early in the morning. However, statistics in this country and across Europe show that eight out of 10 rapes and sexual assaults are committed by family members or people known to the victims. It is not the shady looking man who rents a house in your estate that you have to worry about. It is much more likely to be your father, uncle or a trusted friend. A second fallacy that is very disconcerting is that all sex offenders consistently re-offend. Statistics cited by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern reveal that the majority of sex offenders convicted and sentenced did not offend again, having a significantly lower recidivist rate than other ex-prisoners. Research in the North has also shown that only one in 20 offenders had a high danger of re-offending, while 50% were considered very low risk. Furthermore, research in Britain on the effectiveness of Megan’s Law in the US has found no subsequent reduction in second-time offences and, just 80% of offenders registered upon release from prison, compared with a 97% rate of sex offender registration in Britain. When myths about paedophiles and other sex offenders abound, they do untold damage, serving to close us off from understanding what really should be done in this country to counter sex offences. Firstly, remember that, of all the rapes committed in this country, just 10% are reported to Gardaí and, of this fraction of actual rapes, just one third of cases will be recommended for prosecution by the DPP. Surely, our emphasis as a society should be to instil in children the necessary confidence and life skills to recognise dangerous situations, talk to trusted people and to not feel ashamed? We also need to increase the rate of reporting by battling against the stigma of sexual assault, and also fighting for a more transparent judicial system where society can see that rape or sexual assault cases are taken seriously at prosecution and sentencing so that we can erase the current perception that the courts are weighted against victims. Also, what about looking at the Ryan report and Murphy report, which show what carnage ensued when the state, Church and Garda did not protect children as they are statutorily and morally bound? The Church has been denounced for allowing a culture of cover-up to prevail in the Dublin Archdiocese, but a culture of denouncing victims and casting a glance sideways pervades this country. We have also allowed our children to become scarily sexualised and our rape victims, male and female, are still tormented with that fear that we won’t believe them. Just look at our recurring attitudes to women who like to dress in sexy clothes and the reaction of some of the people of Listowel to one of their own daughters? We too have failed our children. So instead of giving in to emotional outbursts like that which created Megan’s Law, how about making sure that our taxpayers’ money is spent on the implementation of the HSE Children First child protection guidelines which are not being implemented at present; that anyone working with our children has been comprehensively vetted; that soft information on alleged abusers is circulated to those in authority and acted upon; and that abuse victims can feel a sense of empowerment in taking cases against their perpetrators – and not like they are going to be raped psychologically all over again. Slap electronic tags on the high-riskers, make sure that treatment programmes are offered and that Gardaí and probation services are resourced to monitor high-risk offenders.
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
09:29:23
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Calls to Childline surged by 25% last year By Caroline O’Doherty Tuesday, March 02, 2010 Children in despair made a staggering 800,000 calls to the ISPCC’s Childline last year, a surge of almost 25% from the previous year. The unprecedented level of demand for the voluntary listening service was far more than the organisation could cope with and some 300,000 calls – more than one in three of all those made – went unanswered. Child protection workers are blaming the economic crisis for much of the increase, warning that children are being hit hard by the financial hardships and emotional pressures unemployment and spiralling debts are inflicting on families. Fergus Finlay, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardos, said the figures reflected a huge amount of additional pressure within families over the past year. "We know from other organisations that we work with that the incidence of domestic violence has gone up and we know that there is a huge amount of stress and pressure financially. "Where there were two breadwinners in a family a year ago, there is one or none now, and very often it’s the lower-paid person who is the remaining breadwinner. That has endless implications, from the ability of parents to send their children to school properly equipped to the cancellation of holidays. "It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the numbers of children feeling down and low and stressed out as a consequence has increased." Some of the surge in calls to Childline is attributed to increased awareness among children about the service, with recent addition of services online and by text message. But issues such as loneliness, anxiety, neglect, abuse and violence continue to be the main reasons why children make contact, most often at night or in the early hours of the morning. Mr Finlay, who also expressed concern at Health Service Executive figures showing 155 children were in adult psychiatric units last year, said the Government needs to provide more specialist mental health facilities for children and greater family support services. Barnardos and the ISPCC are among the children’s rights groups calling for a firm date to be set for the long-promised children’s rights referendum which would put pressure on the state to provide better supports for children and those who care for them. The full scale of the crisis for the country’s children will be detailed today when the ISPCC publishes the 2009 Childline statistics. The line costs the voluntary organisation over €4 million a year to run. The massive 25% increase in calls last year comes after a 4% increase in 2008 over 2007 and a 9% increase between 2006 and 2007. There were also difficulties in reaching all the children who made calls in 2008, with 37% of calls going unanswered. * Childline can be contacted on freephone 1800 666666 or www.childline.ie Calls to Childline surged by 25% last year............ By Caroline O’Doherty Tuesday, March 02, 2010........... Children in despair made a staggering 800,000 calls to the ISPCC’s Childline last year, a surge of almost 25% from the previous year. The unprecedented level of demand for the voluntary listening service was far more than the organisation could cope with and some 300,000 calls – more than one in three of all those made – went unanswered. Child protection workers are blaming the economic crisis for much of the increase, warning that children are being hit hard by the financial hardships and emotional pressures unemployment and spiralling debts are inflicting on families. Fergus Finlay, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardos, said the figures reflected a huge amount of additional pressure within families over the past year. "We know from other organisations that we work with that the incidence of domestic violence has gone up and we know that there is a huge amount of stress and pressure financially. "Where there were two breadwinners in a family a year ago, there is one or none now, and very often it’s the lower-paid person who is the remaining breadwinner. That has endless implications, from the ability of parents to send their children to school properly equipped to the cancellation of holidays. "It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the numbers of children feeling down and low and stressed out as a consequence has increased." Some of the surge in calls to Childline is attributed to increased awareness among children about the service, with recent addition of services online and by text message. But issues such as loneliness, anxiety, neglect, abuse and violence continue to be the main reasons why children make contact, most often at night or in the early hours of the morning. Mr Finlay, who also expressed concern at Health Service Executive figures showing 155 children were in adult psychiatric units last year, said the Government needs to provide more specialist mental health facilities for children and greater family support services. Barnardos and the ISPCC are among the children’s rights groups calling for a firm date to be set for the long-promised children’s rights referendum which would put pressure on the state to provide better supports for children and those who care for them. The full scale of the crisis for the country’s children will be detailed today when the ISPCC publishes the 2009 Childline statistics. The line costs the voluntary organisation over €4 million a year to run. The massive 25% increase in calls last year comes after a 4% increase in 2008 over 2007 and a 9% increase between 2006 and 2007. There were also difficulties in reaching all the children who made calls in 2008, with 37% of calls going unanswered. * Childline can be contacted on freephone 1800 666666 or www.childline.ie
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
09:32:43
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I had no childhood, man raped by father tells court........... Tuesday, March 02, 2010............. A young man who was raped and abused by his father over a three-year period has spoken of the terror under which he lived. "I never had a childhood," he told the Central Criminal Court yesterday in an emotional victim impact statement. "The feeling of lying awake at night, afraid to go asleep, afraid to stay awake, waiting for him to come to my room and abuse me was terrifying. I had no choice but to let him do it." All his life the survivor of the systematic abuse said he lived in fear; in fear of his father’s threats "not to give information to social workers, threats when he came from the pub, threats not to tell teachers or anyone outside the house what was going on at home". The victim’s 52-year-old father was convicted last month of 47 counts of sexual assault and rape on his son when he was aged between 12 and 15. "I can’t say when my childhood started or finished because as far as I am concerned I never had a childhood." Fear of his father ruled his life, he told the court. "It is an awful thing to live in fear. I never knew what answer to give him. What I thought was the right answer could be the wrong one depending on the mood he was in." At school, the now 20-year-old said, while other children were happy going home, going different places with their parents, having nice lunches at school, being clean and tidy, "I had nothing to look forward to going home and things got a lot worse for me when I left national school and started secondary school. It was then the real nightmare began when (he) started sexually abusing me." He said he still has nightmares of his father raping him: "(He) has never shown any remorse, sympathy and never once said he was sorry to me, but instead chose to blame everything on me. Under oath he called me a liar in court and even said that I found it easy to give evidence."
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
16:15:10
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I have been reading about the redress board so many people went through all that and it wasent the first time when we were juged as criminales from birth but we have always been ignored how come none of the newspapers seem to have noticed that all this about over16000 children many now dead . in the media thay are trying to drown all of us under a story of racisim in the fifties there was none of that going on in ireland because there were just a handfull in the whole countrywe hade no feelings at all about colour i dont think we noticed when one turned up in golden bridge we were surprised but there was no nastiness now we the lowest form of life in irelanw could she with the help of the newspapers accuse us all of racisism and get away with it we have all had enough suffering already when is all this going to stop we have been through the same machine twice.......... from titti
Remote User:
Date:
02 Mar 2010
Time:
22:26:22
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Bishop of Ferns asks for funds for abuse cases............... Tuesday 2 March 2010........... Bishop of Ferns Dr Denis Brennan has invited the parishes of the diocese to help pay compensation and legal bills arising from clerical child sexual abuse. He said the diocese has had to pay over €10.5m settling civil actions, paying its lawyers at the Ferns Inquiry, and treating offenders. Dr Brennan's spokesman said that individual parishioners and priests had been asking what they could do to help. Addressing parish representatives last night in Enniscorthy, Bishop Brennan said victims of abuse rightly had first call on the diocese's attention. Perpetrators' actions combined with mismanagement, poor understanding and/or a lack of resolve had caused what he called 'this tragedy'. He said the diocese had spent over €8m settling 48 civil actions. Some litigants were abused over 60 years ago. Another 13 lawsuits are pending. Over €750,000 had been spent treating offenders, which Dr Brennan called a long-term investment in protecting children. Almost €1.5m had been paid recently for legal work on the State's Ferns Inquiry. He thanked the Irish bishops' Stewardship Fund for paying over half of Ferns' total abuse bill. His finance officer said insurance had paid another one-seventh but that, so far, the diocese had spent €3.5m partly by running down its savings and recently, by raising a €1.8m loan. Bishop Brennan said one-fifth of 'the road to justice' remained to be travelled and that to complete it, he would have to seek funding from parishes
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
08:14:46
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'It's like getting into debt and asking the priest to pay for what you'd done wrong' THERE WAS shock yesterday among parishioners in Co Wexford at the request by the Bishop of Ferns Denis Brennan for their help to pay compensation and legal bills resulting from clerical child sex abuse claims. Many people in Enniscorthy said the money should come from the sale of church assets rather than the pockets of parishioners. “It is absolutely disgusting, an insult to the people and an insult to the Catholic Church,” said Peggy Kenny. “All the money they have and the buildings the own, Rome is the place that should pay or it,” she said, adding that it would turn people against the church. Another regular churchgoer had not yet decided if she would give a donation towards the €60,000 a year sought by the Ferns Diocesan Committee. “It might be more appropriate if the Vatican paid the shortfall as there are a lot of people here who are directly affected [by abuse],” said Margaret, who did not want her full name used. The majority would be willing to give “a few extra bob” as part of their collection. However, she felt the bishops’ recent visit to Rome was “rubbing people’s noses in it”. In contrast, a Eucharistic minister at St Aidan’s Cathedral said she would support a collection. “I would give as there is no point looking back, we need to look forward,” she said. “We as Catholics need to be there to try and get behind the priest . . . What would happen if we had no priest?” she asked. As with many locals, Margaret had high praise and respect for Dr Brennan, whom she said was always upfront. “Before he was made bishop he was meeting people who were abused. I don’t think he should be held responsible for what went on before him. He is trying to deal with it the best he can and make things right,” she said. Eilish Dempsey was very religious until the reports of abuse in the Ferns diocese became public. “The cheek of them. I am very surprised as the bishop is very well thought of. Rome and the bishops should sell off their assets to pay for it,” she said. One man who was at the meeting on Monday at which Dr Brennan made the appeal said just one member of the public stood up to speak.“This is the biggest disaster that has ever happened. It’s absolutely crazy to ask people given the property they have and the state the town’s economy is in,” the man said, asking not to be named due to his involvement in the parish. “I’m a Mass-goer and I won’t give money to this,” he whispered, standing on the main street of the town. Paula Davis was among many who said that the church should sell assets and not ask parishioners for money. “It’s disgraceful to expect the parish to pay for paedophile priests. They should sell off their assets to do this,” she said. “It’s like getting into debt and asking the priest to pay for something you’d done wrong.” David Chambers said the diocese must have “blinkers on” asking for money. “Why should parishioners have to pay?” Trained counsellor Julie Whelan asked how this would help the victims: “How will this ever take away their life of pain and torment?”
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
09:06:53
Comments
You can have my two bob's worth Bishop of Ferns, get nicked.you must think the people of Ireland are going to stand on the road so you and all your cronies can pass, who thought this up? the famous four.it's got coruption written all over it.At the next colection please put your bank card on the plate it's as easy as stealing from the blind, deaf and dum.It's the greatest con job since ADAM HAD THE FIRST PAIR IN HIS HANDS.
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
10:01:21
Comments
Patsy McGarry: How Ireland Lost Its Faith Source: Foreign Policy (2-27-19) [Patsy McGarry is the religious affairs correspondent for the Irish Times.] There was a time when Irish Catholics might have been delighted to see the pope lavishing attention on their bishops. On Feb. 15 and 16, however, when Ireland's bishops were at the Vatican to discuss an ongoing child sex abuse scandal, Catholics back home were furious. Catholics were already upset about Pope Benedict's refusal to apologize to the thousands of abuse victims in Ireland or even hint that he would meet with them, as some had requested. But what really set them off seems to have been the images of their bishops kissing the pope's ring.... Andrew Madden, the first person in Ireland to go public about his abuse by a priest, described the meetings at the Vatican as "a complete waste of time" and the greatest act of window dressing he had ever seen. Abuse survivor Marie Collins said it was an insult that the resignation of bishops didn't even make the agenda. Additionally, she said it was deplorable that the pope's statement was "so far away from accepting that there was a policy of coverup."... Not so very long ago and for the great majority of Irish people, their Catholicism was synonymous with their national identity. To be Irish was to be Catholic. It was something of which most Irish were very proud. In the latter part of the 19th century, the church grew to become the most powerful civic institution on the island, controlling most of Ireland's schools and the greater number of its hospitals. This allowed the church unparalleled influence throughout most of the 20th century in what is now known as the Republic of Ireland. That continued to be the case until the latter decades of the last century when its influence began to wane due to increased affluence and a better-educated population. With the events of the last few years, church leaders can no longer ignore the extent to which they've lost control of Irish society. The most recent scandal has centered on a series of damning government reports into the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children by clergy members. The Murphy Commission report, published last November, found that in Dublin's Catholic archdiocese, by far Ireland's largest, "clerical child sex abuse was covered up" by church authorities from 1975 to 2004. It also found that all four archbishops of Dublin over that period investigated sexual abuse complaints and that many of the auxiliary bishops handled these complaints badly. None of the four archbishops reported their knowledge of abuse to the police "throughout the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s."... Not surprisingly, the combined effects of these sex scandals have driven Irish Catholics away from the church at a time when many were already drifting away. For instance, according to recent surveys, 43 percent of Irish Catholics attend weekly Mass, a drop of 52 percent since 1973, though still about twice the average for most Catholic countries in Europe.... Meanwhile, fewer and fewer young men are entering the priesthood. For people of a certain age, the very idea of an Ireland without Catholic priests is truly beyond imagination. The bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, recently recalled that of the 50 students in his Leaving Cert class (equivalent to the U.S. 12th grade) in 1952, 20 went on for the priesthood. In 1961, Pope John XXIII even said: "Any Christian country will produce a greater or lesser number of priests. But Ireland, that beloved country, is the most fruitful of mothers in this respect." Almost 50 years later the situation is dramatically different. The archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has said his archdiocese will soon have barely enough priests to serve its 199 parishes. "We have 46 priests over 80 and only two less than 35 years of age. In a very short time we will just have the bare number of priests required to have one active priest for each of our 199 parishes," he said in November. The average age of Irish Catholic priests today is 63. Members of religious congregations have an average age in the early 70s. Each priest must retire at 75. As the Americans say, you do the math!... In a 2003 article for the Irish Times, Father Vincent Twomey, a retired professor of moral theology at St. Patrick's College who studied with Pope Benedict himself at a postgraduate program in Germany, wrote, "Irish writers in the early part of the 20th century ... sensed that something was seriously wrong with 'traditional Irish Catholicism'. They saw it as narrow-minded, anti-intellectual and rigorist on morality. They were right."... With Irish society largely lost to it, the church's final frontier may be the primary-school system, of which it controls 92 percent. But now, the child sex abuse scandals, along with substantial immigration into Ireland over the past 10 years, have significantly increased pressure toward more pluralist control of primary education, something which -- to the surprise of many -- the Catholic bishops now say they favor. Archbishop Martin even called the Catholic control of schools a "historical hangover that doesn't reflect the realities of the times and is, in addition, in many ways detrimental to the possibility of maintaining a true Catholic identity in Catholic schools." If this is the case, it seems the last great battle of Ireland's moral civil wars -- that over control of education -- may be avoided. And the Catholic Church in Ireland will continue its retreat from a position of unquestioned dominance in society for more than a century and a half, to a more humble role on its margins. "In the painful solitude of the desert, the church must learn how to return to its fundamental mission," Archbishop Martin has said. Some might suggest that is exactly where it belongs.
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
10:03:58
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‘There is nothing lower than what they did today’............ By Claire O’Sullivan Wednesday, March 03, 2010........... Clerical abuse victims pointed the Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, towards the Vatican when they heard about his appeal to parishioners to fund outstanding diocesan compensation and legal fees. Colm O’Gorman, a former abuse victim from the diocese who campaigned to have the Ferns Inquiry established, said that the bulk of the Church’s payments were to lawyers, used by the Church to obstruct victims in their pursuit of the truth. "Legal bills should be recouped from normal diocesan revenues not from taxpayers’ money or from the Catholic Church’s Stewardship Fund, which should only be used for settlements to victims. "Up to 2003, the Church chose to be highly adversarial in its approach to cases and these legal fees are the result. Furthermore, I never wanted to sue the parishioners. I wanted to hold the Church to account and that’s why I sued Ferns as I could not sue the Vatican," Amnesty International’s executive director said. "The Vatican has massive resources but it is choosing to maintain its pomp and ceremony rather than spend money on the preservation of dioceses. Also, it wants to suggest that the problem is an Irish problem and that a lack of national governance is the problem. "It is a global problem and Rome, at the top of the Church, continues to lie and be dishonest about it. If they are truly serious, they need to also look at inquiries in countries where they have not taken place – in the developing world – where it is much harder for victim’s voices to be heard." Director of One in Four Maeve Lewis said their phonelines were busy once again as victims reacted to the bishop’s appeal. "Most of the money is in relation to lawyers fees – their attempts to defend the indefensible. If they had been open about the abuse, these long drawn-out cases would not have happened. Victims are now worried that the Church is now trying to portray itself as a victim and them as greedy and insatiable." Christine Buckley, who suffered years of abuse in Goldenbridge Industrial School, said she was "entirely shocked by the request from the Bishop of Ferns". "I am really, really shocked. It is totally unbelievable. There is nothing lower than what they did today. They are asking people for money to pay for their rape of young boys and girls? What planet are these people on? "These people have made Judas look like a saint. They haven’t an ounce of understanding of what damage this does. "If I won the lotto, I would hire an expert to find out just how much money has gone from this country to the Vatican. Why aren’t the Vatican coughing up?" Andrew Madden, who was abused by Fr Ivan Payne in the Dublin Archdiocese, believes the diocese should be turning to Rome for help. "Instead of putting a mortgage on the bishop’s house, why isn’t it being put on the market? "Why aren’t other properties being put on the market? They are only looking for about €60,000 a year; surely Rome could pay for that? "Let us not forget, the Vatican is a very wealthy organisation."
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
10:06:53
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Vatican’s wealth should be used to pay for claims.............. By Claire O’Sullivan Wednesday, March 03, 2010.............. It seems the clergy, for all the fantastic work they have done for education in this country, are incapable of learning. After belatedly taking up the path of contrition, reconciliation and repentance, they have chosen to gallop en masse into the wilds again in the weeks since they returned from their much-publicised trip to Rome. The Pope didn’t see fit to apologise to victims and ordinary Catholics; indeed there was no reference whatsoever in his statement to his Church’s role in covering up the brutal and depraved regime which ruined thousands of children’s lives. A united Church, it appears, is more important than facing up to evils of the past. And then this. In the words of the shocked Goldenbridge survivor Christine Buckley, the "priests are now asking the congregations to pay for the rapes of boys and girls?" Chairman of the Ferns Diocesan Finance Committee, Eugene Doyle, clearly had no idea what he was getting into when he was asked by the bishop to do media interviews yesterday. By lunchtime, the accountant sounded like a one-legged leper forced to run a marathon – he was drained. "It is just an idea that we are putting out there. We wanted to judge the response. Ordinary parishioners and priests have come to us offering to help us out as they knew we were in financial trouble," he said. Just how could the diocese send a layman out to bat for the Church, to go cap and hand to the friends and family of abuse victims in Ferns who they stonewalled for years? How could he ever think that ordinary people of the Church, who they sinned against, will bail them out? Did they think for a minute of how this attempt to pass on responsibility could make victims feel? The statement from the Diocese of Ferns to the congregations made me feel queasy. Quoting Jesus Christ, the bishop urged us to "be not afraid" of "economic difficulties as much as everything else" and to "openly prioritise our needs, not our wants" before reminding us of the huge amount of work being done by the Church in primary schools, at mass, funerals and weddings and of their work overseas, parish work and inclusion of lay people. And then the big question. How would the people of Ferns feel about shouldering a €60,000 mortgage for the next 20 years? A bill, made up of legal fees and settlements to abuse victims – the vast majority cases that could have been settled in months instead of six and seven years but that the diocese fought tooth and nail? Victims will tell you that the money was of little consequence but it was the importance of having their story heard and believed that kept them going. This Church wanted them silenced. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Irish people take trips to Rome and wonder upon the opulence of the Vatican. Even in the most remote parishes of Ireland, the Church has valuable land and assets. In Rome, their property and land are priceless. The least Pope Benedict could do is sort out the financial mess that the culture of clerical abuse had foisted upon parishioners worldwide. It is little more than paying reparations due. It would, however, be a great act of moral courage if this Pope could seek forgiveness for past sins by acknowledging the Murphy Commission report, the unrelenting pain of survivors and the irreversible damage done to the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
12:07:45
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SO HERE WE HAVE IT: The Irish Catholic Clerical Child Sexual Terrorists are now asking the people of Ireland in their parish’s to pay for the Raping and Buggering and the destruction of the lives of innocent Irish children. The Gang of Four: Michael O’Brien – Chris Heaphy – Tom Hayes – John Kelly are the people that have been holding clandestine meetings with these Unholy Orders without a mandate from Survivors making deals and false promises, these fellows had no problem asking the Archbishop Martin (The Postman) to hand a letter to the Pope demanding 1 Billion Euro so as that all Survivors would receive their Redress Awards topped up to 360,000 Euro each. This is what they promised to all Survivors on 10th June 2009 from the back of a Lorry in Molesworth Street, Dublin and it is worth mentioning that Christine Buckley and Carmel McDonald were also two of the people on that Lorry. Recently there has been a stampede to meet with Archbishop Martin before he went to Rome to meet with the Pope along with the Gang of Twenty Four(Bishops) from these mentioned Survivors of the Industrial Schools to try and talk their way into been one of the two that will be chosen to meet with the Pope in Rome. There are petitions going around Ireland for Survivors to sign as to who they want to nominate to go to Rome and these are to be presented to the Archbishop Martin. You do not have to be a brain- surgeon to work out who is doing the pushing for a place. We also have Nora “The Roarer” Brennan who attended clandestine Meetings with the Religious in Meath St Church, Dublin, Nuns in Kilkenny , Nuns in Banada, Sligo and her friends “The Mongrels of the Dog Squad” going to the Bishop of Galway to ask for money and an Office, the very Bishop that the whole of Ireland are trying to kick out and they also want the Survivors who live on the Old age Pension, Sickness Benefit, Income Support, Survivors Children to donate to them and their friends to empty their Piggy Banks and to carry out all sort of functions to raise money to be donate to them. For the benefit of Survivors it is right to point out that if Survivors Redress Awards was to be topped up to 3600,00Euro each the total amount would be in access of……… 7 Billion Euro. A more realistic figure to go for at the time would have been a top up of 100,000 Euro for each Survivor which would work out at 1.5 Billion Euro but now there is nothing worth talking about and Survivors will be shocked when the Report comes out. To the Gang of Four – Christine Buckley, Carmel Mc Donald, Nora “The Roarer” Brennan and “The Mongrels of the Dog Squad”, Bernadette Fahy with her 10 Billion Euro I say take a bow, a great “INJUSTICE” has been done to Survivors and all in the name of your EGO’S .
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Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
12:10:57
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By Shane Dunphy Wednesday March 03 2010 AFTER almost two decades working in the field of child protection, it is rare that I find myself actually trembling with rage, but yesterday morning on my usual commute to work, I experienced just such a paroxysm of emotion. The cause for this anger was a news item which informed me that Dr Denis Brennan, the Bishop of Ferns, was inviting parishioners (and any individual priests who felt so inclined) to donate money to assist the church in footing a bill, the tally for which comes to more than €10m, to meet the legal costs of defending civil cases brought against the diocese in relation to clerical sexual abuse. In other words the Roman Catholic Church in Ferns is asking the victims of its own bitter failings to pay the price for the crime -- it is a request which beggars belief. I grew up in Ferns. When I was eight, my class in primary school was moved to the local church for the year, while new classrooms were fitted for us in the local CBS. This was the first time I would realise that all was not as it should be. Several boys in my class were picked as altar boys to serve at the 10 o'clock Mass by the local curate. At eight years old, I could simply not understand why one of the boys in particular would come back to class after each Mass in tears. I wrote it off as nerves, or maybe that he was simply not a very good altar server, and had been chided for his liturgical failings. It was many years later, when the priest in question was prosecuted as part of the Ferns Inquiry, that I understood what I had been seeing. Much has been written about the social implications of clerical abuse in Ireland. The reports into clerical abuse in Ferns and Dublin have shown a distressing level of complicity within the wider community. How could the police, the health service, schools and many private citizens, have sat back and allowed such atrocities to happen? The priest who abused my friends was well-known as having a fondness for his altar boys, yet no one ever confronted him about it. And in its arrogance and lack of self-awareness, the church interpreted this as tacit approval. Yet these are different times. Survivors and their families have had years to consider what was done, and to feel the anger they are entitled to feel. WHEN I heard about Bishop Brennan's request, the image that immediately sprang to my mind was of a small, skinny, 13-year-old boy who was a friend of mine in my first year in secondary school. I'll call him Mike, though that was not his name. One day towards the end of the year, our class was brought to a local convent for a day's retreat. That evening, we were sent back to the school -- St Peter's College -- for a Mass and a candlelight ceremony. I played the guitar, and had left my instrument in its case back in the classroom, in the old part of the school, while we were away. I was sent to fetch it for the Mass, and Mike came with me. The corridors were all in darkness and, as we were in the class, we heard footsteps approaching. Mike froze, went pale and pulled me into a large storage cupboard. I remember vividly that he was shaking with fear, tears coursing down his pallid cheeks. When the steps had passed, I pulled away and stumbled back out into the room. "What was that all about?" I asked him, trying not to sound annoyed, as he was visibly upset. "That's Father ____", he said. "You don't want to get caught here by him. Not in the dark." I asked Mike why not, but he just shook his head and said he could not even begin to tell me. That priest was also prosecuted. As I write this, I still see Mike's face and feel him beside me shaking with terror. Mike was a boarder in St Peter's. How many nights did he lie awake, terrified of what might happen to him? How many letters did he write home, begging not to have to stay another awful day in a place where predators stalked the hallways? Bishop Brennan and his comrades suggest that Mike's family might like to make a contribution to their war chest. I think it is sickening and shameful that they should even dream of such a thing. Some say that the church in Ferns may go bankrupt without help. I say let it. Perhaps going back to the days of the Mass Rocks might teach them some humility. Shane Dunphy is a child protection expert. - Shane Dunphy Irish Independent
Remote User:
Date:
03 Mar 2010
Time:
15:52:02
Comments
The pope described the abuse of children by his clergy as 'painful Irish happennings' - but now it seems these 'painful Irish happennings' have spread to Germany, Austria and today the Netherlands! http://bit.ly/bFzRyX
Remote User:
Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
06:00:32
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Hogan get one thing straight there were no good Brothers, Priests, or Nuns around in the Gulags, Good ones would have not turned a blind eye to the afull things that were done in their God's name, no when they stood by and done sweet nothing as little boys and girls were starved raped and beaten they all looked the other way, Shame on you Hogan for suggesting there were good ones the only good ones are dead ones, how much are they paying you Hogan, get a life Woman and leave ours alone .
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Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
09:47:11
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Sinead voices anger over bishop’s suggestion.............. By Claire O’Sullivan and Colette Brown Thursday, March 04, 2010................. Singer Sinead O’Connor took to the airwaves yesterday to voice her disgust at Bishop of Ferns Denis Brennan’s suggestion that parishioners could contribute towards abuse settlements and legal fees. The mother-of-four, a longtime vocal critic of the Catholic hierarchy, accused the Vatican of "bringing the name of God into disrepute" by its failure to take responsibility for clerical sex abuse across the world. She said it was disgraceful that parishioners were being told that good Christians would take over the debts. Meanwhile, Dr Brennan has said he does not want to burden the Vatican with requests for funding to help pay compensation and clerical abuse legal fees. "I am not familiar with the finances of the Vatican … I do not want to burden others. This is our responsibility and we would like to discharge our responsibilities ourselves. I would like to be part of the solution. We have walked a lot of miles on this road and I am confident we will finish the road together as well," he said. Ms O’Connor accused the Vatican, whom she believes should pay any outstanding settlements and legal fees, of consistently putting "its business interests before the interests of the Church". In a letter to the Gerry Ryan show, she said the Vatican should be responsible for paying outstanding bills as they were clearly aware of the scourge of clerical abuse. Ms O’Connor pointed to published documents sent to Catholic clergy by the Vatican in 1922 and 1962 which told them to keep secret complaints of abuse or risk excommunication. "I would like to know exactly whose idea this (Ferns) plan was, and from where were issued the instructions to make such a statement. The statement and its attempted manipulation of good Catholic people could be described as unbelievable, stupid, comical. But in my opinion the only word that does it justice is evil. A true Christian is someone who, in any given situation is supposed to ask themselves what would Jesus do, and try to do that," she said. "How an organisation which has acted decade after decade only to protect its business interests above the interests of children, can feel it has the right to dictate to us to do is beyond belief. And if Jesus Christ is to be seen in the vulnerable of this world, then all they have done is crucify the man over and over and over again," she added. Speaking yesterday, Dr Brennan said it was up to the parishes to decide if they wanted to sell an asset or donate funds and denied he had made a specific request for additional donations to meet compensation claims. "We are not asking people for money, we are just setting out our stall. These are our options and we told [those at Monday’s meeting] that if they have other [options] we would like to hear them. "We have not ruled anything in or out. We need to get people’s reactions. We are trying to be as transparent as possible," he said. Reacting to media coverage, of Monday’s meeting, Dr Brennan its "totality, tone and mood" had not been accurately reflected and said the Diocese would be issuing its statement, to be read at all Masses, this weekend.
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Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
09:50:48
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"Failed by the system"..........By Evelyn Ring Thursday, March 04, 2010..... Tracey Fay walked out of her care facility for the last time on January 19, 2002. Efforts to contact the 18-year-old mother of two on her mobile phone proved unsuccessful. She was reported missing to gardaí on the Sunday. Her body was discovered in a basement flat in Granby Road the following day. She died of an overdose. No family or friends attended her funeral. She was buried next to her grandmother. The only ones present were some of the staff who had been involved in her life in care, according to a confidential Health Service Executive report leaked to Fine Gael. Tracey first came into contact with social workers in 1984 when she was eight-months-old after staff became concerned about her care. When she was seven, her grandmother made contact with social workers. A few months later, social workers were made aware that Tracey had lost her two front teeth following "a smack in the face". The first recorded incidence of assault was never reported to gardaí. For the next six years, Tracey travelled between England and Ireland, where her mother was involved in an abusive and violent relationship. She came back into contact with social services here in 1997, when she and her siblings passed through a number of refuges. In 1998, her mother placed Tracey in the voluntary care of the health board. From the age of 14, the troubled teenager was under the care of the state’s social services. During the first six months she was accommodated in nine different places, spending 255 nights in 20 different B&Bs. She assaulted other residents while in care, became known to gardaí, threatened staff and often absconded at night. However, despite a list of social service staff warning of Tracey’s specific issues and her vulnerable position, the state repeatedly failed to provide her with the care she needed. During that period she became involved in a number sexual relationships with older men. There were concerns that she was being "pimped" to other men. She started taking drugs. Despite the concerns and the fact that she had become pregnant while in the care of the health board, no consideration was given to a review of her case, even though she had no secure accommodation during the first seven months of the pregnancy. In 2000, aged 16, she gave birth to a boy. A short time later she became pregnant again. Her second child, a girl, was born on April 2001. Tracey was one month short of her 18th birthday. In January 2002, Tracey broke off all contact with the father of her children. Staff became aware that she was now getting heavily involved in the drugs scene. However, there is no record of her ever being referred to substance abuse services. A number of meetings were held with staff at Orchard View where more stringent rules about her care were agreed. Soon after, she walked out of the care facility. A short time later her life ended in a sordid basement following an overdose on heroin and ecstasy.
Remote User:
Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
09:53:41
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A tragic life and death - A scandal that had to be revealed.......... Thursday, March 04, 2010.......... It shows the skewed loyalties of the Health Service Executive that their first response to the publication of a report on the awful life and death, eight years ago, of an 18-year-old woman in their care, was to question the fact that the tragedy was even made public. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Barry Andrews, responded in a more honest way when he said that the woman – Tracey Fay as she has become known – was failed by the State. The HSE may skirt the real issues by hiding behind a publishing veto but this report reveals a scandal almost of Ryan or Murphy report proportions. It should have been made public years ago, certainly not eight years after the tragic event. If the HSE has properly considered the balance of rights involved it would have published the report a long time ago – had they completed it. At least Mr Andrews partially acknowledged this when he said the lengthy delay could not be defended. Mr Andrews said the HSE had sought permission from Tracey Fay’s family so the harrowing story could be published and suggested that Fine Gael’s Alan Shatter was wrong to publish it without that approval. If he really believes that then this sorry story is another victory for the dangerous culture dependent on secrecy. The culture that has done so much to protect the indefensible. The culture that serves no one, least of all the bereaved family. The culture the officials involved knew they could hide behind. The culture that facilitated the horrors recorded by Ryan and Murphy. Most of all, the culture that inflicts another wound on the memory of the troubled and difficult life of Tracey Fay. The details of Tracey Fay’s unfair, abused and addicted life will send a shiver down the spine of every parent with the perception to see the traps society can set for their innocent and sometimes vulnerable children. They will need courage too to believe Mr Andrews that all of the recommendations made after this tragedy have been "actioned" to prevent a recurrence. All of us need to be convinced that safety nets are in place to protect anyone as troubled as Tracey Fay. We have often argued for an independent investigative authority with the real teeth and ambition to look into institutions or individuals that have damaged the public interest. There are so many opportunities for such an authority that it is almost subversive to argue that we should not have one. Tracey Fay’s death is another. She had a short and cruel life and would probably have challenged the world’s very best health service but this report details failure on a scale that cannot be ignored or kept secret. To do so would endanger the life of every troubled and disadvantaged child. Alan Shatter was right to publish it.
Remote User:
Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
09:57:35
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HSE asks Shatter to withdraw Fay report from public record.......... Deaglan de Breadun and Jamie Smyth.............. The Health Service Executive has written to Fine Gael spokesman on children Alan Shatter asking him to withdraw from the public record a report on the death of a troubled Dublin teenager on the basis that his publication of the document breaches the constitutional rights of her family. The HSE report into the death of 18-year-old mother of two Tracey Fay in January 2002 strongly criticises the State’s “chaotic” provision of care accommodation, a lack of a systematic care plan and a failure to provide addiction services. It also highlights the “missed opportunities” when Tracey Fay came to the attention of child protection services following abuse perpetrated by her mother and her mother’s partner. The document was released by Mr Shatter at a news conference called at short notice yesterday morning in a Dublin hotel where he referred to Ms Fay by her initials “TF”. He was severely criticised later by both Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews and the HSE for failing to consult the young woman’s family. Last night it emerged that the HSE had written to the Fine Gael TD, arguing the family had a right to be consulted in advance of publication. Mr Shatter confirmed he had received a letter from Philip Garland, HSE assistant national director for children and families, and he said, “I am considering its content.” The letter echoed sentiments expressed by Mr Garland in an earlier HSE statement where he said: “I believe that the publication of reports such as this need to be treated in a manner that is respectful of the deceased and their family which unfortunately was not the case today.” However, pointing out that the document had been laid before the Dáil and Seanad yesterday, Mr Shatter said it was therefore “a privileged report that can’t be subject to litigation of any description”. Mr Andrews said: “The truth of the matter is that since the report was finalised, the HSE has been in touch with the mother of the girl and has been seeking to share the full content with her before publication. Due to the mother’s illness, this consultation could not take place.” But Mr Shatter said the report had been “gathering dust on the shelves of the HSE and in the Minister’s office”. He added: “It is incomprehensible in the context of the Minister’s critique of me circulated this afternoon that he omits explaining the regrettable repetitive use by him of TF’s full name during today’s lunchtime interview by Seán O’Rourke on the RTÉ News at One.” When it was pointed out to Mr Andrews on air that he had used her full name, the Minister of State immediately apologised. Tracey Fay was in voluntary care of the Eastern Health Board, now subsumed into the HSE, from 1998 to 2001. Over the past decade, more than 20 children have died while in the care of the State.
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Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
10:01:06
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Bishop of Ferns says all of diocese shares pain in some way......... By Genevieve Carbery.............. The Bishop of Ferns said he understood the negative reaction to a proposal for parishioners to donate money towards the cost of abuse claims, but he said all of the diocese shared the pain in some way. Bishop Denis Brennan told South East Radio: “This is such a painful subject for everybody, first of all for the victims, but we all share pain as a diocese as a family in one way or another. “When I was diocesan delegate for child protection, I used often say to people there is enough pain in this to go around for all of us. So it’s hard to escape the pain of it,” he said. Speaking on the proposal put forward at the annual diocesan agm on Monday to ask parishioners for €60,000 a year over 20 years to pay for compensation and legal bills resulting from clerical child sexual abuse claims, Bishop Brennan said: “We are listening to the people.” The meeting on Monday was an “ongoing conversation” and “the beginning of something. It wasn’t by any means the end. “It’s purely for people to discuss, and think about and talk about, and come back to us with their ideas.” A spokesman for the diocese said that going to the parishes for donations was just one option that had been put forward. In a letter in today’s Irish Times, Fr John Carroll said that “nothing definite as to how to proceed on the issue of funding for future claims has yet been decided in the Ferns diocese”. It may also be decided to dispose of diocesan assets, but that would only come after the conclusion of consultation with churchgoers, he said. A spokesman for Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe said he did not envisage that it would be necessary to ask parishioners there for help in paying debts from clerical child sex abuse claims. Diocesan communications officer for Killaloe Fr Brendan Quinlivan said almost every piece of property owned by the church had been sold, but “all other avenues would be exhausted” before the option of asking parishioners was considered. Meanwhile, Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan said he felt “very ashamed” of the crimes of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by the clergy and the church’s failure to deal with the abuse. Bishop Drennan, who continues to reject calls for his resignation from victims’ groups following the Murphy report, told the Galway Independent: “I feel very ashamed of the failures and crimes of physical and sexual abuse of my brothers and sisters in the church.”
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Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
10:09:32
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Catholic group warns: Let Church fall rather than pay abuse cash...... Conor Kane and Colette Browne Irish Independent.......... A Group set up to support Catholic religious orders urged parishioners to refuse to help with compensation payments to abuse victims. On Monday, the Bishop of Ferns Denis Brennan asked that his 100,000 parishioners contribute to the diocese's massive legal and compensation bills. The Let Our Voices Emerge (LOVE) organisation yesterday said it would prefer the downfall of the Catholic Church. The group's call came as Bishop Brennan said he did not want to "burden" the Vatican with a request for financial help, while singer Sinead O'Connor predicted the Catholic Church would not survive the 21st century. LOVE spokesperson Florence Horsman Hogan said yesterday that the church would not manage without selling some of its assets: "If people want the church to survive in its present state, they need to contribute to ensure survival. If people don't want the church to survive in its present state -- don't." She said she had spoken to members of religious orders as well as abuse survivors who felt in the past that the Catholic church was being unfairly targeted by people with agendas. "They now state that it would be preferable to see the downfall of the church as it stands, and the rebuilding of a more humble and truthful entity." LOVE was established by former industrial school pupils to support religious orders who were being slammed because of abuse allegations. However, the group spoke out against institutional child abuse and withdrew its support for the orders in the wake of the publication of the Ryan report last year and yesterday repeated its call for atonement. "We have seen brave people -- nuns, priests and brothers -- give selflessly to care for us in the industrial schools. But we've also collectively seen a corruption that must be atoned for," Ms Horsman Hogan said. In a letter published in today's Irish Independent, singer Sinead O'Connor speaks about her astonishment at Bishop Brennan's request to his flock to pay bills arising from the horrific sex abuse in his diocese. The outspoken singer says the Vatican has always put its business interests before the interests of children. Ms O'Connor says that: "If Christ was here he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him." Bishop Brennan has ruled out a request to the Vatican for financial help for the abuse victims' compensation fund. "I am not familiar with the finances of the Vatican," he said. "I do not want to burden others," he added. "This is our responsibility and we would like to discharge our responsibilities ourselves." Speaking yesterday on local radio, Dr Brennan said it was up to the parishes to decide if they wanted to sell an asset or donate funds and denied he had made a specific request for additional donations. "We have not ruled anything in or out. We need to get people's reactions. We are trying to be as transparent as possible," he said.
Remote User:
Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
10:13:34
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Sinead O'Connor: I'd help Jesus to burn down the Vatican............. Thursday March 04 2010........ Please allow me to express my astonishment upon reading the statement made on the evening of March 1 by the Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan. His statement attempts to dictate to us -- in the same way the Inquisition did -- how Christians should behave. It says directly that it would be anti-Christian of us to feel that the church should pay its own bills for its own abuse with its own billions that it throttled from our grandparents, whom it also abused, physically, emotionally, psychologically and sexually. Evidence of sexual abuse by clergy, according to the Murphy report, can be traced as far back as 320 AD and the first treatment centres for paedophile priests were created in 1940, named Servants of the Paraclete. These centres were opened all over the world. I would like to know exactly whose idea this latest plan was and from where were issued the instructions or permission for Bishop Brennan to make such a statement. The statement and its attempted manipulation of good Catholic people could be described as unbelievable and stupid. But in my opinion, the only word that does it justice is 'evil'. How long do they expect us to restrain ourselves? We have put up with this bull dung for hundreds of years. A true Christian is someone who, in any given situation, is supposed to ask themselves what would Jesus do, then try to do that. How an organisation which has acted, decade after decade, only to protect its business interests above the interests of children can feel it has the right to dictate to us what Christians should do is beyond belief. From the Pope on down, through the Vatican and therefore through the lower echelons, the whole organisation, in my belief, is utterly anti-Christian and evil, as proven by centuries of torture, bloodshed, burnings, terrorism, and coverings-up of "the worst crime" known to man. And if Jesus Christ is to be seen in the vulnerable of this world, then all the church has done is crucify the man over and over and over again. If Christ was here, he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him.......Sinead O'Connor............ Bray, Co Wicklow.
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Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
11:22:37
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"So now we have the Irish Catholic Clerical Child Sexual Terrorists resurrecting the dead, Florence Horsman Hogan of the demised Pro Catholic "LOVE" website to fight their corner, does this not show you just how desperate they are?
Remote User:
Date:
04 Mar 2010
Time:
18:45:33
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Minister: Tracey Fay was failed by the State......... Thursday, 4 March 2010........ Minister for Children Barry Andrews has told the Dáil that the State undoubtedly failed Tracey Fay, the teenage girl who died in HSE care. During a Dáil debate on the issue of unpublished reports on children who died in State care, Mr Andrews denied that there were reports on children who have died in care 'gathering dust' in his office. Mr Andrews said they may be confused with case-review files, which are not intended for publication. He confirmed that ten reports were being prepared into deaths of children in care, but reviews were not being carried out in others. Minister Andrews said two reports were nearing completion. He said there was no intention to cover up, that he had no agenda to protect any reputation. Fine Gael deputy Alan Shatter stressed that accountability was needed if reform was to be implemented. He said the State has been paying 'lip-service' to child protection. Labour's Joan Burton expressed concern about what she said was a culture of secrecy in the HSE. She said this was preventing a dialogue about what was the best thing to do about troubled children whose families had failed them. HSE Director of Integrated Services Laverne McGuinness confirmed at the Public Accounts Committee this morning that 20 children had died in care in the past decade. She said two reports were almost ready for publication, two more were going through legal process and another ten are being compiled. Under questioning from Fianna Fáil's Sean Fleming, Ms McGuinness said no reports had been published since the HSE itself was established in 2005. Deputy Fleming described it as very concerning. Ms McGuinness said reports in future would be carried out using guidelines set out by the Health Information and Quality Authority. She said this would lead to a speedier publication of reports' recommendations. Professor Brendan Drumm said there was a danger that if every report was published it would lead to limited investigations because they would end up being bogged down in legal difficulties. PAC Chairman Bernard Allen said it was inexcusable that some reports took eight to ten years to compile........ Fay case...... A HSE report into the death of 18-year-old Tracey Fay strongly criticised the State's provision of care accommodation, a lack of a systematic care plan and a failure to provide addiction services. Fine Gael Children Spokesman Alan Shatter yesterday published the report, saying it was in the public interest. The mother of two died in January 2002 and is referred to in report only by her initials, TF. During her first six months in care, Tracey Fay was accommodated in nine different places, spending 255 nights in 20 different B&Bs. She was found dead after taking heroin and ecstasy. The HSE has now written to Mr Shatter calling on him to withdraw the report from the public record, saying it breached the constitutional rights of Ms Fay's family, especially her children. Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland, HSE Assistant National Director for Children and Families Phil Garland said there were 20 other similar reports awaiting publication, but due process had to be considered. Mr Shatter has described the HSE's request as 'fundamentally bizarre' and 'quite extraordinary'. Speaking this morning, he said it was vital to lift what he called the 'veil of secrecy' on the State's child protection services. Last night, Ms Fay's uncle Damien Fay said he had no objection to the release of the report. Minister for Children Barry Andrews yesterday criticised Mr Shatter for publishing the report, describing it as 'an ambush' designed to cause embarrassment for the Government.
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05 Mar 2010
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11:52:54
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Deaths of five children in care never reviewed........ By Paul O’Brien, Conor Ryan and Noel Baker Friday, March 05, 2010........... The circumstances in which five children died while in state care were never reviewed, the Government has admitted. The five were among 23 children who died while in, or shortly after leaving, State care since 2000. The Health Service Executive (HSE) has not published a report into any of the 23 deaths, prompting claims of a "cover-up" yesterday when a special debate was held in the Dáil. During the debate, Children’s Minister Barry Andrews said nine of the 23 deaths were due to natural causes, as the children had pre-existing medical conditions, such as leukaemia. Reviews were ongoing in eight more, all stemming from 2006 or later, he said. But the remaining six cases were ones where "no further action" was anticipated. All six predated 2006, and a confidential report had been completed in one of them. But in the remaining five, no reviews had taken place. The five cases involved:.... * An overdose in 2000. A review was "deemed at that time not to be necessary".... * An overdose in 2000..... * An overdose in 2005..... * A suicide in 2000..... * hit-and-run in 2002..... Mr Andrews said procedures had since changed, and the state "wouldn’t ignore the duty to investigate these types of cases now". Following opposition demands, the minister agreed reviews should take place in the five cases. "I think that’s reasonable – I think it’s something we could do." Mr Andrews pointed out that details of two of the five cases had been sent last year to the independent agency drawing up guidelines on how reviews of deaths in care should be handled. It emerged separately yesterday that the HSE will still be in charge of investigating itself in certain cases of child death when those guidelines are published next week. Mr Andrews said all 23 deaths had been "tragic" but stressed there was "no intention whatsoever to cover up these cases". In the cases where investigations were taking place, "it is my intention that all of these reports would be put into the public domain in so far as they are possible". But he stressed the public’s right to know must be balanced with the rights of parties affected by the reports. It came as the HSE confirmed it had not published a single report into the death of any of the children in its care since its establishment in 2005 – a situation described as "inexcusable" by Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen. Labour’s Joan Burton expressed fears of a "culture of secrecy" within the HSE. The debate was prompted by Fine Gael’s decision to make public one unpublished report, which examined the death of Tracey Fay, an 18-year-old mother of two, who died of an overdose while in "chaotic" state care in 2002
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05 Mar 2010
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11:56:13
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HSE still to investigate own role in child deaths....... By Noel Baker Friday, March 05, 2010......... The HSE will still be in charge of investigating itself in certain cases of child death under new proposals to be published next week. The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) confirmed yesterday its board has approved guidelines on a child death review mechanism and it intends to publish them next week. The document is entitled Guidance for the Health Service Executive for the Review of Serious Incidents, including Deaths of Children in Care, indicating that the new method of probing child deaths will not be left to an independent body, as demanded by the Ombudsman for Children last year. On publication, the document will also be forwarded to Minister for Children Barry Andrews. Children’s Ombudsman Emily Logan yesterday renewed her call for a new independent method of reviewing child deaths, claiming such a scheme could help avoid a repeat of the fate which befell Tracey Fay. Ms Logan presented an options paper on possible models for a Child Death Review mechanism in February last year and met with the HSE and Dublin City Coroner Brian Farrell, among others, to discuss the issue. Ms Logan said yesterday that it was important any such mechanism extend beyond just those children who die while in care or detention. "One of the advantages of a universal approach is to develop a deeper understanding of what makes children vulnerable," she said. Child Death Review panels are commonplace in many countries and Ms Logan stressed that any mechanism here would need to be independent, so that the HSE or any other statutory body would not end up investigating itself. On the Tracey Fay tragedy, Ms Logan said: "If [Minister Barry Andrews] introduced this consistent mechanism, if you have a protocol for how these things are investigated, you have a stronger sense of public accountability and you do not have a leaked report. "What it [this case] displays to me is that there is something wrong with the public accountability line."
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05 Mar 2010
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11:59:28
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Care workers complain hands are tied by law....... By Caroline O’Doherty Friday, March 05, 2010........ Care workers say they are powerless to prevent a repeat of the Tracey Fay tragedy because their hands are tied by the law. They want greater freedom to decide how to protect troubled children and for the law to back them where they decide a child needs to be restrained for their own safety. Under current regulations, children like Tracey – who have committed no crime – are accommodated in open residential units except in extreme circumstances where their detention in a locked, secure unit must be sanctioned by the courts. "You’d be president of the United States of America quicker than you’d get a court order," said Noel Howard, spokesman for the Irish Association of Social Care Workers (IASCW). "In the meantime you have a child who can walk out the door any time and there is little can be done to stop them. You can talk to them, try to reason with them, persuade them, but you can’t put a hand on them or put a key in the door to stop them leaving." Mr Howard said the situation left social care workers in an ethical and moral dilemma. "The law states that we are in loco parentis so we should be able to act as any parent would if their child was walking out the door and into imminent danger, but, as it is now, any social care worker who would physically try to put a halt to a child leaving would have serious questions to answer." He said the weaknesses in the system were also evident in the case of 14-year-old Sligo girl, Melissa Mahon, whose repeated running away from care settings came to public attention when her killer, Ronald Dunbar, was jailed for her death last year. "Staff caring for her knew she was spending time at that man’s house, but they couldn’t do anything about it except try to encourage her not to. We don’t want to be locking up every child in the country but there are a small number of children who may well need to be protected in that way." The IASCW is urging adoption of the Scandinavian model of care where open residential units have an adjacent secure area where children who repeatedly go absent or engage in risky behaviour outside the unit can be accommodated temporarily
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05 Mar 2010
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12:02:04
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Andrews lacks political muscle, claims FG............ By Conor Ryan Friday, March 05, 2010............. FINE GAEL has accused Children’s Minister Barry Andrews of lacking the political muscle to protect the vulnerable and those in the care of the state. The party’s children’s spokesman, Alan Shatter, said for too long, reports into children’s deaths, promised by Mr Andrews, have not been published. Recommendations made after various tragedies have not led to the necessary changes in how children are cared for, he said. "We have a Minister for Children who lacks the authority and statutory power to insure whatever policy he wants to implement is implemented." Mr Shatter said the state had "paid lip service to child protection". "There is a credibility problem between what the minister says and what actually happens on the ground." And Mr Shatter defended his party’s decision to publish the report into the death of Tracey Fay, rejecting Mr Andrews’ accusation that it will hinder the prospects of future inquiries. During the Dáil session on the report into the death of Ms Fay, Mr Andrews and Health Minister Mary Harney, who sat silently on his right, faced a barrage of criticism. Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd said the details produced by Mr Andrews, on children who died in care, was not complete. The HSE had to account for the children of young mothers who were in contact with social workers. Mr O’Dowd said he has so far failed to establish the HSE’s response to a case he was personally aware of. This involved a baby who died after its mother, who was also a child in care, became homeless. Health spokeswoman for Labour, Jan O’Sullivan TD, said the minister had still not explained the circumstances in which 23 unidentified children died. Ms O’Sullivan called for the recommendations of all previous reports and reviews to be compiled and published soon. "You need to shed a whole lot more light on these areas." Sinn Féin leader Caoimhghín O Caoláin said the Government and HSE could not claim to have acted on this issue when they have ignored persistent questions on the subject. Since the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report of 1990, the state has known its services for children in care was inadequate and badly managed, he added.
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05 Mar 2010
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12:05:17
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Andrews: State must accept it failed children in care......... By Conor Ryan Political Correspondent Friday, March 05, 2010........ The state needed to accept it had failed children in its care, according to Children’s Minister Barry Andrews. But he denied that his failure to publish any of the reports he received on children who died while in the care of the state was tantamount to a cover-up. He said there were 23 tragic cases since the Children First guidelines were introduced a decade ago, and he had received reports into four of them. The broad circumstances of the 23 deaths were read into the Dáil record last night. Last night the HSE disputed this figure and said 20 children had died during the period. However, this was because it only counts children actually still in care when they died and not those who died shortly after their 18th birthday, such as in the case of Tracey Fay. The minister’s office said 23 deaths was the figure it worked off. Mr Andrews said the delay in publishing the reports was motivated by a need to balance the public’s right to know with each family’s right to privacy. "I stress there is no intention to cover up these cases. I have no agenda to protect reputations," he said. All of the children died while in the care of the HSE or the old health boards between 2000 and 2009. Mr Andrews said he would look at reopening the cases of six children who died prior to 2006. These were caused by suicide, drug overdoses and, in one case, a hit and run. But no outside investigation was carried out. He said it may be possible to look at them again to see if the facts of each case and the recommendations made could be released. The minister also revealed to the Dáil the recommendation of a Review Group which looked into five previously unexamined cases. This was finalised last year and will inform a working group on child protection guidelines. The group said a case review panel should be formed in all cases of premature deaths, a protocol should be developed to deal with the justice system, health professionals needed to get involved with at-risk children earlier and staff should be given a support and guidance service. Mr Andrews attacked Fine Gael for its decision to publish the report into the death of 18-year-old Tracey Fay on the website without the full consent of her family. He said this would make it harder to get cooperation in future non-legal inquiries because they will fear the details will be released in the same fashion. Mr Andrews accused the opposition of getting "party-political" for asking why the current protocol did not require for his office to be informed every time a child in care died. However, FG’s health spokesman James Reilly said it did not matter which party was in power, the Children’s Minister should be notified.
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05 Mar 2010
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12:07:33
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Tracey Fay’s death - Learn the lessons......... Friday, March 05, 2010....... If Tracey Fay’s tragic life and death prove anything, it is that self-regulation does not work and that the process is utterly undermined by suspicion and conflicts of interest, real or imagined. No matter how loudly, or accurately, the Health Services Executive protests, the unacceptable delay – eight years – in publishing the report on her awful death can only create a belief that subsidiary interests prevail. Yesterday afternoon’s announcement that two reports, dealing with two more of the 20 deaths of children in the care of the State since 2002 will be published with in weeks does nothing to diminish that suspicion. One of the many other issues raised is the question of who controls childcare. Alan Shatter has suggested that it is not the Minister for Children Barry Andrews. There were very many good reasons for replacing the regional health boards with the HSE but the intention was not to create an independent empire. If that has evolved then the Oireachtas must reassert its authority.
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Date:
05 Mar 2010
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12:12:40
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Airbrushing the past as collection plate sent out.........The Irish Times - Wednesday, March 3, 2010......... OPINION: The people of Ferns didn’t cover up, didn’t move abusing priests, didn’t indulge in any of what Bishop Denis Brennan brazenly calls ‘mismanagement’ – yet they are asked to pay, writes Mary Raftery.......... SinceI the turn of the century, brave little Ferns has been the pioneering diocese. It was the first where the revelations of clerical child sexual abuse caused enough public outrage to force the government to become involved. The inquiry which followed was the first of its kind in this country, and the first time the State had so directly interfered in the affairs of the Catholic Church. The Ferns report which followed was the initial volume of the now trilogy of reports (with Ryan and Murphy) into the lethal damage caused to tens of thousands of Irish children by the institutional Catholic Church in this country. It follows that it is a reasonable assumption that what is now occurring in the Ferns diocese will apply shortly to the entire country. So far, it is just the good people of Ferns who are being told by their bishop where their duty lies – namely to contribute personally to make up the shortfall in funds needed by the diocese to compensate victims of child abuse. No matter that they as parishioners damaged no child, transferred no paedophiles from parish to parish, covered up no abuse, hid no shameful secrets. Their bishop, Denis Brennan, has harsh words for anyone who might entertain such thoughts: “That I did not cause the problem is not the response of the Christian,” he intones in his message to the faithful yesterday. To most of us, this is a brazen case of trying to have your cake and eat it. Successive bishops behave disgracefully, wantonly expose dozens of children to unspeakable assaults, refuse consistently to accept responsibility for their gross negligence, and then tell their flock that it is their duty as Christians to pay the price of compensation to victims out of their own pockets. Should the people of Ferns consider accepting this proposition, and complying with their bishop’s definition of what constitutes a good Christian, it might be worth their while to give some thought to the current attitude of the diocese of Ferns to its past sins against children. Bishop Brennan’s statement yesterday was instructive in its use of language. Indeed, all such public utterances from bishops repay close analysis of the language used. The problems which caused the diocese’s current financial difficulties are now defined as “the actions of individual perpetrators along with mismanagement, poor understanding and/or lack of resolve”. No mention at all of unpleasant words like “cover-up” or “criminal negligence”. Five years after the Ferns report, the diocesan authorities clearly felt it was safe to take out the air-brush. It is worth looking back at just what was said about the diocese in Justice Frank Murphy’s seminal report in 2005. It detailed a litany of accounts of sickening abuse by over 20 priests in Ferns against over 100 children in the period from the 1960s until 2004. In the cases of a number of unnamed priests and of Frs Seán Fortune, James Doyle, Donal Collins, Martin Clancy and James Grennan, the report forensically teased out the extensive knowledge within the diocese at the highest level that they were raping and sexually assaulting children. It further identified in each case the shocking pattern of moving these priests from parish to parish in the full knowledge that they were child abusers. The two bishops involved here were Donal Herlihy and Brendan Comiskey. The latter had been an auxiliary bishop in Dublin for several years during the period when that diocese was presiding over a culture of covering up widespread child abuse, as described so powerfully in the Murphy report published last November. It was a culture that Comiskey perpetuated during his tenure in Ferns, with such devastating and tragic consequences for so many children in Wexford and Wicklow. That the current bishop of Ferns should now describe this pattern of reckless and lethal cover-up as “mismanagement, poor understanding and/or lack of resolve” begs the most fundamental question of whether the Catholic hierarchy has even the remotest understanding of the public abhorrence at what the Ferns report described as the practice of placing “the interests of individual priests ahead of those of the community in which they served”. A further instructive aspect of the financial crisis in Ferns is that it allows us to perceive the convenient way in which the Catholic Church compartmentalises its organisational structure. Ferns is an island, we’re told, separate from all other dioceses in Ireland, from all religious orders and indeed from the Vatican. Ferns must sink or swim on its own. But why should this be so? It is certainly a clever way to limit your liabilities, and to preserve the assets of the wider Catholic organisation. But is there not something inherently immoral in placing such an enormous burden on to the entirely innocent people of one diocese simply in order that resources and assets of the wider organisation remain unscathed? And we do know that these resources are immense. Ten years ago, the religious orders of Ireland squealed that they had no money and so the State bailed them out in the now infamous church/State deal on redress for survivors of institutional abuse. The total bill here will be around €1.3 billion, of which the taxpayer is shelling out well over 90 per cent as the religious orders laugh all the way to the bank with a paltry contribution. But lo and behold, in the wake of the entirely damning findings of the Ryan report last May that these same religious orders presided over reigns of unimaginable terror within their institutions for children, the nuns and brothers have been shamed into discovering a few hundred million more within their coffers to dispense to those they so badly damaged. Most people have little doubt that the institutional church, either nationally here in Ireland or by calling on Vatican assistance, could perfectly easily shoulder the relatively small amounts required to compensate abuse victims in Ferns. There is, however, one other possibility – perhaps one could even call it an opportunity. For a relatively small amount (perhaps amounting to the compensation shortfall), the Department of Education could purchase from the diocese of Ferns any land it owns on which schools are located. This would clear up – at least in one part of the country – the legal morass surrounding the ownership of the education infrastructure. At present, the State has, through its direct investment, a considerable ownership stake in most school buildings. However, the land on which they sit belongs in the main to the Catholic Church. The legal complexities around ownership of schools are likely to become an important issue as we begin as a society to consider how safe are our schools and our children under the patronage of a Catholic Church proven to have been so heinously derelict towards generations of children. It is an excellent time for the taxpayer to purchase such critical infrastructure, and it would clearly suit the diocese of Ferns in its time of financial need. The State may never have a better opportunity to begin the process of untangling the complex web of school ownership. It is beyond time for us as a society to grasp this nettle. Mary Raftery produced and directed the documentaries “States of Fear and Cardinal Secrets” on the abuse of children by priests, nuns and brothers
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05 Mar 2010
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12:17:40
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No reports published on 20 children who died in care..........By Fiona Gartland..... DÁIL COMMITTEE: The Health Service Executive (HSE) has said it has not published any reports into the 20 children who it says have died while in State care in the last 10 years. Speaking to the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts, Laverne McGuinness, director of integrated services with the HSE, said two reports had been finalised and the recommendations from them would be published shortly. Following the release of the report on the death of teenager Tracey Fay by Fine Gael deputy Alan Shatter, Ms McGuinness also said the HSE was in touch with the foster parents of Ms Fay’s two children, now aged nine and 10. Ms Fay had been in the care of the State when she died, aged 18, and when she had her two children. Under questioning from Fianna Fáil deputy Seán Fleming, Ms McGuinness said the HSE had not published reports into the deaths for a number of reasons. These included that personal data about children and their families appear in the reports, some of which was “very disturbing”. The organisation was almost ready to publish in relation to two reports and was taking legal advice on a further two, Ms McGuinness said. There was no timetable to publish the remainder, which were not in a format that would allow for publication. New guidelines, produced with the Health Information and Quality Authority would be used in the presentation of future reports, Ms McGuinness said. This would lead to a speedier publication of reports’ recommendations. Mr Fleming said it was very worrying that not a single report had been published by the HSE. The head of HSE, Prof Brendan Drumm, said there was a danger that if all reports were published the organisation could end up in the courts because people would not want to contribute and they would become bogged down in legal difficulties. “Getting the co-operation of people could be prolonged and enormously expensive,” he said. Mr Fleming asked if the HSE had contacted Ms Fay’s children, given that HSE assistant national director for children and families Phil Garland had raised the issue of the two children on RTÉ radio yesterday. Ms McGuinness said the children’s foster parents and maternal grandparents had been contacted within the last 24 hours. “The whole issue about how we ended up discussing anything on this report is unfortunate,” Prof Drumm said. “What is most unfortunate is the report has been languishing there for eight or 10 years,” committee chairman Deputy Bernard Allen responded.
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05 Mar 2010
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12:21:23
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Tracey Fay's legacy................ The tragic story of 18-year-old Tracey Fay provides a graphic insight into how our child protection system is failing some of the most vulnerable young people. Abused and neglected as a child, the State took her into its care to safeguard her welfare. Yet, she ended up falling through the cracks of a chaotic child protection system which was never able to meet her needs. Tracey’s story is not an isolated one. More than 20 young people in State care or after-care have died over the past decade, sometimes in horrific circumstances. They include Danny Talbot (19), David Foley (17), Kim O’Donovan ( 15) and Michelle Bray (14). Frontline social workers say many of these lives were lost needlessly due to a system dominated by crisis management rather than early intervention. The State’s obligations towards children who cannot be cared for by their families are clear. Health authorities have a positive duty under the Child Care Act, 1991, to “identify children who are not receiving adequate care and protection” and to provide them with suitable protection. The crushing reality, however, is that social services are operating against a backdrop of scarce resources, staff shortages and heavy caseloads. This crisis in child protection services is not helped by a culture of excessive secrecy on the part of Health Service Executive (HSE) management. The HSE has consistently failed to publish any of the reports into the deaths of children in its care. It only became apparent that there was a report in existence on Ms Fay’s death when details were leaked to this newspaper last year. Even the most basic statistics regarding social work services are far too often hidden behind a veil of confidentiality. For example, an annual report into the adequacy of child and family services is heavily censored and omits virtually all criticism of child protection services. It is also grossly hypocritical of the HSE to criticise the media and Fine Gael’s Alan Shatter for publishing details of the report into the handling of Ms Fay’s care. There is a need for sensitivity – but there is also a clear public interest in highlighting the failures of social work services. If anything is to be learned from the mistakes of the past, there must be automatic reviews of all deaths of children in care. Greater openness should not be feared. On the contrary, it would lead to enhanced accountability, better management and would make the case for increased investment in this sector. Little has changed in recent times. Many children at risk are still being failed by a social work service which often responds too late. The system needs urgent reform. There must be uniform application of child protection laws and guidelines throughout the State in tandem with a properly resourced family support system which intervenes earlier in the lives of children at risk rather than waiting until they are in crisis. Too many children suffered needlessly in our industrial schools in the past. How many more must suffer or even die as a result of a chaotic and underfunded child protection service?
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05 Mar 2010
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12:24:52
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Bishop: I was uneasy about having to kiss the papal ring............ By Colin Gleeson Friday March 05 2010.................... A Bishop has admitted he was "embarrassed" to have to stoop to kiss the Pope's ring during the visit of the Irish bishops to the Vatican. Bishop of Kerry Dr Bill Murphy said he was surprised with the protocol when he arrived at the Vatican, but he followed his fellow bishops who bowed to kiss the papal ring. "When it came to my turn, the person before me did it and I kissed his [the Pope's] ring as well -- even though I was rather embarrassed by it," Bishop Murphy said. He said when he previously met Pope Benedict -- and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II -- he was greeted with a handshake. Bishop Murphy said he was sure the Pope would also have preferred to avoid the ancient kissing of the ring custom when he met the bishops in Rome. "Some people still try to kiss a bishop's ring but, obviously, it's out of touch with modern thinking," he added. Traditionally, the kissing of the papal ring is a sign of respect for the office. Director of Catholic Communications Martin Long said last night that the bishop's comments were made "in a personal capacity" and would not comment further. Also known as the Ring of the Fisherman, a new band is cast in gold for each pontiff. It features an image of Saint Peter fishing from a boat. Raised lettering around the image presents the current Pope's Latin name. The ring is an official part of the regalia worn by the pope, who is described by the Catholic Church as the successor of Saint Peter, who was a fisherman by trade. During the rite of papal inauguration, an official of the papal court ceremonially slips the ring on the left fourth finger of the new pope. Upon a papal death, the Ring of the Fisherman is ceremonially crushed in the presence of other cardinals using a silver hammer. Meanwhile, Bishop Murphy rejected claims from abuse survivors that the meeting in Rome was nothing more than a charade. He said the gathering was "very serious and significant" and he conceded the Catholic Church might have been at fault for not lowering the "exaggerated and unrealistic expectations" of the public in advance.
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05 Mar 2010
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12:28:37
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Families of victims demand answers in care scandal............. By Edel Kennedy, Friday March 05 2010.................... Last night the families of children who died in state care called on the Government to "cease the cover-up" and publish the reports into their deaths. They spoke out after Children's Minister Barry Andrews could not tell an emergency Dail debate when the reports would finally be made public. Yesterday it emerged that at least 23 children had died while in state care over the past decade. However, the HSE has failed to publish a single report on any of these deaths since it was established in 2005. The families of two teenagers who died in state care last night said children were continuing to die because of the failure to protect the most vulnerable in society. Danny Talbot (19) died of a drugs overdose while in the care of the HSE last year. New details of his tragic death came to light yesterday after Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter leaked a report into the death of 18-year-old mother-of-two Tracey Fay, who also died while in the care of the State. "There are lots of other Tracey Fays and Danny Talbots and we're not going to sit back and wait seven years like the Fay family for a report," Danny's aunt Donna Lamb told the Irish Independent. Tracey's uncle said it was a "scandal" that the report into the death of his niece took six years to complete and had only now come into the public domain. "In the eight years since Tracey died, quite a lot of kids have died," Damien Fay said last night. "Barry Andrews claimed last year that it would be published within a month and that didn't happen. All of a sudden he's now concerned about us because the report was leaked but who is he to speak on behalf of the family when we had no input? It's ridiculous. "What happened Tracey is still happening today and it's an abuse of the child by the State." Responding to the families' comments, Mr Shatter last night said: "The suppression of reports must end now." He added: "There is an absolute necessity to publish all the reports without further delay. It is essential the HSE stops hiding behind the pretext that reports are being delayed for publication because they need to contact families." Mr Andrews came under pressure to outline the causes of the 23 deaths and reveal exactly what stage each of the reports were at during an emergency Dail debate last night. He denied opposition claims of a "cover-up" and pledged to publish "so far as is possible" all of the reports. The minister also warned that future inquiries could be jeopardised if Fine Gael's action of publishing a HSE report was repeated. "You can be sure that if the precedent set yesterday is set to continue then nobody will co-operate with inquiries as they can safely assume that some member of the House of Oireachtas will publish a report that is not meant for the public," Mr Andrews said. However, Mr Fay last night praised Mr Shatter for publicly releasing the report on his niece's death. He said it was a "scandal" it had not been published earlier. Mr Fay revealed that Tracey had lived with him for a period before her death, but he was never once contacted by the HSE when they were carrying out the report on her death. Ms Lamb claimed the Government's inaction was putting children's lives at risk. "The minister and the HSE need to go out on to the boardwalk or the hostels and see the young people who are drugged up to their eyeballs and have nothing to do for the day," she told the Irish Independent. The HSE refused to say exactly when the children died because it wanted to protect their identities. Statement:- In a statement released last night, it said that out of the 10 cases considered by the HSE's review group, six were currently "in progress". Two are going though due process in preparation for publication and are expected to be published in a matter of weeks. Another two are currently subject to legal constraints that have delayed their publication. HSE Assistant National Director for Children and Families Phil Garland also highlighted the inconsistency in work carried out on the reports after he admitted that health authorities had originally planned to publish the Fay and Foley reports together. This is despite a three-year gap between their deaths. There are currently 5,300 children under the care of the HSE. An estimated 90pc of these are being looked after by foster parents.
Remote User:
Date:
05 Mar 2010
Time:
17:36:28
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More Irish Catholic Clerical Child Sexual Terrorists:- Priest gets suspended sexual assault sentence........... Friday, 5 March 2010........... The former spiritual director of Gormanston College has been given a two and a half year suspended prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to a charge of sexually assaulting a young boy. Fr Ronald Bennett had already been convicted for assaulting other boys while he was in the Co Meath college. The 75-year-old Franciscan friar had pleaded guilty to two sample charges of indecently assaulting a teenage boy in the early 1970s. Trim Circuit Criminal Court had been told that Bennett would summon his victim to his room every week for two years. He would ask the boy if he knew how to seduce a woman before removing his trousers and abusing him. Fr Bennett, who has an address at a Franciscan house in Killiney, Co Dublin, has already served a prison term for abusing four boys in the same school. The victim, who cannot be named to protect his identity, told the court that the Franciscans were aware of the abuse for years but did nothing to stop it. Counsel for the accused, Hugh Hartnett, said his client was now subject to extremely restrictive measures by the Franciscan Order, which in effect amounted to imprisonment in their house. Judge Donagh McDonagh said Fr Bennett has abused his position of trust as the spiritual director and a sporting coach in the school. Usually this matter would have been dealt with during the previous case when Fr Bennett received a five year sentence, half of which was suspended. He also said he was acutely aware of the severe restrictions placed on the defendant by his religious order. Judge McDonagh imposed a two and a half year sentence, suspended on condition that the accused abides by the restrictions imposed by the Franciscans. He also placed him on the register of sex offenders for ten years.
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
07:39:51
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Do your Christian duty and help the Bishop balance the books Saturday March 06 2010 Jaw-dropping comments by Denis Brennan, Catholic Bishop of Ferns, added greatly to (some of) the nation's anxiety this week. He suggested that his local parishioners should open their purses to help his church out with its alleged current financial embarrassment. The sting in the tail was his definition of what makes and unmakes a good Christian. It was a case of the béal bocht occupying the high moral ground. Most bishops had the sense to cut back on moral pronouncements since the Ryan and Murphy reports, realising their damaged authority means this isn't the moment to tell people what's right and wrong. But money has its own imperatives, especially when it comes to the institutional Catholic Church. "That 'I did not cause the problem' is not the response of the Christian," Bishop Brennan said. "That I would like to help in the work of justice, healing, reconciliation, a safer environment for children, proper financial stewardship and overall good economic health is the response of the Christian." This slogan manipulates a Christian attitude to a kind of Miss World aspiration, where contestants line up, look humble and swear their top priority is world peace. Of course it is, but will saying so make it happen? The parallel universe called 'the real world' may have wondered what planet Bishop Brennan occupies. Live register figures are hovering over the 400,000 mark but the core issue was the reason why the bishop wanted lay people to cough up cash. The money was required to help pay mortgages taken out on the bishop's palace -- that having been done, reportedly, to pay some claims due to survivors of clerical child abuse in the diocese. The question of why Catholics in Ferns should effectively pay a double levy for abuses to their own community didn't arise. Direct and indirect government taxes have already bailed out religious orders to the likely final amount of more than €1bn after Bertie Ahern and Michael Woods' decision. Ferns people contributed to this. The Ferns diocese also received some €5.8m from a national Catholic diocesan fund because it is the smallest diocese with one of the highest proven rates of child abuse. The rate may reflect the people of Ferns' own courage in insisting abuse cases be disclosed. Bishop Brennan called the Ferns abuses a tragedy -- but these were crimes; legally and ethically. They persisted because successive bishops didn't act and because priests were effectively enabled by keeping their sacramental powers, which let them keep abusing with an odds-on chance of not being reported. If the Church had acted sooner, there'd be less to pay. Bishop Brennan was one of the first bishops to speak out after they met Pope Benedict XVI. You have to wonder whether his call reflects the Pope's policy for Ireland. Behind the bishop's statement looms the spectre of the Vatican's wealth. Nowhere and at no time has it paid a cent of compensation to survivors in the many countries where clerical abuses happened. Would the Vatican let Ferns go bankrupt to safeguard its own assets? Or other Irish dioceses? The way it's organised helps the Vatican retain its assets no matter what happens elsewhere -- Canada, the US, Germany or any of the other First World countries whose citizens have the confidence to challenge criminal behaviour. This medieval-style governance is often used to evade collective responsibility if a single diocese or national hierarchy is in difficulty. Look at it differently and you might argue that the governance system is one of the biggest obstacles to improving child protection within the Catholic Church. There are proven difficulties in communicating abuses between Rome and local dioceses; proven difficulties in enabling survivors to speak directly to Rome; proven difficulties in state authorities pursuing clerical abusers across local and international diocesan boundaries, never mind making Rome's diplomatic channels accountable to national laws. The bishop's statement is centuries away from the pay-for-indulgences practices that made the Catholic Church so very rich. But the emotional tone of his remarks plays some of the same tunes. Then, the more indulgences you bought for yourself or your departed loved ones, the closer you got to heaven. That was everyone's preferred destination. The same song encouraged new middle classes in 19th century Ireland to donate money and land to build churches. Odds are if you unpicked the financial history of any church or presbytery in Ireland, you would find the purses of thousands of lay people for whom giving money to the Church was a way of being good. Bishop Brennan sounds like he's playing the goodness cards without taking responsibility for the cover-ups that let abuse continue for so long. For example, he feels competent enough to define what a Christian is, even though the Ferns example, and indeed the Church's attitude to paying compensation, is hard to place in any New Testament story about Jesus Christ. He uses his assumed moral authority to tell lay people what's best for them, which happily coincides with what's best for his financial affairs. Then he blames the situation on 'mismanagement, poor understanding and a lack of resolve', as though bad book-keeping is a bigger mote in the eye than clerical child abuse. Thought: maybe the rest of the country is on another planet. After all, this State is practically bankrupt while the Vatican books are showing deliciously healthy profits. Irish Independent
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
07:42:51
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Church and State colluded in this abuse-ridden society By Bruce Arnold Saturday March 06 2010 Tracey Fay's death has shifted public focus in the continuing and unbroken narrative of child abuse and neglect in Ireland. For the past decade, and before that, we have been able to blame the church. Now the blame has shifted, quite markedly, to the State. Her death, and that of many like her, is the result of the State's failure to set up and fund a proper care system. It is an irony that the period during which this new abuse occurred has been a period of intense self-examination over how abuse happened from 1920 to the 1980s, carried out principally by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, and focused on the industrial schools. But with the change of focus we can no longer hide behind blaming the church. We never could, of course. It was always the State that was responsible for the care of its children and let them down. But the State was effectively controlled by the church, and successive governments without exception obeyed unquestioningly the clerical direction that covered up chronic, persistent and damaging child abuse. It is a seamless story, as long as the Bible and as terrible in the accounts that come out of it -- of human dishonesty, evasion, and the avoidance of truth and basic goodness in helping children. Tracey Fay died eight years ago. The facts, and the State's abject failure, would have remained under a confidentiality cover but for the courage and good judgment of Alan Shatter, whose calm and measured performance in the Dail this week was exemplary. Not for the first time has he shamed the State. He has confronted the absurdities of the HSE, who were trying to stop him on a trumped-up claim about a constitutional right to privacy. And he obliterated the incompetence of Children's Minister Barry Andrews, whom he rightly describes as lacking both authority and the ability to implement what he says should be done. I do not believe Andrews when he says there was no intent to conceal. I do not believe he knows whether this was an intent or not. His performance indicates, clearly enough for me, that he has been led and directed by others. The HSE is massively culpable. The services for which it is responsible are in chaos and the catalogue of other deaths, in addition to that of Tracey Fay, were concealed because of the disgraceful circumstance that led to them. Other arguments, about respect for the families' privacy, are little short of nonsense. The HSE does not know where it is. This was made unquestionably clear following Judge Yvonne Murphy's findings in her Dublin diocesan child abuse commission report. Specifically, this was where the HSE failed to deliver the information the commission sought on child abuse. Astonishingly, the HSE revealed that files covering 114,000 cases were based on the child's name, had no cross-referencing, had to be searched manually, and were spread over 50 different locations. Equally astonishingly, and rather lamely as well, the commission shrugged its shoulders and gave up on this line of inquiry. Instead, it should have reported the dereliction of the HSE to the Government, and sought further direction as to how to proceed. Though not directly relevant to diocesan abuse, Tracey Fay's fate is part of the inchoate system being followed by this vital state service. Do we not have computers? Do we use them selectively, not including abused and unwanted children because they do not matter? I have often wondered, is it deliberate? The State has tolerated child abuse for the 90 years of its existence. We can't pretend anymore that it wasn't known about. Wild and perverse acts of cruelty, sexual perversion and abuse, deprivation of every kind -- education, training, clothing, food, healthcare -- took place and were then concealed by the Department of Education, by ministers and senior officials, as a statutory act, though without the benefit of statute. Then there were the personal records. Concealment of them, and obstruction over access, represented a deliberate act of confusion that caused victims of abuse years of frustration and difficulty. Lost documents within the department at times made it look as though a permanently employed arsonist went from place to place to burn or flood storage facilities, and destroy evidence of collusion between the church and State. In the end, and with total and urbane dishonesty, the State put the blame on the church and pleaded that it did not know what happened during a horrific 90-year period of abuse eventually laid bare by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The Murphy report did the same, on a limited scale and in one area of the country only. This lie, about not knowing, was repeatedly contradicted by reports in the Dail and by periodic legal cases. But governments -- all of them -- looked the other way. It has continued to happen. It never stopped and it goes on happening, with nothing proper put in place to stop it. We do not have the records of how bad it is, how widely-spread or pernicious. We do not know what has been done on the ground to stop it, and even whether we know how to deal with all these problems. The church is less part of the secular equation than it was. It is no longer trusted to play any social role, despite the fact that, clearly, we cannot effectively play such a role without continuing to wreck lives. We cannot even monitor the enormities that go on. The Tracey Fays of this world are an endemic class of victim, always to be part of us. No serious rescue attempt has been mounted and financed by the State, to its undying shame. It is a shame that stretches back through the State's history, staining what we lovingly call our "identity". Ours is the identity of an abuse-ridden society. TRACEY WAS FAILED BY THE STATE: Minister Barry Andrews, - Bruce Arnold Irish Independent
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
08:48:48
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Man who sexually abused son sentenced to 14 years ABUSE CASE: A 52-YEAR-OLD man who systematically sexually abused his young son for three years has been given a 14-year sentence by Mr Justice Barry White at the Central Criminal Court. The now 20-year-old victim said he felt he now had a stigma attached to him, and described in his victim impact statement how he had never had a childhood. He said he had lived in fear, and described how he lay awake waiting for his father to come and abuse him. The convicted man, who can not be named to protect the identity of his victim, was found guilty by a jury last month of 11 charges of anal rape; 12 charges of oral rape; and 24 charges of sexual assault of the boy on dates between April 11th, 2001, and June 2rd, 2004. The offences occurred while the victim was between 12 and 15 years of age. In January 2009, the man’s wife and the mother of their six children pleaded guilty to incest with another son, and to neglect of all the children. She was sentenced to seven years for incest. Mr Justice White yesterday told the man that the consistent sexual abuse of his son was all the more reprehensible because he was the head of the family, and it was an appalling breach of the trust and innocence of a child. He described the victim impact statement as poignant and said that while there were other matters regarding family life outlined in it “that would appal any right thinking person”, these could not be visited upon the accused in relation to this case. He said that while a life sentence would not necessarily be inappropriate, a determinate sentence was more satisfactory from the victim’s and the accused’s point of view. He imposed concurrent sentences totalling 14 years and suspended the final 18 months, taking into account the man’s previous record. The court heard the convicted man had one previous conviction for a traffic offence. Mr Justice White said the man had “shown no remorse, proffered no apology and was in denial as regards his offensive behaviour”. He said he did not believe post-release supervision was necessary. The sentence was welcomed by the victim, who thanked all those involved in the case, singling out the jury, investigating garda John Hynes, the barristers, and neighbours and friends. “It was a difficult process for everyone,” he said. “It’s all over now. I can get on with my own life.” He added that he hoped the forthcoming HSE report on the background to the case “will help other children”. Members of the jury had returned to the court for the sentencing hearing last Monday and were in court again yesterday, and a number of them shook the victim’s hand and embraced his aunt following the sentence. Aileen Donnelly SC, prosecuting, had outlined to the court how the father began abusing his son when the child was 12 and would come into the bedroom the boy shared with his two brothers. She said the boy was regularly sexually assaulted by his father during this time, and if he refused to co-operate he would be hit. From September 2001 the boy was raped by his father until the time he left home in June 2004. Ms Donnelly said the boy’s mother had given evidence that she witnessed rapes, but did nothing to stop it. She said “any semblance of parental propriety” was absent in the household. David Goldberg SC, defending, said it had been “an immensely difficult case” for all involved and while “it might occur to some people there was some sort of psychiatric deficit” in the mind of the accused, a psychiatric assessment had revealed he did not suffer from “any psychosis or illness of the mind”. Mr Goldberg said the accused continued to deny the offences. He urged the court not to engage in “vengeance or revenge”, and to impose a determinate sentence rather than a life sentence. He asked Mr Justice White to show what leniency he could.
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
08:51:48
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Martin welcomes plan to reduce Catholic schools THE ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has welcomed an announcement yesterday by Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe that his department “will shortly be providing an initial list of about 10 urban areas that can be used to test the concept of reducing the number of Catholic schools”. Archbishop Martin also said that solutions would have to be found to respect the rights of teachers “who do not wish to be involved in religious education”. He welcomed the fact that “the Minister has indicated that there will be consultations with parents, teachers and local communities”. This, he said, should “also look at the precise demand for Catholic provision for an area”. He added that “solutions will also have to be found to respect the rights of teachers who wish to remain in a Catholic school and teachers who do not wish to be involved in religious education”. Fr Michael Drumm, executive chairman of the Catholic Schools Partnership, also welcomed “the prospect of greater diversity of school provision” as indicated by the Minister yesterday. However, he queried the Minister’s “mention of an eventual reduction of Catholic provision in demographically stable urban areas to 60 per cent”. He said that “we have not yet seen any research from the Department of Education and Science to support this figure.” In his address to the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association in Dublin yesterday, the Minister said that “the issue of the Catholic Church divesting itself of certain schools was originally explicitly raised by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and it has also found expression in the work of the Bishops’ Conference and through its engagement with my department.” The archbishop’s “public identification of this reality” was “a timely and important contribution not just to the future of Catholic schools but to the future of the primary sector generally,” he said. “In overall terms, I know it has been acknowledged that the Catholic primary sector, which currently represents over 90 per cent of overall provision, may ultimately fall to between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of overall provision and that this percentage of overall provision will still be enough to allow the church fulfil its expressed commitment to meet the needs of parents who wish their children to have a Catholic education.” He continued: “I do not believe we need any major discussion forum in relation to this likely change. General demographic change combined with changed public attitudes to religion has already happened. “It simply has yet to find full expression in terms of an appropriate diversification of school patronage.” Arising from the meeting between the bishops, the Conference of Religious in Ireland and the Department of Education last November, he said that the department undertook to examine some locations to see what options might exist for change of patronage in each. “My department will shortly be providing an initial list of about 10 urban areas that can be used to test the concept of reducing the number of Catholic schools,” he said. “In general he said that “where there are four or five schools in an area and all of them are Catholic schools, then even allowing for 80 per cent demand for Catholic provision, it is likely in that area that at least one of the five schools in that parish or part of a diocese will not be needed to meet Catholic needs. “If in the same locality demand from Catholics fell to 60 per cent , then two of the five schools could be surplus.” A cornerstone of the process in deciding how Catholic provision is reduced to meet the likely demand for places from those seeking places in a Catholic school “will be consultation with stakeholders,” he said.
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
08:56:38
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THE CATHOLIC League and Priests For Life Ireland groups have launched a petition opposing the Civil Partnership Bill. Launched in the last issue of the Catholic Voice newspaper (www.catholicvoice.ie) it already has more than 2,000 signatures. The group said it would present them to Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern. The Catholic League has already sent a letter to every TD and Senator expressing reservations about the Bill. Anthony Murphy, founder of the Catholic League and publisher of the Catholic Voice , said in a statement: “It is clear that many people are puzzled and upset at the proposed legislation which can only undermine the institution of marriage by creating a kind of pseudo-marriage for same sex couples. This is deeply immoral and a crime against the natural law. It is the duty of every Catholic to oppose it”. In its recent issue the Catholic Voice quoted “a senior Italian cardinal” as saying “Catholic politicians who support gay marriage are not Catholic. It’s impossible for the Catholic faith, and support for putting homosexual unions on equal footing with marriage, to coexist in one’s conscience – the two contradict each other.” Fr Sylvester Mann, founder of Priests for Life Ireland, is writing to every Catholic priest in Ireland asking for their support in opposing the Bill. His letter will also contain a copy of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s document concerning legal recognition of same-sex unions. Fr Sylvester said: “The concluding words of the Code of Canon Law remind us that the ‘care of souls is the supreme law of the Church’. To that end priests must preach the Gospel without compromise and lead others, including politicians, to live in the holiness of the Truth and to promote a Culture of Life. We must not be afraid to STOP (his emphasis) an immoral Bill from being bullied into law!”
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
09:03:33
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Priest given suspended term for abuse of schoolboy A FORMER sports master and spiritual adviser at Gormanston College, Co Meath, was given a 2½-year suspended sentence yesterday for indecently assaulting a pupil there in the 1970s. Fr Ronald Bennett (75), who admitted indecently assaulting the boy during “sex education” lessons, has previously served a sentence for offences committed against other boys at the college. Judge Donagh McDonagh imposed the suspended sentence after being told by the provincial of the Franciscan Order that Bennett was co-operating with a restrictive regime at the Franciscan home in Killiney, Co Dublin. Trim Circuit Court was told that when Bennett would summons the pupil to his office he would tell him how to seduce girls before removing his trousers and underwear and masturbating him. The offences had, State prosecutor Karl Hanahoe said, taken place on a weekly basis over a two-year period when the boy was aged 14 and 15. The now adult victim told Judge McDonagh he made his complaint after reading reports of the previous case involving Bennett. In 2007 he was given a five-year suspended sentence for indecently assaulting four other schoolboys at the college. However, the DPP appealed the sentence and the Court of Criminal Appeal ordered Bennett to serve 2½ years of it; the balance was suspended. “It caused me a lot of anger, and particularly some of the comments about the [Franciscan] Order. The judge praised the Franciscan Order for acting promptly when they became aware of it . . . I was well aware they did not act promptly,” said the victim in the latest case Judge McDonagh said Bennett had been in a “unique position” in relation to the boys’ education, and had “taken advantage” of it to engage in “grossly inappropriate behaviour”. He acknowledged the offences were similar to the earlier offences, and normally all sentences for such offences would be served at the same time. He said he was acutely aware of the regime the Order had put in place and Bennett was “in effect kept in secure surroundings”, and has no access to young people and is not permitted outside except for medical or therapeutic reasons. Provincial of the Order Fr Caoimhín Ó Laoide told him the guidelines in place for Bennett were the most restrictive of any in place. The judge said the appropriate sentence was 2½ years and suspended it for five years on a number of conditions, including that Bennett gave an undertaking to remain within the confines of the friary under the current regime for the next five years. If he is moved, the same regime is to be imposed there. He said he was not imposing a custodial sentence for the “simple reason it seems the Franciscan Order has effectively placed him in custody and that is to continue”. He directed that his name be placed on the sex offenders’ registrar for 10 years.
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
09:38:30
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There's something seriously wrong with the sentencing policy of judges here - one man abuses his son over 3 years and is sentenced to 14 years - with 18 months suspended and a Franciscan is sentenced to confinement in his monastery for abusing a boy - and the Franciscan had abused at least 4 other children before that !!! Perhaps if the man who abused his son joined the Franciscans the Justice Dept could transfer the abuser to the monastery! It seems if you wear the clerical garb then you don't do jail time! The sentence on this monk must be appealed - and his religious order, who admitted they knew about the abuses, must be stripped of their properties and possessions. A Fighting Survivor.
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06 Mar 2010
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13:26:27
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POPE BENEDICT’S brother, Mgr Georg Ratzinger, has denied knowing about abuse cases during his time as leader of Germany’s most famous boys’ choir, the Regensburger Domspatzen or “cathedral sparrows”. The latest revelations in Germany’s widening clerical abuse scandal came to light after former choirboys came forward to say they had been abused during the 1950s and 1960s. Mgr Ratzinger led the choir from 1964 to 1994. Founded in 975, it is the oldest boys’ choir in the world and is based in a Regensburg boarding school with an emphasis on musical education. It is here that the abuse took place, according to a statement by the diocese of Regensburg yesterday. One man, a religion teacher and deputy principal, was removed in 1958 and charged; a second teacher was charged in 1971. The men have since died but a diocese spokesman yesterday said they could not rule out that other abuse cases would come to light. “We ask all who have learned of sexual abuse of minors in our institution by clerics or other church staff, or those who are victims themselves, to report this to a member of the board,” the spokesman said. “We want to investigate this with complete transparency.” Mgr Ratzinger told Bavarian public television yesterday that he had no knowledge of abuse in the choir, which performed last year in the Vatican for Mgr Ratzinger’s 85th birthday in the presence of Pope Benedict. Meanwhile further damaging details have emerged about decades of abuse at the Bavarian Benedictine monastery and elite boarding school Kloster Ettal. After the resignation of the principal last week, the school was raided by German investigators on Monday. Yesterday an investigator called in by the school management presented a preliminary report detailing “decades of massive abuse: sexual, physical and psychological” at the school. Mr Thomas Pfister, a Munich lawyer, said over 100 former students had contacted him “day and night” to tell of a “regime of terror” from the 1960s to the 1990s, involving around 10 different priests. Pupils said they were sexually abused, forced to hit each other while priests looked on, or were locked in the cellar at night. Mr Pfister said the faculty was not made up exclusively of “abusing criminals”, but that serious mistakes were allowed to persist because of an “institutional culture of silence, of looking the other way” and a “false sense of solidarity” among management. One of the monks at Kloster Ettal has admitted downloading child pornography on to a school computer and uploading images of pupils to the internet. The pictures, showing pupils stripped to the waist, were taken during a hiking holiday a decade ago, and found by a former pupil on a gay website. The abuse cases in Kloster Ettal are likely to have fallen beyond Germany’s statute of limitations, in such cases usually 10 years after the victim turns 18. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops’ Conference, is to meet Pope Benedict in the Vatican to discuss the cases on March 12th.
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Date:
06 Mar 2010
Time:
16:30:29
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I have little or no connection with the land of my birth, or the city; Dublin. From what I read on here I can't say I'm sorry. I see they; the 'rulers' the men in black still talk of 'training' children. I, like many before me were well trained; better than dogs and parrots. They may not use the command of the whistle to sit, stand, eat, talk or fall into ranks as they did in Artane all those years ago. I can still spout Latin, but am clueless as to the meanings. The mentality is the same; accept without question; brainwash the child and they'll produce the adult. Other religions take it to extremes, results suicide bombers! As for crime and punishment, I still feel aggrieved to read about the short sentences being dispensed for all forms of abuse. How come I got 14 years for 'receiving alms' ? Conditions were far worse in our prisons in the 1930 and '40s than regular prisons. No only was I locked away from the world, but from a family I never got to know. Only now, some 60 years later, am I learning the awful truth about the cruelty and tragedy visited by the State/Church on all family members. It appears that I had at least three brothers. There are birth certificates for each one, though I suspect two may be dead. The youngest was as far as I can make out, had five moves by age 4, before finally being fostered to a woman at 18 Gardiner Street, Upper in 1939-40. It was considered to be in my best interest, to be kept well away from my family and to be addressed by other than my correct name. With that in mind I was shipped off to Killkenny. What did these people teach me? Nothing; but I chose the complete opposite example to what I witnessed and experienced whilst in their custody. Compassion, love, nurture, freedom of mind and body to question, are the rights of every child to develop and to never stop learning. I fail to understand how men and women lacking the experience of a long and loving relationship in which children are raised can preach on such matters. Padraig
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Date:
07 Mar 2010
Time:
07:43:54
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Brenda Power: Put children into care before worrying about parents’ rights The HSE must stop more kids from going down the same road as Tracey FayBrenda Power Recommend? (1) Who are you, Mr or Ms Anonymous Social Worker? Barry Andrews and the HSE will make sure we never know your name, but you must recognise yourself. You’re the one who left 14-year-old Tracey Fay, on her first night in “care”, alone in a near-empty shopping centre because your shift had finished. You surely remember how she begged you to stay with her, the scared and lonely young girl, until your out-of-hours replacement turned up. You said “no”. You abandoned her there in the shopping centre at 6.40pm, and she ended up walking to Coolock garda station in the hope of finding somewhere to sleep. Little wonder, with care like that, that she ended up dying in a coal bunker just over three years later. Do you remember what you were rushing off to, what was so urgent that you couldn’t pass another hour with that child? Coronation Street? Or were you meeting friends in a pub? Or was it just that you had a warm house and a nice dinner waiting for you? And though you were aware that Tracey Fay had never known that simple pleasure in her entire life, that she never had a home waiting for her or a loving family to welcome her back, this was not your problem because your shift was over. It is quite possible that this unnamed social worker doesn’t recognise himself or herself, and doesn’t even remember Tracey or that evening in the shopping centre, because there were so many Tracey Fays, so many troubled kids pleading, in their different ways, for affection. There still are — on the streets of Dublin last night you could have found dozens of Tracey Fays, young prostitutes and rent boys who are in care or ought to be, all of them just a few grams of heroin away from an HSE report. If the minister or the HSE really cared about Tracey Fay then they’d stop talking about her, right now. They’d stop making excuses for stalling the report, and they’d start talking about all those other children before they, too, become the subject of pathologists and bureaucrats’ post-mortems. One of the incidentally depressing elements of this wretched tale has been the ease with which a bright young politician like Andrews took glib recourse to the same cynicism that has stood his profession and his party in such admirable stead. When all other defences foundered, he had no hesitation in wheeling out Tracey Fay’s unfortunate children as a shield against cover-up allegations. They had to go to school the next day, Andrews stated indignantly, they had to face the taunts of primary school classmates who routinely watch Prime Time and follow Dail debates. Actually, if the children’s minister truly was thinking about them as anything other than some cheap “hit me now with the child in me arms” sandbags, he’d have published and acted on that report long ago. Because, as the children of a troubled single parent who died of a drug overdose after working as a prostitute, they are exactly the type of youngsters most at risk. As the products of a dysfunctional extended family that showed little interest in Tracey while she was alive, they are almost certainly now in care themselves. At least, they ought to be in care; proper, meaningful, conscientious care. They are still young enough to be placed with good foster families. There is still a chance that they can be spared their mother’s fate. By the time Tracey Fay was put into care by her mother just before her 15th birthday, it was probably too late to save her. By then, she had a violent, abusive and over-sexualised history. She couldn’t possibly have settled into a normal family with foster parents and siblings and a regular routine. And because there was no psychiatric attention and no appropriate residential accommodation for teens like Tracey, she was shunted between B&Bs and grim hostels and social workers in a rush to get home for tea. She would have been a difficult charge for them, aggressive and wilful and crudely sexual, hard to love. That’s why she was doomed to end up dead in a coal bunker in a grotty basement with a needle in her arm, just like so many others on the streets today. For them, like Tracey, the real tragedy is not that they’re taken into the care of the HSE in their teens: it is that they weren’t years earlier. Tracey Fay should have been taken from her mother at the age of four, by which time she had been treated in hospital for no fewer than five “non-accidental” injuries. A toddler who’s suffered a deliberate assault (let’s call it what it is) should be a matter for the gardai and then the HSE. Many of the adults in Tracey’s life should have been prosecuted and she should have been placed with a family who really could care for her. There is no shortage of such families, but they want young children, not aggressive, drug-addicted teens. But Tracey wasn’t taken from her mother, no more than those other youngsters you see hanging around shopping malls in tatty clothes with nowhere to go, because of the same knee-jerk exaltation of these women’s “rights” above those of their vulnerable children. It’s the attitude that kept those Roscommon children in a hellhole of violence, incest and starvation for years. And it’s a version of the formula deployed by Andrews to explain why the HSE is sitting on reports about dead children. Their families have rights, too, runs this get-out clause; they ought to be consulted. What their families ought to be, actually, is ashamed of themselves. And told to put a lid on the self-serving, post-mortem sabre-rattling and hand-wringing about the mistreatment of their relatives. If a young person is dead because of abuse or neglect, it started in the family. Instead of indulging these parents’ lies and excuses, the HSE should remove their children to a place of safety once an abusive pattern emerges, and let the adults worry about their rights later. If anything is to be learnt from the death of Tracey Fay, it is that a child who endures a series of non-accidental injuries at the age of four is at a high risk of suffering a fatal one before they are much older. Murphy's lip service proves a great piece of business by the Vatican Bill Murphy, the bishop of Kerry, says he was “uneasy” about having to stoop and kiss the Pope’s ring during a recent trip to the Vatican. He is not the only one embarrassed by the act. The photographs of that obsequious display were among the most cringe-making sights I’ve seen in some time. What made the ring-kissing particularly inappropriate was the nature of the event to which the Irish bishops had travelled: a discussion of the cover-up of child abuse by senior church figures. They were, in other words, addressing the Pope in a corporate role, as regional CEOs consulting with the big boss about a matter of legal and financial concern. It was an occasion at which, the bishops’ flocks were entitled to assume, some straight, serious talking was in order, preceded by a brisk and businesslike handshake. Requiring them to kiss the Pope’s ring was a clever psychological ambush, designed to remind the bishops of their place. Given that they returned with the brilliant wheeze of asking their hard-pressed parishioners to cough up for child-abuse bills, rather than insisting that the Vatican dip into its reserves, it seems to have worked. brenda.power@sunday-times.ie
Remote User:
Date:
07 Mar 2010
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07:59:35
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Pope brother's choir in abuse probe A choir which the Pope's brother was involved with is facing an abuse probe Sunday March 07 2010 The Vatican has backed a German diocese's efforts to shed light on sexual abuse allegations connected to a renowned boy's choir once led by Pope Benedict XVI's brother. The Regensburg Diocese, which oversees the school connected to the Regensburger Domspatzen choir, said that a former singer came forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the early 1960s and that it was hiring a lawyer to help it carry out a "systematic" clarification. The Vatican said it supported the diocese in its "willingness to analyse the painful question in a decisive and open way". "The main reason for the church's clarification is to render justice to possible victims," the Vatican said in a statement published in its newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. Monsignor Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the bishop of the Regensburg Diocese, said in L'Osservatore that the cases that had so far emerged "do not coincide with the term of Prof Georg Ratzinger", the Pope's brother, who led the choir from 1964 to 1994. Prof Ratzinger told German public radio he did not know of any abuse cases at the choir. German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reports that therapists in the region were treating several alleged abuse victims from the choir. Franz Wittenbrink, who lived in the boarding school until 1967, was quoted as saying that a "sophisticated system of sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust" had been installed there. "Everyone knew it." Mr Wittenbrink argued that the Pope's brother must have known of these practices. "To me it is inexplicable, how the Pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger, who led the choir since 1964, would have not known about it," the magazine quoted him as saying. From 1969 to 1977 the Pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, taught theology at the University of Regensburg. Germany has recently been hit hard by a Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, which has grown from the claims of seven former pupils at a Catholic-run Berlin high school to more than 170 ex-students from several of the church's most prominent educational facilities in Germany. Press Association
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07 Mar 2010
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18:44:42
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Gaps remain in the Catholic church in Ireland's procedures for protecting children, the man in charge of child protection for the church has said. Ian Elliott, CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children, said there were too many policies at local level. He said that changes were needed in a number of areas. "We don't have any national standards with regards to the management of risky people within the church, that is a major deficit for us," he said. "We also need to redefine the policy which exists in relation to what is termed stepping aside, administrative leave when an allegation or complaint is made against a member of the clergy, how that is processed I think that isn't good enough at this point in time." A series of reports have been critical of how the church handled allegations of abuse. In last year's Murphy report it was stated that church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese knew that children were being sexually abused by priests for decades but did not act to prevent it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8554149.stm
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07 Mar 2010
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18:45:05
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HSE to withhold details in reports into deaths of 10 children in care......... By John Downes.......... Upcoming HSE reports into the deaths of 10 children in care will not provide the level of detail contained in last week's report of the death of teenager Tracey Fay. The revelation comes as gardaí also expressed concern that a new "out of hours" system is not adequately protecting vulnerable children, with the result that they continue to share space in garda stations late at night with drunks and people arrested for public order offences. Reports into two of the 10 cases being reviewed by the HSE are being finalised and are expected to be published within weeks. Two other reports are going through "legal process". It is believed that this refers to possible third-party challenges to their content and/or ongoing investigations by gardaí into the issues raised. Six other reports are in the process of being compiled. But a HSE spokeswoman confirmed that whereas the report into Fay's death was a full case review of her files, the reports currently being prepared by the HSE will differ in content and may have sections "blanked out" or redacted for legal reasons. "We have an ongoing duty to the deceased and to their families. We are seeking to strike a balance between the privacy of the deceased and their families and ensuring there is accountability and transparency," she said.
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07 Mar 2010
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19:17:11
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The Catholic Bishop of Killaloe Willie Walsh has said that he saw no reason why the Pope would not meet Irish victims of clerical child sex abuse. He also said funding for the compensation of such victims should come from the sale of assets rather than by asking people to put their hands in their pockets. He also did not believe the Vatican should be approached about assisting with such funding. “I do believe this is an Irish question which has to be solved, I believe, within Ireland,” he said today. He was speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s This Week programme. He pointed out the Pope had met clerical abuse victims over the years but that he hadn’t met Irish victims. “I think it would be great to see that happening but I don’t know whether that’s going to happen or not,” he said. This hadn’t been discussed at the meeting between the Pope and Ireland’s Catholic bishops in Rome last month, he said but that he “would like that to happen. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t happen, no.” When it came to raising funds for compensation be said “overall I think it should be that one would sell assets, sell houses, that sort of thing” rather than asking people to put their hands in their pockets. ”Transparency, that’s the most important thing. That people would be consulted and know where the money was coming from”, he said Ultimately it was for each bishop in consultation with the people, he said. “I would be very strong in emphasizing that. I don’t know of any diocese which has asked the people to contribute. I don’t know of any diocese that has done that. It’s unlikely. I would find it very hard to visualize doing it,” he said. As regards the Vatican contributing to such funds he said there was nothing in canon law “to say that the Vatican should bail out.” There was “a question mark of course about church, be it Vatican or local church, holding a whole lot of valuable assets. “I’m not particularly comfortable about that but I do believe this is an Irish question which has to be solved, I believe, within Ireland . I think really, whether the Vatican should be selling assets or not, is really a separate question from this.” The matter “didn’t arise at all in the meeting in Rome,” he said. He felt “the Rome visit certainly didn’t meet expectations of people and I think it was unfortunate that the formalities of dress and whether people kissed the Pope’s ring or didn’t kiss it, I think in a way it distracted from the real purpose of the meeting and indeed the substance of the meeting.” The meeting had been “a very open and honest one where everybody had an opportunity to express their understanding of the dreadful failure on the part of us as bishops and others responsible for responding to the crimes of sexual abuse.” But he felt “people were angry and rightly angry at the apparent pomp and ceremony, at the kissing of the Pope’s ring.” Bishop Walsh did not kiss the ring. He felt “somewhat uncomfortable in relation to both the dress and the kissing of rings, that sort of thing. I feel it belonged to another era,” he said. It was “a pity in a way that the big focus seemed to be put on that more than on the substance of the meeting.” He hoped the Pope’s pastoral letter “would be more satisfactory perhaps, from the survivors point of view. I think again there is no quick way of bringing healing to victims. I think it’s a journey and the most important thing on that journey is actually listening to them, listening to their pain.”
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Date:
08 Mar 2010
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07:37:12
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Collections won't go to abused -- bishop Monday March 08 2010 THE BISHOP of Ferns has insisted that no parish collection money will be used to fund compensation claims made by victims of clerical sex abuse. Bishop Denis Brennan yesterday said he wanted to "listen to the response of the people" when it came to funding the claims. He made his comments in a letter read out at all Masses in the Diocese of Ferns, after a week that saw the cash-poor diocese rocked by criticism of a plan to involve the parishes in helping with up to €1.2m in compensation. Compensation "No monies from parish collections have been used to date to fund the payment of compensation claims as have been agreed," he said in his letter, "and no plans are either in place -- or envisaged -- where future claims would be funded from these sources." Plans by Bishop Brennan to invite help from parishes when it came to meeting the diocese's shortfall were revealed at a finance committee and have drawn heavy criticism. It is estimated that the diocese can afford to make half of the €120,000 annual payment on a 20-year mortgage taken out on the diocesan centre (bishop's palace), but will need help with the remaining €60,000. The bishop said in his letter that there were a number of options facing the authorities when it came to making up the shortfall. These included the sale of one or more of the diocese's five fixed assets -- the bishop's palace, St Peter's College, a house in Wexford, and two pieces of land -- as well as funding by the parishes of child protection infrastructure and staffing and suggestions from parish finance committees and parishioners. There may be a desire, he said, "that diocesan assets not be sold at all, or only in part, and a consideration as to how this might be achieved and whether it would then necessitate the involvement of the parishes themselves". The options will be considered over the next 12 months, according to Bishop Brennan. "We have not shied away from ensuring that every victim who presents themselves are helped and cared for in a just manner," he said. Guilt "Let me be clear, those who abused children need to accept responsibility and their guilt is theirs alone. "Many of us priests are shamed by their actions and by the often inaction of church management to deal with this. We can never change the past." He said the diocese pursued an "open-policy approach" in all aspects of its dealings with the issue of abuse "involving some of its priests", and was grateful for advice and support received from within the diocese and beyond.
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Date:
08 Mar 2010
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07:43:50
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Bishops won't reform until faithful withhold donations Monday March 08 2010 THE Bishop of Ferns, Dr Denis Brennan, ignited a furious national reaction with his tentative move towards persuading Wexford parishes to contribute financially to the crippling costs accruing from settlements with victims of clerical child abuse. It was an almighty public relations disaster for the mild-mannered Bishop Brennan, who was appointed by the Vatican after the resignation of Bishop Brendan Comiskey and who has been to the fore in post-Ferns Inquiry episcopal efforts to install sound child protection safeguards in the schools and parishes of all 26 dioceses. In an effort to quell public wrath, Fr John Carroll, the diocese's press officer, circulated a briefing note saying that "going to the parishes is but one option the diocesan finance committee has put to parish finance committees in response to some requests from individuals within the diocese as to how we might help to complete the work of justice and healing". Fr Carroll stressed that nothing definite had yet been decided in Ferns as to how to fund future claims, and he suggested that "it may very well be that a decision will be taken to dispose of a diocesan asset". In a revealing insight into the process embarked on by Bishop Brennan, Fr Carroll indicated that diocesan authority -- the bishop and his mainly clerical lieutenants at the helm of administrative power -- would continue to consult with members of "the diocesan family" -- church-goers -- as to what direction should be taken from here. The limits of this ecclesiastical process were further revealed when Fr Carroll wrote that "at no time anything but a consultation, or an invitation to further engagement and discernment, was proposed", and he added that decisions on future funding "will only occur after the conclusion of consultation over the coming months, and perhaps years, with church-goers". Implicit in these remarks is the reality that the bishop will make the ultimate decisions in accordance with the responsibilities of church governance invested solely in him under Roman canon law. In spite of Fr Carroll's valiant attempt to portray his boss as a listening bishop carefully weighing up the mood of church-goers -- but ignoring the growing numbers of Catholics alienated from the male, celibate, authoritarian system that for decades covered up the heinous rapes of children by paedophile priests -- it was Bishop Brennan who fanned the flames by saying "it will be necessary to invite the parishes to become part of the process financially". Bishop Brennan also courted controversy by declaring it a moral obligation on committed Catholics to contribute financially towards justice and reconciliation for victims. "Funding sought is not about sharing the blame, it is about asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility," he said, insisting it was not a Christian response for parishioners to say that they did not cause the problem of priestly paedophilia. "To help in the work of justice, healing, reconciliation, a safer environment for children in the future, proper financial stewardship and overall good economic health is a Christian response," he said. There is Christian insight in these sentiments but they also emit what Gerald Slevin, an Irish-American lawyer whose parents emigrated to New York from Donegal, calls "mystical smokescreens" to distract the laity -- whose forebears built the Irish church but never imagined it would provide a place for their children and grandchildren to be abused by clerics they trusted. 'No longer can we let single men, whether well-intentioned or not, write the rules and then apply them, without being accountable," Slevin says. "In my view, there is only one way consistent with the church's teachings to do this, but Catholics must wake up for the sake of all children and return their church to its original apostolic and consensual structure with a clergy that is fully accountable." Addressing the crunch question of whether this can be done by dialogue or negotiation, Slevin concludes that dialogue won't work because the hierarchy does not recognise the faithful as equals. Negotiation could work but requires the faithful to have adequate bargaining power to be taken seriously by bishops. The only real power the faithful have is their purse. Slevin proposes that the only way to get change and protect children is to withhold all future contributions until convincing church reform is initiated. This "contribution strike" could be effected by Catholics advocating reform by stopping their contributions to church collections until sooner or later a few bishops, perhaps led by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, will begin to negotiate. "The contribution strike is a form of Christian love, 'tough love', to cure those in the hierarchy addicted to power of their addiction and, most importantly, to protect defenceless children," Slevin urges. As all Catholics have a clear moral obligation to protect children far above any duty they may have to preserve the present medieval structure in the church, perhaps Bishop Brennan will negotiate with reform Catholics rather than merely consult church-goers to secure his objective of agreement to pick up the abuse tab. Or will it need "a contribution strike" to bring Bishop Brennan to the negotiating table? - JOHN COONEY Irish Independent
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Date:
08 Mar 2010
Time:
07:49:05
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Benedict faces fresh pressure to meet victims Monday March 08 2010 Renewed pressure is mounting on Pope Benedict to issue an invitation to meet Irish victims of child clerical abuse and survivors of institutional abuse in his promised Lenten letter to the Catholics of Ireland. Bishop of Killaloe Willie Walsh yesterday said he would like to see Pope Benedict invite them to the Vatican for a face-to-face meeting. Bishop Walsh told RTE's 'This Week' programme that he could not see any reason why the meeting could not happen, but he said he was reluctant to tell the Pope what to do. Bishop Walsh admitted that public anger had arisen from pictures of the pomp and ceremony on display when the Irish bishops knelt and kissed the Pope's ring. A full-scale opportunity for the bishops to assess the negative reaction to the Rome summit and co-ordinate their responses to the papal letter comes today when they begin their spring meeting in Maynooth. An important talking point among the bishops will be the national anger provoked last week by the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Denis Brennan, when he suggested church-goers in Wexford should contribute financially to compensation settlements for victims. The three-day meeting will hear from the head of the church's independent board on child protection that gaps remain in procedures for ensuring children are safeguarded. Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster yesterday, Ian Elliott, chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children, said there were too many policies at local level and that changes were needed. Deficit "We don't have any national standards with regards to the management of risky people within the church. That is a major deficit for us," he added. Mr Elliott also said it was necessary to redefine the current policy which requires a priest to 'step aside' from parish duties or take 'administrative leave' when an allegation or complaint is made against him. Clergy argue this automatic procedure is conducted without due process and that even if the cleric is found innocent, his good name is damaged. - JOHN COONEY Irish Independent
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Date:
08 Mar 2010
Time:
07:51:08
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Germany lauds handling of Church scandals Monday March 08 2010 The German government has pointed to Ireland as a guide for how church and state should handle clerical child sexual abuse scandals. The Catholic Church in Germany has come under growing criticism for covering-up for decades hundreds of allegations of abuse against clergy that began to become public last January. More than 150 pupils in Pope Benedict's native land have so far claimed they were abused at schools belonging to the Jesuit, Salesian and other religious orders. But the German bishops have refused to bow to government demands that state prosecutors should be automatically informed of allegations of abuse made against Catholic clergy. The confrontation was brought into the open when Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the bishops were not co-operating with the authorities "constructively". The minister also called for round-table talks "as in Ireland" between the church, the state authorities and abuse victims. But the president of the German bishops conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, said he saw little sense in that approach. - JOHN COONEY Irish Independent
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Date:
08 Mar 2010
Time:
09:10:49
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IRELAND’S CATHOLIC bishops begin their three-day spring meeting in Maynooth today. They have lots to talk about. All those holes, and still digging. They might consider this. “The question you have to ask yourselves is: did you know what the institution was doing and the full consequences of what it was doing? Because, if you did, you were complicit with the recklessness. Or if the answer is you didn’t know, then you cannot have been discharging your responsibility . . . properly.” Those questions were posed by Niall Fitzgerald, former chairman and chief executive of the multinational Unilever, and former chairman of the global media agency Reuters, as recalled in an Irish Times interview on Saturday. He posed them to friends of his in the Irish business world last summer. It provoked “a very ferocious conversation” and “real anger”. Such questions apply as much to Ireland’s Catholic bishops, not least the “saw no evil, heard no evil” Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan. Mr Fitzgerald also made this observation about Irish business figures. “I have been genuinely amazed . . . that they just haven’t got it. They don’t realise the degree of rage and anger that’s around, and that they have to make significant personal sacrifices to rebuild society’s trust in them and their institutions.” So too with our Catholic bishops. The very latest example of this “still don’t get it” syndrome among the bishops was that speech by Bishop of Ferns Dennis Brennan last Monday night. When it came to “the funding of claims associated with child abuse as perpetrated by some members of the clergy”, it would “be necessary to invite the parishes to become part of the process financially”, he said. Such “funding sought is not about sharing the blame, it is about asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility. That I did not cause the problem is not the response of the Christian . . .” he said. Later, he ruled out asking the Vatican for financial help to compensate abuse victims. “I do not want to burden others,” he said. “This is our responsibility, and we would like to discharge our responsibilities ourselves,” he said. Better then to burden the people of Ferns. Colm O’Gorman, who knows a thing or two about what went on in Ferns diocese, pointed out that the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions on the planet. He suggested that victims of clerical sex abuse should take cases against the church, so holding the institution itself responsible rather than the people in the pews. He also reminded us of another very recent “still don’t get it” episode. “Anyone that was offended by the sheer vulgarity and grandiosity of the pictures that we saw coming out of the so-called summit by Irish bishops in Rome . . . will see the amount of money that swills around in the Vatican and the global church coffers. Let [us] see them divest themselves of some of that sort of wealth,” he said. So Bishop Brennan prefers to lay the “burden” on people in Ferns. But if this is accepted in Ferns – the mother of all Irish Catholic dioceses when it comes to the clerical child sex abuse issue – you can be sure it will be followed by other Irish Catholic dioceses. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 23, we see Jesus at his most ferocious. Speaking about scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, he said: “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they! Everything they do is to attract attention, like wearing broader phylacteries and longer tassels, like wanting to take the place of honour at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues, being greeted obsequiously in the market squares and having people call them Rabbi . . . Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut up the kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces, neither going in yourselves nor allowing others to go in who want to.” Rough, tough, but . . . that was Jesus! It was the gospel reading at Mass on Sunday, October 30th, 2005, the first Sunday following publication of the Ferns report. That day, a Mass at Rowe Street church in Wexford town was celebrated by Bishop Eamonn Walsh, then administrator of the diocese. In his homily, he spoke of how the gospel reading was “so relevant for today”. Indeed. Yet still, some Irish bishops continued in the old ways. Yesterday on the BBC Northern Ireland Sunday Sequence programme, Ian Elliott, chief executive of the Catholic Church’s own watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children, spoke of “hostility” he had experienced from bishops, and others “who create difficulties” as he attempted to implement uniform child protection guidelines in the church. He spoke of “incomplete” guidelines and a “deficit in terms of policy” where child protection guidelines are concerned in the church. Perhaps those tardy church figures share the view of Mgr Alex Stenson, chancellor to three archbishops of Dublin (Ryan, McNamara, Connell) from 1981-1997, and who also features in the Murphy report. In an interview last January with the Irish Catholic newspaper, he said: “What abusers did was wrong. It was dreadful, but was it always sinful? It was always wrong. Sinful? I am not so sure at times. “If someone is a paedophile, it can have a bearing on their culpability. In church law, culpability may be reduced depending on the severity of the pathology.” Pope Benedict would seem to differ. Following his meeting with the Irish bishops last month, the pope said: “The sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image.” Should someone tell Mgr Stenson? Does it matter? In that same interview, Mgr Stenson also parted company with the Murphy Commission and current Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin on the commission’s finding that there was a culture of secrecy in the archdiocese. There was no such thing, Mgr Stenson said. What there was, “was a Christian culture of confidentiality and respect for people’s reputations”. The bishops and their sycophantic acolytes, lay and clerical, had better “get it” – or the Catholic Church in Ireland has a destiny which is as predictable as gravity.
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Date:
08 Mar 2010
Time:
09:39:49
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Germany's Catholic churches may be facing the biggest credibility crisis in decades after an unprecedented bout of scandal-fueled negative media coverage. Catholic bishops met in Freiburg to address allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children by clergy that had surfaced late in January, prompting a possible criminal probe by state officials. Germany is the birthplace of both the Protestant Reformation and Pope Benedict XVI, and religion plays a key role in German life; indeed, both churches are among the nation's largest employers. Many German churches say they're feeling a financial pinch as more people turn their back on traditional churches. Catholic churches face a crisis as bishops wrestle with some 170 abuse allegations involving children at Catholic schools. Prosecutors have launched their own investigation, and the bishops said they were "ashamed and shocked" by the reports. "We are not at the start of our dealings with these failures, even if we have, until now, underestimated their extent," the bishops said in announcing a review of existing policy. In addition, a former member of the boys choir in Regensburg -- which was directed for 30 years by the pope's own brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger -- has filed his own allegation of abuse, although Ratzinger said he was unaware of any history of abuse. Coming on the heels of two damning clergy sexual abuse and physical report in Ireland, and rumblings of trouble in Italy and the Netherlands, observers say the church in Germany, and across Europe, may be facing rough times ahead. Horrific child sex crimes and coverups by Catholic clerics are beginning to publicly surface, and the revelations are spreading from one locale to another. A Fighting Survivor
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08 Mar 2010
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09:41:20
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has launched its annual fundraising campaign. Cardinal Sean O’Malley today officially began the 2010 Catholic Appeal, which the archdiocese relies on for nearly three-quarters of the money in its operating fund. Most of the fund goes toward various parish services, and it also helps run schools, archdiocesan operations and more than 50 ministries. O’Malley said the donations help build a "community of faith." The Catholic Appeal raised about $15.1 million last year. Donations to the Catholic Appeal have steadily increased since bottoming out at $6.3 million in 2002 at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
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08 Mar 2010
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09:42:34
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THE Catholic Church should clean up its act following multiple child abuse scandals by punishing abusers and compensating victims, an influential cardinal said in an interview published on Saturday. 'That's enough. We have to seriously clean up the church,' Cardinal Walter Kasper, a top adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, told Italian daily La Repubblica. 'Sexual abuses of minors by representatives of the clergy are criminal, shameful acts, they are unacceptable mortal sins,' he said. 'I think such a shocking problem... needs a wider analysis for maybe the whole church and not just one country,' the cardinal said. Charges of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in several countries around the world have rocked the church in recent years. In the most recent scandal, a German bishop on Friday acknowledged sexual abuse of members of a boy choir in the southern German city of Regensburg that was formerly headed up by the pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger. A Fighting Survivor
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08 Mar 2010
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13:49:27
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Wedding bells for gay bishop Pat Buckley Saturday, 30 January 2010 Bishop Pat Buckley: unofficial chaplain to the disaffected The maverick cleric (57) will tie the knot on February 8. While the intention was posted at Larne Borough Council offices, it is thought that a follow-up service will take place at the chapel in The Oratory — his residence which was owned by the Diocese of Down and Connor and which he refused to vacate when he was suspended as a priest. The chapel, where the bishop celebrates Mass twice a week, has also been used as a wedding venue for the past 22 years. PR guru Max Clifford’s agency is now handling the publicity surrounding the nuptials. It is believed that Bishop Buckley and his partner have been together for almost three years and decided to enter a civil partnership several months ago. The unofficial bishop said that while he would like to speak publicly about the union, his partner preferred to stay out of the limelight. He said: “I did not realise that this was going to come out and I would prefer not to talk about it at the moment.” On the bishop’s website he describes himself as an “unofficial chaplain to disaffected and alienated Catholics and Christians, and others, from all over Ireland and further afield”. The bishop has a long established ministry to the gay and lesbian community and says he believes that homosexuality “is not sinful in the context of love. Sex is only sinful when it is about use or abuse”. He counsels the gay and lesbian community and holds church services and seminars for them. P A MacLochlainn from the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association said that he was delighted for Bishop Buckley and said he would be sending a message of congratulations. “I wish him every happiness and no one deserves it more, he has done so much for couples from the gay and straight communities and now it is his turn to celebrate,” he said. “I hope that this encourages other members of the clergy to overthrow authority and follow their hearts as he has done. I find it laughable that certain politicians accuse the gay community of destroying marriage when the gay community seem to be getting civil partnership more than anyone else. “This is all about equality and it has been proved again and again that gay people can be loving couples and good parents just as much as straight people.” 10 facts about a renegade bishop 1 Bishop Patrick Buckley was ordained a Roman Catholic diocesan priest in 1976 and was first suspended from the priesthood in 1986. 2 He was excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1998 as a result of his unauthorised episcopal consecration as a bishop. 3 He was ordained by Bishop Michael Cox, who also |‘ordained’ the singer Sinead O’Connor 4 Bishop Buckley is not treated as a bishop by the Catholic Church in Ireland or indeed Rome. 5 Since 1986 he has conducted an independent ministry from The Oratory in Larne, a house which belonged to the Catholic Diocese of Down and Connor and which the then Fr Buckley refused to leave following his suspension from the priesthood by the then bishop, Cahal Daly. 6 Marriages for divorced Catholics as well as the gay and lesbian communities and mixed religion couples are carried out at The Oratory. 7 Bishop Buckley was born the eldest of 17 children in Tullamore, Co Offaly, in 1952 8 He was elected to Larne Borough Council in 1989 as an independent, a seat he lost in 1993. 9 Bishop Buckley is openly gay and confirmed his homosexuality in 1999 on the front page of The News of the World. 10 He currently writes a column and delivers advice to readers in a Sunday newspaper.
Remote User:
Date:
09 Mar 2010
Time:
07:38:50
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Tuesday March 09 2010 A NOTORIOUS paedophile priest named in the Murphy report on clerical sex abuse has spoken out to dispute its findings. Bill Carney (60) made the comments after being tracked down by the BBC's 'Panorama' TV programme while he was taking a sun holiday in the Canary Islands. Carney, who was named as one of the worst serial offenders in the Murphy report, pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assaulting altar boys in 1983. He was kicked out by the Catholic Church in 1992 after being found guilty under canon law of child sex abuse. Carney later moved to the UK and settled in St Andrews in Scotland, where he got married. The Murphy report stated that there were complaints or suspicions against him in respect of 32 named individuals. In a 'Panorama' programme, being broadcast this evening, Carney disputes these findings. "I have read the Murphy report six or seven times," he told reporter Olenka Frenkiel. "And I would dispute all of it except that I pleaded guilty to two charges in 1983 and the matter was dealt with by the court and I was sentenced. "It is now 26 years later and I continue to get my life back together one day at a time and that is all I have to say." In the programme he is confronted with the fact that Paul Dwyer, one of his alleged victims, committed suicide in 2004, not long after making a complaint to gardai. "I've no comment to make," he said in response to those allegations. He also denies being responsible for any instance of abuse since his conviction. "I haven't done that in 26 years and I have had no inclination." Pyschopathic He refused to confirm or deny whether he abused other children before the 1983 case. The Murphy report quoted a psychiatric assessment diagnosing Carney as suffering from a "psychopathic personality disorder", which it warned must still pose some risk to children. Complaints against Carney were diverted away from gardai to the late Bishop James Kavanagh, who, it is claimed, had a "soft spot" for him. In 1992, Cardinal Desmond Connell, then Archbishop of Dublin, removed Carney from the priesthood after a canonical secret trial, and later paid him £30,000 to leave his Dublin parish house. Carney, was married in 2004 after moving to Britain, where he first lived in Cheltenham, England. For the past 10 years he has lived in St Andrews, where he runs a family-friendly guest house, and enjoys the local golf club facilities. Despite the findings of the Murphy report, the Irish Independent has established he is not currently being sought by gardai and there is no warrant for his arrest. A number of alleged victims were interviewed by gardai and files were sent to the DPP but no prosecutions were brought. In the case of Mr Dwyer's complaint, the DPP did not proceed with a case due to insufficient evidence. His mother Bridie later attempted to get access to the garda file on the case, but was refused on the grounds of confidentiality. In Britain, the Home Office said Carney was not on the Sex Offenders Register because his admission of guilt in Ireland pre-dated the enacting of the UK register. - John Cooney Shane Phelan and Tom Brady Irish Independent
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09 Mar 2010
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Tuesday March 09 2010 BILL CARNEY was a serial sexual abuser who preyed on young boys and girls before he was eventually defrocked. But prior to the publication of the Murphy report he was better known around north Dublin as a talented golfer, and was even named golfer of the year at the Royal Dublin Golf Club in 1994. Born in 1950, his abuse of children began at a very early age, even before he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1974. While at Clonliffe College between 1968 and 1974, Carney went on visits to several children's homes in Dublin and Louth. At least three former residents of these homes later claimed to have been abused by him. After his ordination, Carney went on to serve in the archdiocese until 1989, although he was placed in restricted ministry during some of that time. The Murphy Commission said it was aware of complaints or suspicions of child sexual abuse against him in respect of 32 named individuals. However, there was evidence he also abused many more children. The report said there was evidence to suggest on separate occasions he acted in concert with other convicted clerical child sex abusers, Fr Francis McCarthy and Fr Patrick Maguire. The archdiocese has paid compensation to six of his victims. Complaints The commission found that despite complaints there was a complete lack of competence on the part of the archdiocese in dealing with them. It found the church authorities either did not understand the threat posed by Carney to children or understood it but did not regard it as a significant consideration. As a teacher, Carney had access to children in residential care, took groups on holiday and went swimming with groups of children. He taught at Ballyfermot Vocational School and was also chaplain to a convent in Walkinstown. In the late 1970s, Carney made inquiries with the health board about fostering children but was refused. Gardai first became aware of his activities when two altar boys he had abused made complaints in 1983. One of the boys said he had been fondled by the priest while sleeping in his bed. Further victims were also discovered by investigators and charges were brought in relation to six boys. Carney pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault. Four other counts were dropped. The judge gave him the Probation Act after hearing he was receiving psychiatric treatment. After being released from hospital he was given a temporary assignment in Clonskeagh parish and went to live with the Marist Fathers in Milltown. They were never told the reason he was sent to stay with them. The Murphy report said a number of further allegations emerged after the 1983 case, but Carney was never prosecuted again by gardai. He was finally removed from the priesthood in 1992 after being found guilty of child sex abuse following a secret Canon law trial. Carney later became a taxi driver. On one occasion a person who made an abuse allegation against him inadvertently got into his cab. Carney left Ireland a short time later and went to live in Cheltenham, England, and later St Andrews in Scotland. - SHANE PHELAN Irish Independent
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09 Mar 2010
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Tuesday March 09 2010 ALL the children in Ayrfield knew the fun-loving, smiling Fr Bill Carney. Not just through school. And not just his altar boys. He also ran the Boy Scouts and loved to take kids swimming. His door was always open. There was always Coke in the fridge and in the 1980s he had the very latest thing to lure his prey -- a video player. Grown-ups disapproved of his swearing and crazy driving, but the church was still so trusted, no-one suspected the truth. "Paul came to me and told me Carney raped him," recalled his mother Bridie Dwyer, who still lives in Ayrfield on Dublin's northside. At 13, he'd gone with other boys to watch videos at the priest's house. But at 2am, he was back. "Thought you were going for a sleepover?" Bridie asked as he pushed past her. "Didn't want to stay," he replied and shut the door. "That's when he'd been raped but I didn't know." Carney pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault against two altar boys at Howth district court in 1983. Four other charges against him were withdrawn. However, the judge did not send him to prison, instead applying the Probation Act after learning Carney was receiving psychiatric treatment. Paul Dwyer was not one of the original complainants. In 1992, the Catholic Church convicted Carney, under canon law, of child sexual abuse. But he refused to leave the parish house. The Murphy report revealed he only left after he was paid IR£30,000 by the Dublin archdiocese. He went to Britain. First to Cheltenham and then Scotland where he's lived for the last 10 years running a guest house in St Andrews, playing golf and enjoying the famous club's facilities, the Old Course, the showers, the spa, the sauna. In 2004, Paul Dwyer went to gardai in Dublin about his abuse 21 years earlier. They told his mother they had two other similar complaints and sent the file to the DPP. But it came back with bad news. There was still not enough evidence to prosecute. "So the case stopped," Bridie said. A couple of weeks later, Paul committed suicide. That same year, in Scotland, Carney married, aged 54. I established that the Irish authorities knew his address. But no one, either from the church or the Irish government, warned his wife about his past. "This must never happen again," Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said in November, announcing that all new evidence had been passed months before to An Garda Siochana. When I tracked Carney down to a sea-front restaurant during a winter sun holiday in the Canary Islands, and then to his flat, he was affronted by my questions. He hadn't read the Murphy report, so he refused to comment. When I gave him a copy, he refused to talk on camera. When it was off, I asked him about his convictions back in the early 1980s. "I was told if I plead guilty the press would be kept away," Carney said. "But were you guilty?" I asked. "Did you abuse those children?" His answer was "no". But the Murphy report states Carney was a serial sex abuser of both male and female children. I asked him Bridie's question: "Why did you rape Paul Dwyer?" He thought for a while and repeated the word. "Rape. I'd like to explain that. Put it into context." What kind of context, I wondered could excuse the rape of a child? No answer. I told him Paul took his life. He looked up at me. Paul was not the only suicide among the children he'd known in Ayrfield parish. I have the names of five others. But locals say there are more. "People exaggerate," he said. "Yes, I suppose they do," I conceded. "Maybe it was only four, or three. Does that make it okay?" After a pause, he said: "I didn't know Paul was dead." "Are you still abusing children?" I asked. He looked insulted, but his answer begged more questions. "I haven't done that in 26 years and I have had no inclination." Was that an admission he had abused before? No answer. In any case, I pointed out, the Murphy report tells a different story, that his abuse continued after his convictions in 1983. We agreed to meet two days later after he'd read it. This was his statement: "It's Monday 22 February 2010. I found your behaviour on Saturday very upsetting and distressful. It was most degrading. I have read the report six or seven times and I would dispute all of it except that I pleaded guilty to the two charges in 1983 and the matter was dealt with by the court and I was sentenced. It is now 26 years later and I continue to get my life back together one day at a time and that is all I have to say and I've signed it Bill Carney." Again he was determined not to be drawn by my questions, the only flicker was when I asked if he felt remorse for what he'd done. He looked up and said: "What do you think?" "I can't read you. If you do, say so." He paused and shook his head. "Bridie Dwyer?" I asked. "No word for her?" A longer pause. But the same answer. "I've no comment to make." He'd made his choice and left. After Paul Dwyer took his life, Bridie Dwyer embarked on a civil case and asked the gardai to let her see the file on her son's case. She was refused on grounds of confidentiality. The letter she received in 2006 was from John O'Mahoney, then Detective Superintendent and now Assistant Garda Commissioner, assigned the task of investigating whether anyone should be prosecuted as a result of the revelations in the Murphy report. These investigations, his office has said, are ongoing. Bill Carney remains free to disappear beneath the radar again. Olenka Frenkiel is a reporter for BBC's Panorama programme - Olenka Frenkiel Irish Independent
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09 Mar 2010
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Bishop may sell assets to meet sex abuse bill Tuesday March 09 2010 THE bishop who sparked fury by suggesting parishioners might have to contribute to the cost of claims racked up from clerical sex abuse cases has admitted some people found the idea upsetting. Bishop of Ferns Denis Brennan yesterday said his diocese had to find ways of paying €1.2m in compensation bills. But he said Ferns parish assets could be sold to cover some of the costs. "The selling of assets is on the table," he said. Bishop Brennan, who is attending the three-day spring meeting of the Bishops' Conference at Maynooth, ruled out suggestions the Vatican could contribute or underwrite legal bills. "It's my view that this is our responsibility to discharge. The things happened here and we want to rectify it," he said. Asked if he had made a mistake by angering the public over his suggestion of financial assistance to pay the legal claims, he replied: "The victims remain the top priority here." Bishop Brennan said his intention was to be open about the options available to him. But he admitted the suggestion of parishioners giving cash had angered and upset some people. "For the last 10 years or so we have had a conversation with people, we put everything out there. We want to be as transparent as we can and sometimes that can be a bit upsetting," he added. "At the moment we are having an ongoing conversation about how that can be furthered. Whatever decision will be made about that will be made by the priests and religious in Ferns. Timing is always difficult...but it's all about the victims. The thing here is how to go forward...where should we go from here?" Offered The bishop repeated his claim that parishioners had offered to help with the huge legal bills. "We want to see what their views are because people have come forward and offered to help." Plans by Bishop Brennan to invite help from parishes have drawn fierce criticism since they were revealed at a Dail finance committee. It is estimated the diocese can afford to make half of the €120,000 annual payment on a 20-year mortgage taken out on the diocesan centre (bishop's residence), but will need help with the remaining €60,000. The bishop said there were a number of options facing the authorities when it came to making up the shortfall. These included the sale of one or more of the diocese's five fixed assets -- the bishop's house, St Peter's College, a house in Wexford, and two pieces of land. The options will be considered over the next 12 months, Bishop Brennan said.
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09 Mar 2010
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Independent group set up to investigate child deaths.......... By Noel Baker and Dan Collins........... Tuesday, March 09, 2010......... The Government has established an independent group to investigate child deaths following the leaked publication of a report into the death of teenager Tracey Fay. Last night, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Barry Andrews said there was "no cover-up" of the Tracey Fay report. The panel will include Norah Gibbons of Barnardos and child law expert Geoffrey Shannon. A third "independent person of international standing" will be appointed by the Government following consultation with the two group members. Discussions involving HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm and officials from the Department of Health were held prior to the group’s formation. This Government initiative comes amid recent controversy over the non-publication by the HSE of details of some children who passed through the care system. Mr Andrews said: "The steps that I have taken are intended to provide transparency in respect of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of all children in care over the last 10 years. There is a public confidence issue at the heart of these reports. "There was no cover-up," he stressed. "However, it is an imperative that the learning and recommendations from these cases be shared in the interests of children and families, professionals and the wider public." Ms Gibbons, the director of advocacy at Barnardos, is already in charge of a report into alleged health board failings to intervene in the case of a family in the west of Ireland where both the mother and father have been convicted of sex crimes against their children. The group will start its investigation as soon as the work of the Roscommon Inquiry is completed, said Mr Andrews.
I knew nothing of choir abuse allegations, says Pope's brother Tuesday March 09 2010 The brother of Pope Benedict XVI has agreed to give evidence in the sex scandal rocking the Catholic Church in Germany. In an interview published yesterday, the Rev Georg Ratzinger said he was willing to speak even though he knew nothing about the alleged abuse of boys in a choir he later led. Yesterday the Rome daily newspaper 'La Repubblica' quoted him saying that there was "discipline and rigour" but no terror during his 30 years as head of the choir. The Regensburg Diocese has been rocked by the scandal since a former singer came forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the early 1960s last week. The German newsweekly 'Der Spiegel' reported that therapists in the region were treating several alleged victims. A man who lived in the choir-linked boarding school until 1967 claimed "a sophisticated system of sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust" had been installed there. Inexplicable 'Der Spiegel' quoted the man, Franz Wittenbrink, as saying it would be inexplicable that the Pope's brother did not know anything about it. Mr Ratzinger led the choir from 1964 until 1994. The diocese has said it is hiring a lawyer to help carry out a "systematic" clarification. Mr Ratzinger said if German justice officials "ask me to give testimony, obviously I'd be very ready to do so, but I am not able to provide any information". "We're talking about another generation, of another generation than that of my years, and respect to the generation that leads the foundation and chorus now." Asked why cases of alleged abuse were "covered by silence" for so long, he replied: "I insist, I wasn't around in that situation, I wasn't at the choir when the cases they're talking about happened." Asked about victims' claims of a "climate of terror", Mr Ratzinger said: "In my years, thus after those deeds, there was a climate of discipline and rigour, that was obvious, too -- we were aiming for a high musical, artistic level." The Pope's brother also wondered what was behind the recent allegations. "I want to note that I sense a certain animosity toward the church" behind the scandal, Mr Ratzinger said. Yesterday a prominent German Catholic activist group called on the Pope to explain what he knew about abuses. Christian Weisner, the spokesman for We Are the Church, said Benedict must address whether there was abuse during his time as bishop between 1977 and 1981. The Vatican said it backed the diocese's efforts to look into the "painful question in a decisive and open way". - Paul Raines in Rome Irish Independent
THE HSE is providing funding to a Cork-based charity for survivors of institutional abuse despite stating it would not do so until “outstanding impediments” to a new contract for 2010 had been finalised. Right of Place, one of the largest groups for victims of abuse, was ordered as a matter of urgency as far back as October to supply the HSE with in-depth details of the running of the charity, its finances and how many bank accounts and credit cards it had, among other things. Right of Place is run by Noel Barry, a victim of abuse at the Rosminian school at Upton, Co Cork. In 2009, the HSE allocated the group €337,500 and the Department of Education gave it €75,331. Since 2002 it has collected more than €2.2m from the HSE, and the health board previously, and more than €1m from the Department of Education. A further €88,000 was secured in National Lottery funding. In December, this paper revealed there were serious questions to be answered as to how money donated by religious orders and the Government had been spent. Meanwhile, founder Mr Barry sought an injunction locking out a new committee formed by disgruntled members seeking to take control of the organisation. In a strongly worded letter to a new committee dated December 10, the HSE said it was “concerned and dismayed” at the situation and that clarity was urgently required. “Time and space afforded by the HSE to various elements within the organisation to resolve their differences must cease. No new service agreement can be considered until matters are resolved, and given the vulnerability of the client group the sooner the better,” the letter stated. However, the Irish Examiner has learned that the HSE is currently providing a grant of €20,000 a month which, according to the HSE, is to cover the “pay and non-pay costs of the organisation”. Sources within Right of Place membership have indicated that it seems as though the HSE is not interested in investigating how money was spent in the past, or having pertinent questions which members are asking answered. It is understood negotiations which had been ongoing with a HSE mediator between Mr Barry and a new committee have ceased. In a draft agreement seen by the Irish Examiner, the HSE is proposing to continue with the existing company and, according to the document, “legal disputes will be deemed settled on the signing of the agreement
Martin passed letter from paedophile on to gardai Wednesday March 10 2010 Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin spoke yesterday about his surprise at receiving a letter from Spain last month from a notorious paedophile ex-cleric telling him his marriage had broken down. Speaking at Maynooth, where he was attending the spring meeting of the Bishops' Conference, Dr Martin said this was the first and only contact he had had with Bill Carney, who was named as one of the worst serial offenders in the Murphy report on clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. "Nobody had the slightest idea he was married," the archbishop added. "It came as a complete and utter surprise to me." Dr Martin said that there was a Spanish postmark on the letter, which he sent on to gardai. Gardai confirmed that the letter had been received. However, it is understood that it contained nothing of any evidential value. "The letter had no address, no way of contacting him," Dr Martin added. "The postmark was not specific. "He wrote to say that his marriage had broken down. I do not know the point of it. It seemed to be a cri de coeur. But he gave no way for us to contact him." Dr Martin said he believed that about a month ago the BBC had already identified him to be in the Canary Islands. Speaking ahead of taking part late last night on the BBC's 'Newsnight' -- which broadcast an interview with Carney in the Canaries -- Dr Martin said Carney did not ask for anything in the letter. Disputed On the programme, Carney told reporter Olenka Frenkiel that he disputed all the findings of the Murphy report except that he had pleaded guilty to two charges of indecently assaulting altar boys in 1983 and was given the Probation Act. The Murphy report stated that there were complaints or suspicions against him in respect of 32 named individuals, and it quoted a psychiatric assessment diagnosing him as suffering from a "psychopathic personality disorder", which meant he must still pose some risk to children. Dr Martin confirmed that Carney was reduced to the lay state in 1992 after being found guilty under canon law of child sexual abuse. Before receiving the letter, Dr Martin said that the information he had was what was precisely stated in the Murphy report of his being resident in Scotland. "There were rumours he was living in Scotland but there was no address," said Dr Martin. He added that the Carney case instanced what happened when a man was thrown out of the priesthood and severed contact with his former diocese. The church "has much less control over him". In the case of another notorious paedophile priest, Ivan Payne, who is paid an allowance from the diocese, he "can be fitted into a monitoring procedure". Dr Martin also revealed that a previously convicted ex-cleric --who was due to face fresh criminal charges -- was seeking a judicial review of his record, and another cleric was taking an appeal to the Supreme Court. Asked if Pope Benedict would accept the resignations of two Dublin auxiliary bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, Dr Martin said he had received no information from Rome on this. He said that both Bishops Walsh and Field were still auxiliary bishops. - John Cooney
Church must pay for all its crimes Share Digg del.icio.us Google Stumble Upon Facebook Reddit Print Email Text Size NormalLargeExtra LargeAlso in Letters Who will pay for your demands, Jack? Why this country needs to grow up FF puts party before people Climate-change sceptics no help Unions can learn from Sinn Fein failures Letters Home Wednesday March 10 2010 The Catholic Church uses the name of Jesus Christ, but it has as much in common with Christ as Fianna Fail's claim to represent the 1916 Revolution. The Vatican has for centuries exploited the goodness, innocence and generosity of the Irish people. It used threats of eternal damnation to gouge massive amounts of money out of our people, even at times when we were faced with starvation. They presided over the beating and sexual abuse of children in our schools and gulags all across this country, and their leader, the man who claims to represent Christ on Earth, has no intention of apologising for these crimes. Mark Howard (Letters, March 8) says legislation should be passed confiscating all of this organisation's property and donating the proceeds to children's charities. What an excellent idea. Paddy O'brien Balbriggan, co Dublin Irish Independent
Why this country needs to grow up Wednesday March 10 2010 I have a friend from abroad who has lived in Ireland for 10 years. He insists that the British weren't driven out, but left in frustration after hundreds of years trying to get us to conform to some kind of order. If ever a country was in need of a long overdue period of growing up, it is this one. The same person came from abroad to manage a division of a large Irish business. He tells a story about leaving explicit instructions about changes that were to be made with regard to a particular project. The workers expressed complete understanding. After some weeks he returned to find nothing had been done. On being asked why the job hadn't been done, the response was: "We didn't think you meant do it for real." These workers were simply conforming to the Irish way: outwardly pretend to comply, but in reality do whatever the hell you want. It seems this philosophy, where rules are an obstacle and more energy goes into avoiding doing things correctly than actually conforming to a clear objective, has finally brought our over-long national adolescence to a shuddering end. This juvenile, almost stage-Irish approach to life can be seen in every aspect of our now collapsed state. Builders laughed at "we didn't think you meant it" building regulations. Similarly, bankers laughed at the idea of financial regulation, and all along politicians laughed at the electorate. Thieving and corrupt politicians have historically set up toothless inquiries into their own acts of corruption, laughing at their accusers throughout. I wonder if this is what Yeats meant by drawing the marrow from the bone. There is no marrow left now, we have destroyed ourselves with all our corruption. At some point we are going to have to agree what "doing it for real" means, and mean it, really mean it. Declan Doyle Kilkenny Irish Independent
Church to carry out audit of clerical abuse claims............ By Caroline O’Doherty..........Wednesday, March 10, 2010...... An audit of child sex abuse allegations in every Catholic diocese in the country is to begin within weeks after the bishops agreed procedures for the inquiry yesterday. Allegations against diocesan priests, members of religious orders and missionary societies will all be included in the audit. It will seek to determine the numbers of allegations in each diocese and whether the complaints were properly handled by church authorities. The bishops have given a commitment that any allegations uncovered that were not properly handled will be referred to the gardaí or the PSNI, and to relevant health authorities north and south. The audit will concentrate on complaints involving alleged perpetrators still alive rather than older cases. Ian Elliot, chief executive of the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church, said this was a matter of prioritising current and future risks to children. "What we are trying to do is confirm the safety and wellbeing of children in the church today and going forward. There are resource issues. We are trying to put the emphasis where it needs to be, and current risk is what concerns people." He added that the Government inquiries into child sex abuse in the dioceses of Ferns, Dublin and Cloyne, had already placed in the public domain the very bad practices that existed in relation to child protection in the Catholic Church. The audit will be carried out by the board, but Mr Elliot said their work would be reviewed by experts from outside of the church. He expected it would take two to two and a half years to complete the audit.
German laity urge pope to speak on clerical sex abuse GERMANY’S LEADING Catholic lay organisation has called on Pope Benedict to speak out about the country’s growing clerical abuse scandal, including cases dating back to his time as archbishop of Munich. Ahead of tomorrow’s Vatican visit of the head of the German bishops’ conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, German priests have appealed to the pope to broaden the scope of his pending pastoral letter to Irish Catholics to address the abuse scandal in his homeland. The daily drip of abuse allegations continues to generate tension within the Berlin coalition government as well as within the church itself. Justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has characterised the attitude towards abuse in Catholic institutions as a “wall of silence”. In an apparent swipe at Pope Benedict, she said this stemmed from a 2001 directive issued by the Vatican body he headed at the time, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “This directive makes clear that even serious abuse allegations fall under papal confidentiality and thus should not be forwarded on outside the church,” said the minister, who has called for a “round table” meeting with the Catholic church to discuss clerical abuse and compensation. German bishops have bridled at the idea of being singled out in public, forcing an intervention from Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We have yet to talk about what would be a suitable instrument and I think the Catholic church has already gone a long way,” said Dr Merkel, referring to Archbishop Zollitsch’s public apology last week as well as a planned revision of church guidelines on dealing with abuse allegations. “This all shows that the church is taking this all very seriously. We should wait and only speak out if we get the impression that something isn’t working well.” Dr Merkel’s caution stems from last year’s controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson and his remarks on the Holocaust. The German leader annoyed conservative Catholic members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) for criticising Pope Benedict in public for calling Bishop Williamson into line. In an attempt to defuse the situation, Dr Merkel’s minister for family affairs, Kristina Schröder, has proposed a broader meeting of all organisations who work with children to discuss the scandal that broke in January with abuse claims at a Jesuit school in Berlin. The latest revelations surround decades of abuse at Kloster Ettal, a Benedictine monastery and boarding school in Bavaria. Last week’s resignation of the school’s abbot, reportedly under pressure from Munich archbishop Reinhard Marx, has sparked a row with the Benedictine order, who accuse Dr Marx of acting beyond his authority. With the German abuse allegations dating back several decades, speculation is growing that the scandal could catch up with one of Archbishop Marx’s predecessors. “Joseph Ratzinger was bishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1981; he must therefore answer questions now about what he knew and how he acted,” said Christian Weisner, spokesman for the Catholic lay organisation “We are Church”. “Abuse found its way into the highest level of the church, that much is clear.” Meanwhile, the Dutch Catholic Church is asking an independent commission to look into reports of alleged sexual abuses by priests in response to an increasing number of victims coming forward. More than 200 Catholics in the Netherlands have reported abuse, often from decades ago, after reports that three priests from the Salesian order abused pupils decades ago at a boarding school. Dutch bishops said an external, independent examination had been ordered that will be led by Wim Deetman, a former minister of education and mayor of The Hague.
Dutch bishops launch child abuse investigation - Catholic bishops in the Netherlands have announced an independent investigation into allegations of child abuse by clergy, widening a scandal that touches countries including the United States, Ireland, Germany and Austria. Dutch church leaders "are deeply moved by the gripping accounts of sexual abuse that have come to light in recent days. Any form of sexual abuse deserves to be heavily condemned," the bishops said in a statement Tuesday. The bishops turned to a Protestant politician to lead the inquiry: former education minister Wim Deetman, who is also a former mayor of The Hague, Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported Tuesday. A Fighting Survivor.
Austrian, Dutch Catholic Church react to new abuse cases - Summary Vienna- Fresh allegations of sexual and physical abuse by Catholic clergy surfaced in Austria and the Netherlands on Tuesday, prompting the ousting of an abbot in Austria and an independent investigation in the Netherlands. The revelations came after a series of similar cases in German Catholic institutions, as well as in a non-denominational school in the state of Hesse. Amid growing criticism of the church's handling of the widening scandal, the Vatican's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, insisted that Catholic institutions in these three countries moved with "timely and decisive action." In the Saint Peter monastery in the Austrian town of Salzburg, a senior official confirmed the resignation of Arch-abbot Bruno Becker, who had admitted of molesting an 11-year-old boy over 40 years ago. The case was particularly shocking since victim had been previously abused by two other monks. Becker carried out his assault in the course of a conversation with the boy that was meant to clear up those allegations. Becker was still an aspirant priest at the time. "This is a dark and bitter day for the church and for our monastery," Prior Korbinian Birnbacher, a senior priest at Saint Peter, told news agencies. At Mehrerau abbey in western Austria, the abbot alleged that one priest had sexually abused a male pupil at the abbey's boarding school in the 1980s, and confirmed that another priest was convicted after committing a similar crime in the town of Innsbruck in 2001. Pupils were also beaten by their Catholic educators in Mehrerau, a practice common through the mid-1980s, Abbot Anselm van der Linde said in an interview with the daily Vorarlberger Nachrichten. And victims of a rural priest alleged that the man molested up to twenty children and youth in Styria province in the 1970s and 80s, the weekly Der Falter reported. The clergyman, who is still active, admitted to eight cases in an interview with the publication. Meanwhile, Dutch bishops decided to open a major investigation into alleged sexual abuse in Catholic institutions and asked Willem Joost, former parliament chairman and former The Hague mayor, to lead the probe. Dutch daily De Telegraaf unearthed additional sexual abuse allegations against nuns, as the number of alleged victims in Catholic institutions has risen to 200 in the Netherlands. Vatican spokesman Lombardi lamented errors in Church facilities, but said that paedophile abuse is a widespread problem that also occurs in other institutions. On Friday, Benedict is scheduled to meet the head of Germany's Catholic bishops, Robert Zollitsch, the Archbishop of Freiburg, who is expected to brief the pontiff on some 170 abuse allegations involving children at Catholic schools. A Fighting Survivor