Remote User:
Date:
21 Jan 2010
Time:
19:06:23
Comments
Nice to see the site back Mick thanks for all your hard work..Patrick
Remote User:
Date:
21 Jan 2010
Time:
19:21:54
Comments
No more Prima Donna's? There are distinct advantages of having a good website like this one where any survivor of Irish clergy abuse can freely vent their pent up frustrations at their abusers and its only when a prima Donna try's to hog the site for their own selfish reasons that is Unfortunately when other survivors who have something important to say or want to ask another survivor a specific question the disadvantages of having to deal with a prima Donna You know the type - people who insist on having their own way, on being the one who gets the spotlight, and who frequently throws public fits when they don't get their way. Hopefully, you don't have to work with one. Even worse, I dearly hope that you aren't one yourself. Why? because, not only are prima donnas a pain in the arse to work with, they tend to offend other survivors and drive them away ultimate disposal never went away it just had a good clear out ? ……Patrick
Remote User:
Date:
21 Jan 2010
Time:
20:34:32
Comments
“Another Irish Catholic Clerical Child Sexual Terrorist” A woman told a jury her priest made her say 10 Hail Marys as penance after he abused her in a confessional room. Father Maeliosa O Hauallachain (72), of Seafield Road, Killiney, Co Dublin, pleaded not guilty to three charges of indecent assault on dates between July 31, 1981, and August 2, 1982, when the complainant was between 13 and 14 years old. The Louth woman, who is now 42, told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday that the priest abused her and told her not to tell anyone. She told the court she started drinking heavily by the time she was 15 and would self harm and bathe herself in Savlon (an antiseptic cream). "I felt terrible, dirty; felt there was a smell off my body. My behaviour deteriorated somewhat. I knew it was wrong," she said. The woman told of how Fr O Hauallachain was manipulating her and how he had power over her. "I was afraid of him. I felt if I broke my silence, God would harm me," the complainant said. She said the first assault happened before she went to Fr O Hauallachain to say her confession. Sinned: She knelt down beside a screen and had just said "bless me Father, for I have sinned" when Fr O Hauallachain "popped his head around and said 'Ah, it's yourself'." He then took her around the other side of the screen and sat her on his knee. She continued to discuss some issues she was having before he put his arm around her and kissed her on the lips. She said Fr O Hauallachain then got up and locked the door of the confession room. He started to touch her breasts and kissed her on the lips. "He put my hand into the pocket of his habit and made me play with his penis. "He then told me to say 10 Hail Marys for my penance and not to tell anyone what happened," the woman told the jury. "Like a fool, I went out and said the Hail Marys. I felt so bad and ashamed of what had just happened in the house of God," she continued. She said that the abuse continued when Fr O Hauallachain would "persuade" her into a room in the priory and touch her inside her underwear. She said he would kiss her using his tongue and make her masturbate him. She said the same type of abuse would happen in this room in the priory most Sundays and sometimes as she was passing on her way home, up until the age of 15. The complainant described how, on some occasions, O Hauallachain was not wearing any underwear under his robes. The trial continues.
Remote User:
Date:
21 Jan 2010
Time:
20:57:27
Comments
Group names Irish priests accused of child sexual abuse Yesterday, a Waltham-based group that has been chronicling the US clergy sexual abuse scandal released the names of 60 to 70 accused priests it says were born in Ireland or are of Irish descent who came to the United States and were reoffenders. The group, BishopAccountability.org, demanded that Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence immediately make public the names of any credibly accused Irish priests who have worked in their dioceses. By revealing the names, the group said it hopes to highlight the issue of immigrant Irish priests who are known pedophiles and whose histories of alleged abuse have long been “outsourced’’ to the United States. BishopAccountability.org has a database of 3,000 names of accused priests and said roughly a third are linked to Ireland, which is reeling from revelations of a decades-long coverup of abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. Four Irish bishops resigned this month as news unfolded. “Bishops [in Ireland], just like bishops here, have been moving accused priests around, even though they know they are dangerous,’’ said Terence McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org. “Unfortunately the places where they put them include our own backyard. So the Irish crisis, basically, has become our crisis, too.’’ Standing before the Cathedral of the Holy Cross yesterday, members and supporters of the group said the Irish scandal is deeply linked to the US abuse crisis because priests trained in Irish seminaries are systematically sent to serve in America, including clergy with long histories of abuse. They also called on Prime Minister Brian Cowen of Ireland to recognize his country’s responsibility to inform the American public of all child-molesting clergy from Irish dioceses and religious orders who have immigrated to US dioceses. In a statement yesterday, the Boston Archdiocese said it remains committed to doing “everything in our power to protect children from the threat of sexual abuse.’’ It said news from Ireland serves as a painful reminder to survivors. “Our hearts and prayers go out to those in Ireland who have been harmed by the tragic reality of sexual abuse of children by clergy,’’ the statement from the archdiocese said. “We know from our own experience the profound impact and suffering caused by the harm perpetrated on children and young people. Over the past decade, we have worked diligently to respond to this crisis and ensure it is never repeated.’’ The Providence Diocese did not respond to two calls seeking comment yesterday. At yesterday’s press conference, Helen L. McGonigle, a lawyer from Connecticut, held a picture of herself at age 6, her sharply cut bangs above a child’s innocent eyes and smile. McGonigle said she was 6 when she was abused by a priest named Brendan Smyth, who left a trail of abuse in Britain and Ireland before he came to work in East Greenwich, R.I. Smyth died in an Irish prison in 1997, shortly after pleading guilty to 74 counts of sexually abusing 20 Irish boys and girls between 1958-1993. “We know it was problem in the Diocese of Providence having this Irish priest who was a known pedophile,’’ said McGonigle, now 48. “This is a classic example of an organization that doesn’t give a hoot about protecting children,’’ she said. Jeffrey Thomas said yesterday that he also had been abused by Smyth. Thomas filed suit in Providence Superior Court against the Diocese of Providence and others, alleging that he had been abused by Smyth at an East Greenwich, R.I., parish school. “I am a survivor of clergy abuse,’’ he said outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. “The bigger crime to me is that [Smyth’s] superiors knew about his appetite and his sexual desires and still put him in populations with small children to reoffend.’’ Also named on the list are the Rev. Joseph Maguire, who served in Waltham and died in prison in 2005 while serving a 44-year sentence for abusing three boys................Patrick
Remote User:
Date:
21 Jan 2010
Time:
21:09:05
Comments
Victims of clergy sex abuse in the United States and a group that tracks pedophile priests are calling on American Roman Catholic leaders and the Irish Government to publicly detail known connections between the clergy abuse scandals in the two countries. Four bishops in Ireland have resigned since the Ryan Report revealed how Dublin Archdiocese leaders had covered-up the crimes of pedophile priests. The group, BishopAccountability.org, says it has created the first comprehensive, web-based database of accused Irish priests who also have worked in the U.S. The group has asked Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin to reveal the names of any any priests accused of sexual abuse after being transferred from Ireland. Bishopaccountability.org also revealed the names of almost 70 priests accused of sexual abuse it says were either born in Ireland or are of Irish descent, and who came to the United States and continued to be sex-abusers. Its website has pages that also names the priests, and others, who it says have been accused of sexual abuse. The group has also asked Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen for a list of accused Irish priests who have moved to U.S. dioceses or parishes. "Bishops in Ireland just like bishops here have been moving accused priests around even though they know they are dangerous," said Terence McKiernan, founder of BishopAccountability.org. "Unfortunately the places where they put them include our own backyard. So the Irish crisis, basically has become our crisis, too." Standing in front of O'Malley's Boston residence on Monday, members and supporters of BishopAccountablity.org said the Irish scandal is deeply linked to the U.S. crisis because priests trained in Irish seminaries are often sent to work in America, including ones with histories of sex abuse. The Boston Archdiocese said it is committed to doing "everything in our power to protect children from the threat of sexual abuse." It said news from the raging scandal in Ireland serves as a "painful reminder." "Our hearts and prayers go out to those in Ireland who have been harmed by the tragic reality of sexual abuse of children by clergy," the statement said. "We know from our own experience the profound impact and suffering caused by the harm perpetrated on children and young people. Over the past decade, we have worked diligently to respond to this crisis and ensure it is never repeated.".
Remote User:
Date:
22 Jan 2010
Time:
11:12:58
Comments
The Labour Party is to seek legal advice on whether the state can be held accountable for the judiciary system’s former practice of sending women to Magdalene laundries on probation and on remand. Its former leader and Dublin East deputy Ruairí Quinn has also called for a national museum telling the story of the tens of thousands of children and young adults who were abused in industrial schools and Magdalene laundries. "I’d like to see a place where survivors and their children’s stories could be told. In Ireland, we are very good at being victims when the perpetrators are outside the country but we did those awful things to one another" he said. To date, the state has fought hard against attempts by Magdalene laundry survivors to seek redress by arguing that the state didn’t send them to the laundries. However, it emerged before Christmas that from the 1960s onwards, women were sent to these centres by a judiciary who didn’t like the concept of sending women to prison. In the Dáil this week, it emerged the Department of Justice also made payments to institutions which took women "on remand" and "on probation". The department also said that Our Lady’s Home on Henrietta Street in Dublin was inspected by a state inspector when the religious order sought financial support. In a response to a parliamentary question from Mr Quinn, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said the decision to send women to religious institutions was done without reference to the state and the women would have known when their probation was over. Many of the 30,000 women who were in laundries say they were all but imprisoned. "The orders/ arrangements were made by the courts without reference to any department of state. The requirements of a probation order, including its duration, would be made known by the court to the offender. The records of such orders are court records," Mr Ahern said. Yesterday, Mr Quinn said the whole issue of the Magdalene laundries and their place in Irish society needs to resolved as it is "part of a bigger story of abuse in Irish institutions".
Remote User:
Date:
22 Jan 2010
Time:
23:47:34
Comments
Hi Mick, A lovely surprise to see the ultimatedisposal site in action again. Thanks for giving us a medium to express ourselves once again. I second to everything Patrick wrote in his posting. I wish I was in Dublin to see the new play of Edna O'Brien. She is one of the best writers that came out of Ireland. That is why she was banned by The notorious archbishop of Dublin during the sixties. She wrote about a pedophile priest amongst other things. Her books are really gems from the Emerald Isle. Her new play is called 'HAUNTED',and I'm only sorry I can't see it. A happy New Year to you all. A Gulag Wild Rose.
Remote User:
Date:
24 Jan 2010
Time:
19:35:46
Comments
Redress board spends €900,000 on travel, hotels........January 24, 2010..... A Board set up to adjudicate on claims by victims of abuse in industrial schools and other institutions has spent more than €900,000 on travel, hotel bills, taxi fares and courier costs.The average award from the Residential Institutions Redress Board is €63,210, with some former residents getting just a few thousand euros in damages. By the time all 13,743 cases are dealt with by the board, it is expected the final bill to the taxpayer will have come to €1.1bn. According to a breakdown of costs from the Redress Board, more than €622,000 has been spent on "travel and subsistence" since its inception. Further hotel room hire costs of €131,692 have also been recorded, while taxi and courier services have set the taxpayer back €187,568. Fees for board members have cost a massive €8.59m, according to accounts from the Redress Board, whilst administrative salaries have come to €8.63m. The cost of an advertising campaign to ensure all victims came forward was €899,367, and even postage ended up costing more than €500,000. Vending machine and water supplies at the Redress Board headquarters cost €67,538, according to the details released by the Department of Education. "The €900,000 spend is a disgrace given the paltry sums paid to people who were abused," said Paddy Doyle, a survivor of one of the institutions. "People would do well to bear in mind that the average payment made by the Redress Board to survivors of abuse now stands at around €67,000. Much of that €900,000 could have been used to ensure real redress rather than pocket money. "Bertie Ahern said payments made by the Redress Board would be in line with those made to people who took 'abuse cases' to court… the payments made to people who have gone to the civil courts is about €350,000." The department said it expected that the final bill would now exceed the €1bn originally estimated. "The total paid in Redress Board awards from inception to the end of November is €800,749,870. The total third-party legal costs associated with these awards, and including the costs for those applicants who took High Court actions, is €148,506,089," the department said in a statement. "At this point, overall anticipated expenditure associated with the Redress Board is estimated at up to €1.1bn. This estimate is tentative given that the board is still in the process of making awards and the level of awards in these remaining cases may vary ¬substantially." The average claim hovers around €60,000; just 29 people have been awarded more than €200,000, and the maximum payout to one individual was €300,000. More than a third of people who were compensated for their time in industrial schools and other institutions were given less than €50,000. A total of 814 applications were refused or withdrawn, or resulted in no award where the claimants' stories did not appear to stack up or did not relate to the right institutions.
Remote User:
Date:
24 Jan 2010
Time:
19:59:38
Comments
"Mick O'Brien has made a decision with the Taoiseach Brian Cowen without asking Survivors what they think. It would be nice to be asked instead of been told after yet another meeting. As much as we are appalled and saddened by the plight of the Haiti people for which we all make our own decisions of contribution to the appeal, Mick O'Brien has not got the authority to make a contribution on my behalf with monies that has been set aside to erect a Memorial for Survivors that passed through the Irish Industrial Schools Etc of which many are sadly no longer with us". Abuse victims propose that funds for monument go to Haiti survivors....... 24 January 2010....... Survivors of institutional child abuse want €500,000 - which has been earmarked for a monument to victims - to be given to survivors of the Haiti earthquake. The proposal was made to Taoiseach Brian Cowen in a meeting last Friday with two of the main groups representing victims. Michael O’Brien of Right of Place, who met Cowen in Clonmel, said that the direct aid gesture would ‘‘genuinely mean more to victims of clerical abuse than a piece of stone on O’Connell Street’’. The erection of a monument to survivors of abuse was one of the proposals in the Ryan Report into the abuse of children in state-run institutions. The government established a committee last October to consider the location and nature of the memorial, which was to include the 1999 apology to abuse victims by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Cowen told the groups that the government would consider the proposal. If it is accepted, it would raise the national contribution to Haitian aid to €22.5 million. The government last week also sent an 80-tonne consignment of supplies to Haiti. As well as the official state contribution, Irish charities have raised millions of euro for Haiti, with contributions from businesses and members of the public. The United Nations has appealed for more than €400million to fund the enormous relief operation under way in Haiti, where millions of people are homeless.
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
00:30:43
Comments
Mick O'Brien has no right to steal money given to survivors of the Irish Gulags. Instead of a stone it should be given to the remaining survivors to what they think necessary. A person like that is not to be trusted, who thinks himself fit to decide for others. Our sufferings haven't been less than earthquake survivors. Our sufferings have been a lifetime long suffering and the compensation up to now is very little. A few empty apologies and crumbs that wouldn't even pay for a reasonable good holiday for many of us. Is there anyone who kan stop that mad man?, who is probably well able to afford to give away his own money, as he worked as a politician, and we all know how well they pay themselves! A gulad Wild Rose.
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
11:38:34
Comments
What all these Irish Centres in the UK fail to inform the Irish people who seek repatriation home........................ Returning emigrants denied social welfare pay........................ Monday, January 25, 2010........................... Thousands of Irish citizens forced to emigrate to find work will be barred from receiving any social welfare payments for two years, if they return to this country. The Irish Examiner has learned that the diaspora created by the economic crisis will be unable to access 10 vital payments, including the jobseekers allowance, child benefit and disability allowances under welfare tourist rules. Under the Habitual Residence Condition (HRC) requirements, implemented by then social affairs minister Mary Coughlan on May 1, 2004, anyone who has not lived in Ireland for two years is unable to access social welfare payments on their return. The legislation was initially introduced to protect the exchequer from unfounded concerns of a surge in people arriving from 10 eastern European EU accession countries to access Ireland’s social welfare system. Before the legislation was put into law Ms Coughlan told the Dáil that "the vast majority of Irish expatriates will be able to prove habitual residence without difficulty because of, for example, their strong family ties with this country". However, official records obtained by this paper show that in the five years between the introduction of the legal clause and December 2009, a total of 2,709 returning Irish citizens either withdrew from the HRC process or were refused the right to any state-provided income. As a result, support group the Cross Care Migrant Project has warned that many are left facing poverty or being forced to emigrate again in an attempt to find work. A Department of Social and Family Affairs spokes-person rejected suggestions the legal clause acted as a barrier for anyone seeking to return home. While a significant number of Irish emigrants are barred from social welfare payments under the scheme, those returning "on a permanent basis should not experience difficulty in demonstrating that they satisfy the requirements".
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
11:52:50
Comments
Catholic Church 'should give up control of primary schools'............... In the wake of the Murphy report a majority of people believe that the Catholic Church should give up its control of the primary school system, according to the latest Irish Times /Ipsos, MRBI poll. When asked about the issue, 61 per cent of people said the church should give up control of the school system, 28 per cent said it should maintain its position and 11 per cent had no opinion on the matter. Fianna Fáil voters were most supportive of the church maintaining its current role, while Sinn Féin voters were the most hostile to it continuing to have control of the system. There were no great differences in terms of age. Over 65s were marginally more supportive of the church’s position, but the views of the 18-24 age group were almost identical. There was also a uniform response in terms of social class but there were some regional variations with voters in Dublin most strongly against continuing church control and voters in the rest of Leinster most supportive. This reflected a national urban/rural divide on the issue, with the response of people in urban areas more negative than those in rural areas. The poll was taken on Monday and Tuesday of last week among a representative sample of 1,000 voters aged 18 and over in face-to-face interviews at 100 sampling points in all 43 constituencies. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 per cent. When asked if their attitude to the Catholic Church had changed following the disclosures in the Murphy report about its handling of child abuse allegations, voters were almost equally divided. Forty-seven per cent of voters said their attitude to the church had become more negative; 47 per cent said it had not changed; 3 per cent said it had become more positive; and 3 per cent had no opinion. Asked how they felt about the response of the church to the Murphy report, 74 per cent said the church had not responded adequately, 16 per cent said it had, and 10 per cent had no opinion. People aged 65 and over were more inclined to believe that the church had responded adequately but even in this age group a large majority felt the response had not been adequate. Voters in Dublin were strongest in the view that the church had not responded adequately while those in Connacht/Ulster were most inclined to the view that it had responded adequately. In party political terms Fianna Fáil voters were more inclined to say the church had responded adequately but a substantial majority of party supporters still felt that it had not responded adequately. Sinn Féin voters were the most negative about the church’s response. The only positive aspect of the poll from the church’s point of view is that a majority of voters believe that it will change to prevent clerical child abuse from happening in the future. In response to being asked if they thought the church would change to prevent abuse 52 per cent said they believed it would, 35 per cent said it would not and 13 per cent had no opinion. As with the other questions on the Murphy report, Fianna Fáil voters were most inclined to the view that the church would change with 61 per cent of them believing that it would. Fine Gael voters were almost equally inclined to the same view with 57 per cent saying the church would change. Labour Party supporters were more negative, followed by the Greens with Sinn Féin voters the only ones to show a majority for the view that the church would not change. In age terms those over 50 and the 18-24s were most inclined to the view that the church would change to prevent abuse in the future. Across the regions Dublin was again the most negative from the church’s point of view while Munster was the most positive
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
11:55:34
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"Let Mother Ireland hang her head in shame"........Juvenile arthritis services slashed by 50%................ Vital specialised services for children with a potentially crippling and painful condition have been halved because of staff shortages. Dr Orla Killeen, a consultant paediatric rheumatologist at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, said they cannot offer children with juvenile arthritis the full range of services necessary to treat their condition because of failure to fund key specialist posts. "We have only half the staff we should have on our multidisciplinary team. We have no social worker, no dedicated psychologist, no podiatrist. Our nurse specialist is sponsored by a drug company and that funding runs out in April and we have no clarity on what will happen after that. "We have a half post for an occupational therapist, but that person is on sick leave and a replacement has not been appointed. "It is of great concern to us that we are trying to function as a multidisciplinary team with only half the staff and as a result we have had to reduce our inpatient rehabilitation programme by 50%," Dr Killeen said. There are currently approximately 350 children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis on a 13-month waiting list for treatment at Crumlin, which is the sole specialised provider of paediatric rheumatology services in the Republic. In addition, approximately 30 children considered urgent cases are waiting three to four months for a first appointment. Dr Killeen said forcing children to wait for specialised treatment and then only offering half a service was not good for long-term outcomes. If treatment is aggressive from the onset of symptoms, the prognosis is good; if left untreated children face permanent muscle wastage, joint damage and deformity and intense pain, she added. The hospital’s psychology department was in "dire circumstances", she said. "This is a crucial service for the children I treat. Theirs is a condition that puts a huge emotional strain on the child and the family. "They need to see a psychologist for cognitive therapy and for advice on pain management and for teens, it is particularly crucial in helping them realise the necessity of compliance with their medication," added Dr Killeen, the country’s only paediatric rheumatologist. Arthritis Ireland, which last year presented a petition to the Government requesting the appointment of a second paediatric rheumatologist, said it intends to continue its lobbying campaign in 2010. A spokesperson for Crumlin said it had applied to the Health Service Executive (HSE) for an additional consultant paediatrician with a special interest in rheumatology, and "with a full-time commitment (37 hours per week) including support and healthcare professional staff" in late 2009. The HSE said two rheumatology consultant applications were scheduled for consideration at the next meeting of the consultant appointments unit. But a spokesperson said they were for general rheumatology posts and not paediatric. Ireland has the second- lowest ratio of paediatric rheumatologists per head of population in Europe. Only Poland is lower
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
11:58:25
Comments
The damage to Catholic Church............... Catholic Church 'should give up control of primary schools'.......... Ethiopia's rulers.............The need for reform of the national school system has become increasingly urgent as society undergoes rapid change. Two years ago, the Ryan report into the abuse of children in religious-run establishments generated debate on whether the Catholic Church should retain control of the sector. Now, following publication of the Murphy report, the electorate has made up its mind and supports ending that control by a margin of almost two-to-one, according to today’s Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll. Loss of confidence in the Catholic hierarchy, because of its handling of clerical sex abuse issues, may account for some of this shift in public opinion. Other factors should also be taken into consideration. The census of 2006 provided evidence of a growing multicultural student population and changes in religious demographics. In that context, control of more than 90 per cent of national schools by the Catholic Church, while they are fully funded by the State, raised questions concerning the right to religious practice under the Constitution while also touching on possible discriminatory treatment under equality laws. Overcrowding at some Catholic-run national schools in the Dublin area during recent years and the refusal by the authorities there to accept immigrant children of different faiths caused Government whip Pat Carey to speculate that it might be time for the State to take responsibility for delivering an educational system. The Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin believed the Catholic Church was ready to relinquish control where there was little or no demand for Catholic input. But he warned the Government would be on “dodgy ground” if it attempted to take over the entire system. Since then, apart from a handful of multi-denominational, VEC-run national schools being established, little has happened. The Murphy report on clerical sex abuse in the Dublin archdiocese has reignited the debate. Demand for change is strongest in this area and 61 per cent of those questioned felt the Catholic Church should relinquish its control at primary school level. Fianna Fáil supporters were least committed, but large majorities favoured such a development within Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Support for a retention of the status quo amounted to less than one-third across all social classes and age groups. The extent of the damage caused by decades of clerical child abuse and systematic cover-ups is reflected by the fact that almost three-quarters of those surveyed believe the church did not responded adequately to the Murphy report. Only 16 per cent felt it had. With close on half of those questioned now regarding the church in a more negative light, members of the hierarchy face a monumental task in rebuilding trust with their congregations. They have limited grounds for hope. A slight majority of 52 per cent believe the church will change in order to prevent future clerical abuse. But more than one-third of respondents take a negative view. As bishops prepare for their visit to Rome, they have much on which to ponder .
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
12:03:15
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John Cooney: Bishops use 'bunker talks' to devise deeply flawed strategy.........It would seem the bishops are in the dark as to what bonfires are being stoked up by the Pope and his aged Curia of administrators. As a foggy, January darkness falls in the early evening, the ground floor and upstairs lights are still shining in Columba House. The decoratively renovated building once housed an infirmary for sick priests and seminarians of St Patrick's College, Maynooth. Now, inside a basement room unobservable from the outside, 18 of Ireland's 33 Catholic bishops are in extraordinary session. The bishops preparing for their Rome summit on clerical abuse with Pope Benedict XVI are huddled together out of sight in what is now known as the 'Maynooth Bunker'. This symbolism of embattled bishops anxiously deliberating as an elite body in a bunker is a discomfiting one for their Lordships, long-steeped in making flowery, symbolic gestures related to Ireland's forgotten martyrs. But in Ireland today, such pious symbols which bonded "Faith and Fatherland" from Daniel O'Connell to Bertie Ahern are increasingly meaningless. To the twittering young, they are fables. To disillusioned middle-aged and elderly Catholics, they sound like sanctimonious cant -- doled out to them from their youth by their pastors to disguise the abuse of power by a clericalist regime that for decades suppressed knowledge of heinous crimes against innocent children by paedophile priests. This haunting image of the 'Maynooth Bunker' should be fixed in the minds of every concerned Catholic, or lapsed Catholic, whenever bishops talk of a change of direction from clericalism to a new era of openness, accountability and participation in the running of their church by a disenfranchised laity. Their rhetoric is observable cant in light of the searing analyses of clericalist power voiced through the media since the publication of the damning Murphy and Ryan reports, which even goaded the Vatican into action. The one new element in a communique issued after the bishops had slid off under darkness to their diocesan palaces was the vague announcement that they plan to hold a consultation process with lay people, clergy and religious after their February summit in Rome. The statement did not confirm if the Pope would issue his special Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland on Ash Wednesday, February 17. Like the rest of us, it would seem that the bishops are in the dark as to what bonfires are being stoked up by the 82-year-old German Pontiff and his aged Curia of administrators, led by his 75-year-old Prime Minister Cardinal Tariscio Bertone, the head of the powerful Vatican Secretariat of State. Little evidence here, folks, of either the Vatican or Maynooth acting as 'the People of God', as the Catholic Church defined itself at the Second Vatican Council, from 1962-65. But do not fret. The statement loftily assures us that "bishops have been listening to the widespread and justifiable anger and frustration from survivors, priests and laity across their dioceses. Bishops recognise that, in the critical area of safeguarding children, people want accountability and transparency in terms of policy and procedures." Hold on a minute, bishops. Yes, it is painfully true that there has been unprecedented public revulsion over the culture of cover-ups in the archdiocese of Dublin, which last month you acknowledged was replicated in the other 25 dioceses. The public has also been shocked by the naked infighting between former auxiliary Dublin bishops and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that led to the resignations of four of them, but was followed by a stand-off between the fifth, Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan, and Dr Martin. This unedifying spectacle of squabbling bishops was the last straw for victim Andrew Madden, who had called for all bishops named in the Murphy report to stand down. Mr Madden formally registered his departure from membership of the Catholic Church, as have 6,007 others disgusted by the church of their birth. On Friday night, after newspaper reporters left Maynooth to file copy, Dr Martin broke his self-enforced silence to RTE. He spoke of his surprise at Bishop Drennan's claim his integrity was attacked. "I'm surprised that anybody would say that by asking people to be accountable, to stand up and explain themselves, that was an attack on anyone's integrity," said the former Roman diplomat. "Saying people should be accountable didn't mean heads should roll." This sounds as if Dr Martin has backed off from securing the resignation of Bishop Drennan, a Dublin auxiliary from 1997 to 2004. Yet Bishop Drennan's presence in Rome means he will remain a divisive figure in the Irish Church, as pointed out by protester Brendan Butler and Sean O'Conaill of the Voice of the Faithful -- Ireland. The 'Maynooth Bunker' showed that the Irish bishops and Rome are devising a flawed strategy that will fail to restore their moral authority. There was no input from married laity or women into the Maynooth-Rome process. Post-Rome consultation by Maynooth will be no substitute to the holding of an elected national assembly, at which the laity take back ownership of their church from a discredited clerical leadership.
Remote User:
Date:
25 Jan 2010
Time:
15:16:35
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I keep reading that the average paid out to victims who have had their cases heard at the Redress Board was E60,00. I was unable to attend due to caring for my terminally ill wife with Alzheimer's. It is just as well I did not attend in view of the inconsiderate way my case was treated. Right up to starting the case, I knew very little of family background, or circumstances that lead to finding my self in these hellholes. I was one of the 'Nobodies' I refer to in my first book. Kids who had no visitors during their 'stay' in what were passed off as schools. Presented with a rough draft of 'Lonesome Stray', those representing the nuns went to town on what they construed as errors. I'd stated that life started for me at St. Patrick's in Killkenny. That was the first error. Imagine being informed in 2006 for the first time, that you were not born there but were sent there by the courts in the beginning of 1934 as a young criminal; 2 year old! The next fact, was that it was not an orphanage but an Industrial School. Now those two facts may be right, but evidence has come to light that all other statements they presented to the Board were untrue. Nothing was said of the abuses that were inflicted during my six year 'stay' at Artane 1941-47. As for payment try half the average amount. The Church/State have on idea the damage inflicted on so many by so few. I'd thought I'd beaten them by running away to the UK from my past. I known as Charlie during all my time inside. On my disposal, I learned it was not my proper first name. That allowed me to adopt the mindset; leave Charlie locked behind those gray walls, that was not me! A number of people that have so far read my second book, use three words; unbelievable, amazing and inspirational. I'd finished it before the Ryan report and the Press Release is due out early Feb. Well, I can say that the facts now coming to light, are more amazing and unbelievable. Last night I received a phone call from a complete stranger in Australia. He was trying to learn something about his Mother; one of my sisters I never got to know! It also appears that I had four brothers. What happened to them? The plot thickens. I hope the first chapter of my new book 'The Battery Children' does justice to the Church/State's treatment of innocent children. I don't claim to be a writer, but by God I'll have my say. I'll have something to say about the Redress Board in my next story, at my age who cares. Padraig
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26 Jan 2010
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13:16:17
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Hello Gulag Wild Rose Its good to see you and Padraig posting on ultimate disposal I know you felt how should I say alienated before but this I am sure is not going to happen ever again and to you Padraig welcome back. …………..Patrick
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26 Jan 2010
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14:29:12
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It cannot surprise any survivor living in Ireland that the likes of Mick O'Brien can meet the Irish Prime Minister) Brian Cowen and pledge the €500,000 allocated by the government to the establishment of a memorial to survivors of abuse in Ireland, be given to the people of Haiti. Surely the Prime Minister) Brian Cowen knows that Mick O'Brien has no right to speak for the majority of survivors of the Irish Gulags its been said time after time that Mr.O’Brien and others? have to be reminded that they do not have a mandate to speak on behalf of ’survivors. Then I suggest the Prime Minister) Brian Cowen speak to people who have and do it sooner rather than later the €500,000 allocated by the government to the establishment of a memorial to survivors of abuse in Ireland cannot be taken back and reallocated on the word of some jumped up little rent a mouth and if it is then we the survivors of abuse in Ireland will still be victims all over again a simple solution Prime Minister please ask to see the mandate before you do anything else ………….Patrick a member of S.O.C.A UK
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27 Jan 2010
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02:11:46
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Hi Patrick, Thanks for your kind words. I also think it's nice to see gulag survivors posting again. It is lovely to see your own views and also Padraigs. I'm glad it is like old times again and much easier to use the site as it used to be before the change. Hope many more will now start posting again. As for Mick O' Brien, is there no way to get him to see we don't appreciate his dictatorship ways? A Gulag Wild Rose.
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28 Jan 2010
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08:01:13
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Bishop fires back at Martin Challenge abuse report, says O'Mahony By John Cooney Thursday January 28 2010 A RETIRED auxiliary bishop of Dublin who was severely criticised by the Murphy Report has called on priests to question its findings of a cover-up of paedophile priests in the archdiocese. Defiant Bishop Dermot O'Mahony has also circulated his heated personal correspondence with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who uncompromisingly accused him of "underestimating the degree of dismay and anger that people feel about the commission's references to you". Archbishop Martin had claimed Bishop O'Mahony showed neither remorse nor apology for the mishandling of clerical child abuse complaints. Early last month, he ordered the auxiliary bishop to refrain from administering the Sacrament of Confirmation in the diocese and to cease his association with the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, which brings children with special needs to Lourdes. On December 30, Bishop O'Mahony "willingly but with great sadness" accepted these restrictions. But he said the letter from the Archbishop "was the harshest communication I have ever received from anyone during my 34 years as bishop and almost 50 years as a priest". The publication by the 'Irish Catholic' of the explosive correspondence threatens to fuel a clerical revolt against Archbishop Martin's authority and it amounts to an incitement to clerical disobedience against the judicial findings of a state inquiry. Letters Publication of the letters sent between two senior churchmen is an extremely unusual breach of the normally tight-control of church information by ecclesiastical authorities. Its cutting language will further divide the Irish bishops as they prepare for their summit in Rome on February 15 with Pope Benedict, especially as Bishop O'Mahony has sent copies of the letters to the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Guiseppe Leanza. Two other auxiliary bishops who resigned under pressure on Christmas Eve, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, are understood to feel sore about the manner in which Archbishop Martin handled his relations with them. In an explanatory note to priests, Bishop O'Mahony writes that the background to the row was when he had voiced his regret at the Archbishop's lack of support for his clergy at a meeting of Dublin priests on November 30, four days after the release of the report. "Unlike Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, who defended the gardai and said 'it was a different time then', the Archbishop did nothing to counteract the statement of the Murphy Report, widely circulated in the media, that 'the majority of clergy knew and did nothing'," Bishop O'Mahony said. This drew a curt retort from Archbishop Martin on December 2, when he wrote: "I regret -- and I know that this regret is shared by many believing people in the parishes in which you served -- that your commitment as auxiliary bishop to the priests and people of the diocese now appears tarnished by the findings of the report and your refusal to recognise that fact. " Hitting back, Bishop O'Mahony told the Archbishop his criticisms of clergy "were unfair" and referred to his time abroad as a Vatican diplomat. "You were out of the diocese for 31 years and had no idea how traumatic it was for those of us who had to deal with allegations without protocols ... in the matter of child sex abuse" Bishop O'Mahony called on priests to challenge "the acceptance by media and current diocesan policy that a 'cover-up' took place". Bishop O'Mahony also said that he sent a letter of remorse to the Archbishop's Director of Communications before the Murphy report was published. Annette O'Donnell has confirmed that the Archbishop knew about the letter of apology from Bishop O'Mahony. - John Cooney Irish Independent
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Date:
28 Jan 2010
Time:
08:11:08
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Archbishop Martin criticised for failure to support priests FORMER Dublin auxiliary bishop has strongly criticised Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, claiming he failed to support priests in the Dublin diocese following publication of the Murphy report into clerical child sex abuse. Bishop Dermot O’Mahony, auxiliary bishop emeritus, has also called on priests to challenge the acceptance by media and current diocese policy that the church engaged in a “cover-up” of child sex abuse over several decades. “The archbishop did nothing to counteract the statement of the Murphy report, widely circulated in the media, that the majority of clergy knew and did nothing. Indeed, I feel he made matters worse by giving an example of a parish that could be clearly identifiable to the priests of the diocese,” wrote Dr O’Mahony in letters sent to Dr Martin and the Council of Priests in recent weeks. In the letters, published in the Irish Catholic, Dr O’Mahony admits there were shortcomings in how the diocese responded to allegations of child sex abuse. But he also defends certain aspects of the church’s past response to allegations of child sex abuse by priests in the diocese and emphasises the difficulty in dealing with the issue. “To suggest our approach failed to take cognisance of the safety of children is inaccurate and unjust. The acceptance by media and current diocese policy that a cover-up took place must be challenged,” wrote Dr O’Mahony, who took the unusual step of circulating his own correspondence with Dr Martin to the Council of Priests. He criticises Dr Martin for his public comment that “the management of cases was inexcusable”. “I said that your criticism was unfair. You were out of the diocese for 31 years and had no idea how traumatic it was for those of us who had to deal with allegations without protocols or guidelines in the matter of child sex abuse,” wrote Dr O’Mahony, who was criticised personally by the Murphy report for his “particularly bad” handling of complaints and suspicions of sexual abuse. The report said he was aware of complaints involving 13 of the priests in the representative sample looked at by the report. In a letter to Dr Martin on December 30th, Dr O’Mahony wrote that he had been shocked at the tone of a previous letter he had received from Dr Martin, which had addressed the Murphy report. “I regret that I must add that the letter was the harshest communication I have ever received from anyone during my 34 years as a bishop and almost 50 years as a priest,” he wrote. A spokeswoman for the archbishop told The Irish Times this letter to Dr O’Mahony, which was dated December 2nd, 2009, was sent following detailed conversation between the men. It was sent three days after a meeting of the diocesan council which discussed the Murphy report. “Your comments at Monday’s meeting of the Diocesan Council left me extremely concerned in your criticism and even rejection of the findings and of many of the underlying presuppositions of the commission of investigation into the sexual abuse of children by priests in the archdiocese of Dublin,” wrote Dr Martin, who criticised Dr O’Mahony for not showing public remorse following publication of the report. In the letter, Dr Martin asked Dr O’Mahony to refrain from publicly administering Confirmation and to cease his association with a charity bringing disabled children to Lourdes. He also withdrew his invitation to Dr O’Mahony to sit at meetings of the Diocesan Council. “I regret – and I know that this regret is shared by many believing people in the parishes in which you served – that your commitment as auxiliary bishop to the priests and people of the diocese now appears tarnished by the findings of the report and your refusal to recognise that fact,” he wrote. Dr O’Mahony said he sent a statement of apology to the archbishop’s press office for publication, which was never published. A spokeswoman for the archbishop said a press statement was sent in but the communications office was never asked to publish it. KEY QUOTES: ARCHBISHOP DIARMUID MARTIN AND BISHOP O'MAHONY Key quotes from correspondence between Bishop O’Mahony, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Dublin, and Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and a subsequent letter sent by Bishop O’Mahony to the Council of Priests. “ I profoundly regret that any action or inaction of mine should have contributed to the suffering of even a single child. I want to apologise for my failures from the bottom of my heart.” Statement of Bishop O’Mahony sent to press office of Dublin archdiocese, which was never issued publicly. (Oct 27th, 2009) “Your comments at Monday’s meeting of the Diocesan Council left me extremely concerned in your criticism and even rejection of the findings and of many of the underlying presuppositions of the commission of investigation into the sexual abuse of children by priests in the archdiocese of Dublin.” “I regret that you did not express any public clarification or remorse or apology. It appears that you underestimate the degree of dismay and anger that people feel about the commission’s references to you.” Letter sent by Dr Martin to Dr O’Mahony, December 2nd, 2009 “I regret that I must add that the letter was the harshest communication I have ever received from anyone during my 34 years as a bishop and almost 50 years as a priest.” Letter sent by Dr O’Mahony to Dr Martin, December 30th, 2009 “ You were out of the diocese for 31 years and had no idea how traumatic it was for those of us who had to deal with allegations without protocols or guidelines in the matter of child sex abuse.” Letter from Dr O’Mahony to the members of the Council of Priests, December 30th, 2009
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29 Jan 2010
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13:35:12
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The Irish Times - Friday, January 29, 2010:…………..Bishops talking to abuse survivors ahead of papal meeting, says cardinal BISHOPS ARE consulting locally with abuse survivors, priests and other lay people to prepare for their meeting with Pope Benedict in Rome next month, Cardinal Seán Brady said yesterday. Bishops from the 26 dioceses will meet the pope and senior Curia cardinals in mid-February to discuss the implications of the clerical child abuse crisis. Cardinal Brady said this would be his third time to discuss “a very painful situation in the Irish church” with Pope Benedict. “I know from past experience I would expect to be heard very respectfully by the Holy Father, who has said that he wants to listen to us in order to help.” He said it was an important moment but he did not want expectations to be heightened by the meeting with Pope Benedict. “It’s just one step in a big, long process of renewal of faith in our country.” He said bishops were engaging “in as much consultation as we possibly can in this short time with lay people, with religious and with our priests”. Asked if the bishops should be accompanied by a lay person, such as former Northern Ireland ombudsman Nuala O’Loan, Cardinal Brady said he greatly respected Mrs O’Loan but the invitation came from Pope Benedict, “so we’re not in control of the invitation list”. Asked about his view on the conflict between Bishop Dermot O’Mahony and Archbishop Martin, Cardinal Brady said he had read about the matter in the newspapers. “I think it’s natural that after the [Murphy] report there would be different perspectives on the whole report, but I think in all of this we must remember our first concern has to be the healing of survivors and a proper appreciation of what they have suffered, endured.” In a series of letters sent to Bishop Martin and the Council of Priests, Bishop O’Mahony claims the archbishop has failed to support priests in the Dublin diocese following publication of the Murphy report. He also calls on priests to challenge the acceptance by media and diocese policy that the church engaged in a “cover up”. One in Four, which represents sex abuse victims, said it was shocked by Bishop O’Mahony’s response to the Murphy report. “It may be that Bishop O’Mahony is articulating the views held privately by other priests, bishops and members of the laity. “It is this culture of denial which facilitated the sexual abuse of children in the first place,” said Maeve Lewis, executive director of One in Four “If this response to the Murphy report is widespread, then the Catholic Church will never be a safe place for children,” she said. Andrew Madden, a victim of clerical child sex abuse, said he was disappointed by Bishop O’Mahony’s decision to challenge the Murphy report. “Bishop O’Mahony would do well to spend some time reflecting on the damage done to so many children by what he did, and what he failed to do, instead of criticising Archbishop Diarmuid Martin for correctly accepting the findings of the Murphy report in full,” said Mr Madden. Bishop O’Mahony was criticised personally by the Murphy report for his “particularly bad” handling of complaints and suspicions of sexual abuse.
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Date:
29 Jan 2010
Time:
13:36:25
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Seventy Irish priests working in US accused of sexual abuse …… …….American victims of clerical child abuse have revealed a direct link to scandals in Ireland, with the discovery that 70 Irish-born priests who worked in the US have been accused of paedophile crimes. This dramatic disclosure follows the admission by the archdiocese of Boston that the list includes the late Fr Brendan Smyth, who worked briefly in Arlington two decades ago. It had previously been thought that at that time he was on the run in the Republic from police in Belfast. The Boston archdiocese was responding to the demands of victim-support groups, which have alleged in the wake of the Murphy Report that church leaders in Ireland sent accused priests to dioceses in other countries, including the US. The revelations come as Irish victims of clerical child abuse have reacted furiously to the refusal of a retired Dublin auxiliary bishop to accept the finding of the Murphy Report that church authorities covered up paedophile crimes and either transferred offenders to other parishes or sent them abroad. Bishop Dermot O'Mahony, who was censured in the report for his handling of complaints, has attempted to rally Dublin priests to his defence by openly challenging Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Last month, Archbishop Martin claimed that Bishop O'Mahony showed neither remorse nor apology and withdrew permission for him to administer the sacrament of confirmation. Last night, prominent abuse victim Andrew Madden, who first outed the notorious Fr Ivan Payne, said Bishop O'Mahony should reflect on the damage done to so many children by what he did and failed to do. Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One In Four victim-support group, said the bishop appeared to be questioning the validity of the Murphy Report's conclusion that there was a deliberate policy to cover up allegations of sexual abuse. She added: "It is this culture of denial which facilitated the sexual abuse of children in the first place. "If this response to the Murphy Report is widespread, then the Catholic Church will never be a safe place for children." The US revelations came after an organisation called BishopAccountability.org published a list of 70 priests from Ireland who had been accused of molesting children, either in Ireland or while they were working in the United States. Duties This followed a public letter to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, head of the Boston Archdiocese, asking him to identify any priests who have faced accusations of abuse elsewhere and who had worked in the area. The Boston archdiocese disclosed that it had granted faculties to three priests on the list, including the late Brendan Smyth. The faculties permitted the clergymen to celebrate Mass and perform other duties. In addition to Smyth, they include Joseph T. Maguire, a priest from the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, who was convicted of molesting more than a dozen boys in the state, and who died in 2005. The archdiocese said that a review of its records shows that it was not aware of any accusations having been made against the priests when they were granted faculties, and that it found no records of accusations while the priests were there. A spokesman said Smyth, the notorious Norbertine monk from Kilnacrott Abbey, in Co Cavan, who died in prison in 1997, was given permission to work as a priest in the archdiocese for two days in 1991. But the Boston archdiocese has insisted that it has no record of any accusations being made against Fr Smyth while he was working for two days in St Camillus parish in Arlington. - John Cooney Irish Independent 29-01-2010……………
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Date:
29 Jan 2010
Time:
13:38:03
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I've been posting on Alzheimer's websites for some time past. The knowledge I've acquired in caring for my wife has been warmly welcomed. That is, up until recently when I tried to explain the mind set of elderly loved ones being placed in Nursing Homes. Some of the posts angered me, to still see the needs of the most vulnerable in society being either ignored through ignorance or not worth the effort. My post upset some; "If I were placed in one of those places, I would ' pace up and down' trying to find a means of escape. Being banged up there and having to pay for the privilege, is just not right. Not when those in prisons reside for free, plus the ratio of guard to prisoner is better that patient to carer in the 'Home' all at the tax payers expense." That kind of remark upset some people. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm still a social misfit and will remain so. In the winter of my years I have much time to reflect on the damage inflicted on so many innocent children. Even after all this time the religious orders and State just don't get it. Most of my life I've tried to hide my ignorance of social niceties. How do you explain to anyone, that you were locked away all your childhood from the outside world. Imagine the reaction to questions: What's it like to live in a house that you call home? What's it feel like to know when it's your birthday and receive presents? What's Christmas like around a tree and to receive presents? To have a bedroom and not share with 200 other boys? Most of all, what's it like to experience the love of another human? These and hundreds of other questions have no answer because you have to grow up with what is accepted as normal, just as night follows day. There was only one person in my life that could touch and allow a touch in return, other than our children and grandchildren when they were little, my wife. I learned very early in life to back off, whenever an adult was about to lay a hand on me. It meant physical or other kind of abuse. Yesterday a retired Psychologist visited me to discuss my new Book; 'Dare to Dream' and for me to sign his copy. His parting remark: "Without your back ground, it would not have been possible to have cared for your wife 24/7 on your own, refusing all support during her final five years. How do you explain the wonder and beauty of unconditional love that was denied to so many vulnerable children. It's not measured in money.... Padraig
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29 Jan 2010
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15:12:06
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“ CORI DEAL”....... Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe yesterday (28/01/2010) indicated the Government may ask the 18 religious orders named in the Ryan report for more money. The orders had been involved in a controversial 2002 Church-State indemnity deal which capped their contribution at €128m. As a result they have paid just 10pc of the €1.2bn victims' compensation bill. He said a report on how much their assets were worth and how much they would contribute had been completed”
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30 Jan 2010
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07:40:51
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Clergy exposed in Murphy 'must take responsibility' ARCHBISHOP of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has said the Catholic clergy and others associated with the cover-up of clerical child sex abuse, as exposed in the Murphy report, must accept general responsibility for their failure to protect children. Dr Martin was responding to criticism of him by the former Dublin auxiliary bishop, Dr Dermot O'Mahony, who claimed in letters published this week that the archbishop had failed to support priests in the Dublin diocese following the publication of the report. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Dr Martin said that Dr O'Mahony had, like many others, not accepted accountability for the failings outlined in the report and that he "perpetuates this mistake by misquoting the report" in his correspondence. "All I would like to see is people accept accountability and say, 'look this is what happened'. In that letter, there is a certain rejection of what happened - that this horrendous scandal and the cover- up never took place. This I don't accept," said Dr Martin. Dr O'Mahony said suggestions that the clergy failed to take cognisance of the safety of children was "inaccurate and unjust". He said that "the acceptance by the media and current diocese policy that a cover-up took place must be challenged" in letters circulated to the council of priests. People didn't want to admit that "we got it remarkably wrong", said Dr Martin, but this conclusion was justified and wider accountability must be accepted. "People can criticise me but I believe that, for me, the reaction to the Murphy report must be predominant - something horrendous happened on our watch and we got it spectacularly wrong." Dr O'Mahony criticised Dr Martin for being out of the Dublin diocese for 31 years and having "no idea" of the trauma of dealing with sex abuse allegations without protocols or guidelines. "Nobody knows where they would have been," said Dr Martin. "However, it is again a case of blame everybody else, saying: 'Where were you, what would you have done?' " Dr Martin said that it was "not easy" to determine where accountability lay, but it was wrong to deny general accountability and to blame "some impersonal systems failure". The pope's decision to call the bishops to a meeting in Rome next month was "a sign of his concern" and "an unusual thing", Dr Martin added. "I am glad it is taking place." Dr Martin, who attended Davos to participate in debates with academics and healthcare specialists, said that there were parallels between the crisis in the Church over the Murphy report and the global financial crisis, with a general lack of accountability common to both. "We are identified by what we tolerated and our identity as an institution is measured by the things we allow happen, even if it happens in a way in which you cannot pin down specific responsibility," he said. "I would say the same in the banks - it isn't necessarily that people were encouraging bankers to behave in an irresponsible way but it was tolerated and therefore that is part of the identity of the institution that does it." Dr Martin said there was a certain collective responsibility that existed in allowing mistakes to be made but that no one individual was responsible. "Something terrible happened in the diocese of Dublin - at least 2,000 children, I believe, were abused. "The lives of their parents, their spouses, their children have been irrevocably damaged and changed and [ it is sad] that nobody is responsible, that it is a systems failure," he said. "It doesn't mean that everybody has to go up and say that I alone am responsible, but it is not enough to say that the system was wrong."
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31 Jan 2010
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19:35:09
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Brendan Smyth victim battles with US church……… Helen McGonigle's family was destroyed by the paedophile priest. Now she's looking for justice, writes Crime Correspondent Ali Bracken………… His actions could easily have shattered her life beyond repair. But instead, a woman sexually abused as a child by notorious paedophile Brendan Smyth has used her experience to help other victims of clerical abuse seek justice. Helen McGonigle (48) was just six years old when she was first assaulted by the late Irish priest. She was living in East Greenwich in Rhode Island with her family when he entered her life. The sexual abuse perpetrated against her continued for the next four years. McGonigle's family ? of Irish descent ? were members of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church and it was here that they came into contact with the convicted sexual abuser. A master manipulator, he infiltrated her family's daily life. He also sexually abused her elder sister Kathleen under the pretence of preparing her for the sacrament of penance. Kathleen and Helen's brother Gerard both died from fatal drug overdoses as a result of the abuse Smyth perpetrated against her family. Her mother also spent time in a mental institution before her death because of the actions of the paedophile priest. Helen repressed the memory of the horrors Smyth inflicted upon her as a child. It only came to the surface five years ago when she began to look deeper into what caused her sister's fatal overdose from antidepressants in 2005. As she delved into their early life in Rhode Island, she soon learned her elder sister, and many other children, were also victims of Smyth. Now an attorney with her own practice in Connecticut, McGonigle has dedicated her professional life to defending sexual abuse victims. "My grandparents are from Listowel in Kerry. It was because my grandmother was living with us at the time in Rhode Island that Smyth initially formed a relationship with my family. They were able to converse in Irish ? something foreign to us in the US ? and Smyth blessed our new home, giving us the crucifix from his abbey. There was a long lineage of clerics and nuns in my family, so at the outset there was a natural connection," she told the Sunday Tribune. The McGonigle family moved from Rhode Island in 1973 but the damage wreaked by Smyth never left them. In 1994, the priest was convicted of 17 counts of sexual abuse in a Belfast court. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of child sexual abuse. In 1997, Smyth died in prison. His rampant abuse of children was known to his superiors in the Catholic church and helped bring down the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition in 1994. In 2006, McGonigle notified the diocese of Providence of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Smyth in Rhode Island. She was informed that she was the sixth person to come forward but there was "no pastoral reason" for making this information public. "I have since located two other victims of Smyth from our parish. I know of a third, a neighbour and my sister's friend, and if I count my sister, that makes at least nine children. Smyth was caught molesting children at our parish in early 1968, sent to a mental hospital and allowed to return to reoffend. To my knowledge there are two major groupings of us. Those aged six and seven who were one-on-one with Smyth in preparation for taking the sacrament of penance, and those five years older preparing for confirmation." Last week, the Boston archdiocese finally confirmed that Smyth at one time worked in Boston.While the late priest cannot now be brought to justice, his victims want public acknowledgement from the Catholic church of the suffering he inflicted on children in Rhode Island. Helen McGonigle is spearheading this quest for a confession and recognition from the church. Helen's brother Gerard was not sexually assaulted by Smyth but developed depression that ultimately caused his death because he felt guilty that he did not stop the horrors inflicted on his family by the cleric. The Catholic church has refused to release the late priest's "assignment record" in the US, which would detail the various parishes Smyth was assigned to. "He destroyed my entire family. He was moved around four states in the US, from parish to parish within those states. I think it is important for the people of Ireland to know the fraudulent concealment that is still going on within the Catholic church about where this man was based over his years in the US," she added. "The US and Irish bishops visit the Vatican and talk about guidelines to protect children but won't provide transparency about their priests who are convicted sex offenders. It's a fraud." ………….. Sunday Tribune January 31, 2010
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01 Feb 2010
Time:
09:35:08
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Reported child rapes ‘tip of iceberg’..............By Cormac O’Keeffe................ Monday, February 01, 2010................. The increase in child rape cases reported to the gardaí last year is the "tip of the iceberg" in relation to the true scale of child sexual abuse, a leading children’s charity said yesterday. Children at Risk in Ireland (CARI) said the 106 cases reported to gardaí in 2009 – up from 82 in 2008 – represented only a fraction of the 2,300 allegations of child sexual abuse reported to the HSE in 2007. CARI chief executive Mary Flaherty said the HSE had confirmed 719 of these cases and the remaining 1,400 were unconfirmed, but not disproved. "In 2007, there were 719 confirmed cases , we’re not taking into account the rest, but only 106 were reported to gardaí last year. Where are the rest going?" she said. "If, even, you said around half of the 2,300 cases were true, that’s around 30 a week. We know from research that, for adult rape, the number of convictions is very low. For children it is lower again." Ms Flaherty said child abuse cases tended to be "extremely difficult to prove". She said: "It’s often the evidence of the child versus the adult, and the adult almost always denies it." For those cases get to court, the system itself is very daunting for children, she said: "The court system is very adversarial. It’s very hard on children." In relation to the 29% jump in reported cases to gardaí between 2008 and 2009, Ms Flaherty said the increase was more than likely due to a rise in cases reported and investigated following the introduction of emergency laws to fix a legal crisis in 2006 and 2007. After the Supreme Court ruled the law on statutory rape unconstitutional, as it did not allow the defence of an honest mistake regarding the age of the victim, the Government introduced legislation bringing in such a defence. "I don’t think these figures are suggesting a huge increase," said Ms Flaherty. "2008 was the first full year of the new laws and they now are being used more generally and we may be going back to original levels." The CSO figures show there was a dramatic fall in cases after 2005, with only around 75 cases in 2006 and 2007. After legislation was brought in, the cases began to rise in 2008 and rose higher again in 2009. Ms Flaherty said further law reform was needed. She said the offence of defilement of a minor was "very specific" and referred to rape-type offences and not the full range of child sexual abuse. She said the Law Reform Commission had recommended a general offence of child sexual abuse but said there has been political "inertia" in implementing it..................... * CARI helpline: 1890 92 45 67, 9.30-5.30pm Monday to Friday.
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Date:
01 Feb 2010
Time:
09:43:46
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More than 500 unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Ireland have gone missing from State care in the past decade, according to new figures released by the HSE. Between 2000 and 2009 a total of 501 children went missing from the care of the HSE. Sixty-seven of them, or 13 per cent, have been successfully traced. Of a total of 47 unaccompanied children seeking asylum that went missing from State care in 2009, nine were later successfully traced by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB). The number of children who went missing last year was over twice that who went missing in 2008. The number missing last year was higher even when those later located were considered. A total of 22 unaccompanied minors went missing from State care in 2008, while the location of five children was later established. In 2007, of a total of 32 missing minors, 12 were traced. The number of missing minors has fallen since the 2000-2006 period, when an average of 51 minors who were never traced went missing each year. A spokeswoman for the HSE said every case of a minor going missing in State care was treated “extremely seriously”. “The HSE takes every incident of missing children extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring that any vulnerable children are not exploited or ill-treated as part of its responsibility to provide care for any children in the State who are deemed not to have appropriate or satisfactory care arrangements,” she said. While the majority of missing individuals in question had purported to be children on entering the country, “substantial operational experience” existed to indicate that at least some may be adults. She noted that three missing Chinese nationals who presented as children to the GNIB in December were later traced and assessed to be adults by the HSE social work service. The spokeswoman said the issue of separated children who go missing from care was complex, and was sometimes simplified and sensationalised. “It has been unsubstantiated that any of the children who go missing from HSE care have been trafficked.” Statutory agencies in Ireland have noted several factors that may contribute to the disappearance of a child from care, she added, including: • The child’s appeal for asylum has been refused and he/she is nearing 18 and is reacting to the pending threat of deportation. • The person has been smuggled into the country to join the workforce on a consensual basis and is availing of the child protection service as a fast track route into the State. • The child has been brought in by traffickers using the child protection service as an easy route. The spokeswoman added that the HSE has collaborated with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in the development of the National Action Plan on Anti-Human Trafficking. “We will expend every effort to fulfil our commitments to combat trafficking as outlined in this plan,” she said. Between 2000 and 2008 approximately 7 per cent of unaccompanied minors dealt with by the HSE have gone missing.
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01 Feb 2010
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09:51:43
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Bishop plans civil union with Filipino boyfriend…………..The controversial breakaway bishop and former Catholic priest, Pat Buckley, is set to become the first cleric in Northern Ireland to enter a civil partnership. The bonding service with his Filipino boyfriend will take place next Monday in Larne, Co Antrim, where the rebel cleric regularly blesses gay and lesbian unions in his private and independent oratory. Mr Buckley, the eldest of 17 children in a family from Tullamore, Co Offaly, has been celebrating Mass twice a week for the past 22 years and officiating at marriages for divorced Catholics in the oratory. It remains a property of the Catholic diocese of Down and Connor but he has consistently refused to leave. Since 1986, when he was suspended from the priesthood by the late Bishop Cahal Daly, he has been shunned by the Catholic Church authorities. Breakaway: In 1998, he was excommunicated after his unauthorised consecration as a bishop by the breakaway prelate, Michael Cox, who also 'ordained' the singer Sinead O'Connor. Mr Cox, who comes from Mitchelstown, Co Cork, is an archbishop in the self-styled Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church. Neither the Catholic Church in Ireland nor the Vatican recognises Mr Buckley's claim to be a lawful bishop. His website describes him as an "unofficial chaplain to disaffected and alienated Catholics and Christians and others from all over Ireland and further afield". Mr Buckley and his partner have been together for almost three years. He said he would like to speak about the pending union but that his partner wanted to stay out of the limelight. However, PR guru Max Clifford is reported to be handling the publicity surrounding the forthcoming nuptials. Mr Buckley added: "I did not realise that this was going to come out and I would prefer not to talk about it at the moment."……….John Cooney……Irish Independent
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01 Feb 2010
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15:02:40
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In my search to discover the circumstances surrounding my removal from what should have been my family, the results are proving incredible. But then, maybe not to people in Ireland. In addition to the two sisters I know of, it appears that I had at least three brothers and possibly one other. There are birth certificates for two of them, but no death certs. It is possible that both boys, born before me died, and shortly after my birth the marriage broke up. That might explain both myself and one sister being 'put away'. I was sent to Killkenny, because it was considered 'the child would fair better without contact with family members'! My sister was sent to an Industrial school near home in Dublin. Why did they separate infant boys and girls? Two years later my birth Mother gave birth to a baby boy at St. Patrick's Mother and Baby Home: Pelletstown on the Navan Road, Dublin in Jan 1936. Strange that I should be made aware of that fact yet, there is no birth certificate! Maybe some of your readers know something of this place? The next problem is that my father set up house with another woman and produced another four boys and one girl. The entries on these children's birth certificates, show the woman as Mrs. and shows her former maiden name! I'm aware that there was no such thing as divorce in Ireland at that time. Was it the practice for couples to live together as common law husband and wife, in the 1930-40ies? The deeper I dig into my family history, I'm left to wonder about the kind of society that existed below the surface of the face presented to the general public. No doubt many aspects of my story have been repeated thousands of times if not tens of thousands. The Church/State were producing many social misfits on an assembly line and then blamed the results of their 'training' on the same men and women placed in their care as children. It would be nice to have some honest answers. Am I asking too much? Padraig
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01 Feb 2010
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16:16:48
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Nine out of 10 primary schools are under Catholic patronage how much power does the Catholic Church wield in primary education?, asks SEÁN FLYNN, Education Editor What is the extent of church involvement in primary schools? Today, the Catholic Church is patron of more than 90 per cent of primary schools in the State. Of the 3,169 primary schools, 2,894 are under Catholic patronage. Most of the others are under the control of other churches. How much power does the Catholic Church exercise in schools? It’s considerable. Like every other patron, the local bishop appoints all principal teachers. He also nominates two of each eight-member board of management, including the chairperson. The patron must also approve all teacher appointments or dismissals made by the board. In certain circumstances, the patron can also stand down the board. Could a patron sack a teacher if he did not approve of his/her lifestyle? The 1982 case of Eileen Flynn – the New Ross second-level schoolteacher sacked because she became pregnant by a separated man with whom she was living – symbolised the power available to patrons. Since that infamous case, the church has been cautious about exercising these powers. It has taken no action, for example, against members of the INTO union’s lesbian, gay and bisexual primary teachers’ group, which recently held its first public conference. That said, the 1998 Employment Equality Act would allow Catholic patrons to take action against those whose lifestyle is repugnant to the ethos of a Catholic school. What about the day-to-day involvement of the Catholic clergy in schools? An INTO survey of teachers in 2003 gives us some clues. Some 60 per cent stated that clerical visits occurred only occasionally. There were frequent visits by clergy/church representatives in 28 per cent of all classes. Much depended on the availability of local clergy and the time of year, and visits were more frequent during preparation for the sacraments. In the survey, some teachers felt that the clergy had “no interest in schools” and that teachers – whether practising Catholics or not – were entirely responsible for the religious and moral education of children. How much time do schools spend on religious instruction? A typical timetable provides for about half an hour a day of religion. But a religious ethos also influences other school activities beyond these specific times, such as assemblies or the placing of religious icons around the school building. How does this affect minority religious groups or those with no religious beliefs? In most parts of Ireland, especially outside Dublin, parents have little choice but to send their children to the local Catholic school. The reality in most schools is that all children must be present during religious instruction – it is not practical to withdraw them from class, especially in smaller rural schools. What steps would be required to remove the church from primary education? It would be a very long haul. There are complex legal issues involved, and some believe that a constitutional referendum would be required. There are also property issues. The Catholic Church is the legal owner of school properties even though most building, upkeep and refurbishment costs have been met by the State. Then there are the rights of school communities. A change of patronage could require a local plebiscite of the school community. At present, the Department of Education, after discussions with the Catholic bishops in December, is examining its database on schools. It is seeking to identify those schools where Catholic control could be relinquished. There are several areas, notably in Dublin, where the Catholic Church is grossly over-represented in education. The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who has encouraged the debate on Catholic control of education, has openly acknowledged this. The department and the teaching unions all support change. While Diarmuid Martin has been pushing for change, other bishops are more protective of the status quo. All sides of the debate are alive to concerns that the establishment of a parallel State-run primary-school system isn’t without dangers. Some fear it could create a two-tier system, with immigrants and other groups being ghetto-ised outside the Catholic system. What do the teacher unions say about it? The INTO’s general secretary, John Carr, says he respects the right of parents to choose a religious education for their children, but he does not believe this should automatically extend to the provision of denominational schools. The INTO supports the concept of a community national school system. Such schools, Carr says, could accommodate the provision of separate or common religious education programmes, or none, during the school day, in accordance with parental choice.
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01 Feb 2010
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16:34:44
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Man charged with sexual abuse and ill-treatment of boy Monday, February 01, 2010 - 04:16 PM The trial of a man charged with the sexual abuse and ill-treatment of a boy will begin at the Central Criminal Court this morning. The 52-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded not guilty to 47 charges of sexually assaulting the child and one charge of the wilful neglect or ill-treatment of the same boy on dates between April 11, 2001 and June 23, 2004. Mr Justice Barry White told the jury of six men and six women that he was dealing with other matters and asked them to return tomorrow.
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Date:
02 Feb 2010
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08:59:00
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Tuesday February 02 2010 POPE Benedict will travel to Britain in September for the first papal visit to England, Wales and Scotland in more than a quarter of a century. The North will not be on the Pontiff's itinerary, the first such historic trip since the 1982 visit by the late Pope John Paul I. However, Irish church sources still hope Pope Benedict will visit the North and attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 2012, 33 years after Pope John Paul's historic visit to the Republic. In a speech to bishops from England and Wales, assembled yesterday in Rome, Pope Benedict said he looked forward to witnessing, at first hand, the faith of Catholics in England and Wales during "my forthcoming Apostolic visit to Great Britain". It was the first time the Pope had publicly confirmed the trip previously announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Although the German Pontiff did not give a date, Church officials said it is expected to take place in September and will include a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow -- Scotland has its own Catholic bishops conference independent of England and Wales. Last night Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, welcomed the announcement that the Holy Father's visit to the Catholic Church in England and Wales, but omitted to refer to Scotland. "I wish to convey my best wishes to the bishops, priests and lay faithful of England and Wales on the wonderful news announced today concerning the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict to our nearest neighbours," said Cardinal Brady. Nor did he draw attention to the absence of Northern Ireland in the 2010 papal itinerary. Instead, the cardinal and the other Irish bishops have been summoned to a meeting with the pope in Rome on February 15 and 16 ahead of the publication of the Pope's special Lenten letter on the fall-out from the paedophile scandals. In his speech to the English and Welsh bishops yesterday, the pope attacked the Westminster parliament's planned Equity Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords. He also spoke of the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, one of the most prominent English converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Although no date has been set for the beatification, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, told reporters "it is our fervent hope and expectation" that the pope perform the ceremony during the visit. - John Cooney Religion Correspondent Irish Independent
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Date:
02 Feb 2010
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09:02:01
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Tuesday February 02 2010 AN influential retired priest has launched a scathing attack on the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, for accepting the shocking findings of clerical child sex abuse in the Murphy report. Writing in the February issue of 'The Furrow', Fr Padraig McCarthy, who has 42 years' experience in ministry, expresses strong reservations about key findings in the report. Fr McCarthy's article comes after the 'Irish Catholic' newspaper published letters circulated to priests by retired Dublin auxiliary bishop, Dr Dermot O'Mahony, urging them to question the findings of the Murphy report of abuse cover-ups. "The commission, I am sure, would not wish to be burdened with any claim to infallibility -- nor do I," writes Fr McCarthy. "We must not make the report the final and absolute word." Specifically, Fr McCarthy questions the Murphy report's conclusion that the majority of priests in the Dublin diocese were complicit in the concealment of abuse by simply choosing to turn a blind eye. "The report does not offer precision," to this conclusion, Fr McCarthy states bluntly. Fr McCarthy suggests that the work of the Murphy commission was made easier because the diocese kept such full records of abuse complaints. He also calls for a similarly thorough report into how bodies such as the HSE and the Garda dealt with abuse claims. "If the HSE, Garda and other records are not of equal standard, it may indicate, paradoxically, that the diocese, however faulty, had a great sense of pastoral responsibility for the abused person and for the abuser," writes Fr McCarthy. "For the fullest possible protection of children, an investigation no less thorough needs to be carried out in those other spheres." On Dr Martin, Fr McCarthy writes that the archbishop was under great pressure in the days and weeks after the publication of the Murphy report late last November. But implying that Dr Martin is remote from his clergy, Fr McCarthy adds: "What was and still is missing, however, is a considered diocesan response. This is surprising, in view of the fact that we have known for some years that the report was coming." However, Fr McCarthy likens its impact to a runaway train hitting the Dublin diocese and the country. "I have been angry at the long-lasting suffering of those abused as children, whether by clergy or by others", he writes in 'The Furrow'. Analysis - JOHN COONEY Tuesday February 02 2010 POPE Benedict will travel to Britain in September for the first papal visit to England, Wales and Scotland in more than a quarter of a century. The North will not be on the Pontiff's itinerary, the first such historic trip since the 1982 visit by the late Pope John Paul I. However, Irish church sources still hope Pope Benedict will visit the North and attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 2012, 33 years after Pope John Paul's historic visit to the Republic. In a speech to bishops from England and Wales, assembled yesterday in Rome, Pope Benedict said he looked forward to witnessing, at first hand, the faith of Catholics in England and Wales during "my forthcoming Apostolic visit to Great Britain". It was the first time the Pope had publicly confirmed the trip previously announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Although the German Pontiff did not give a date, Church officials said it is expected to take place in September and will include a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow -- Scotland has its own Catholic bishops conference independent of England and Wales. Last night Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, welcomed the announcement that the Holy Father's visit to the Catholic Church in England and Wales, but omitted to refer to Scotland. "I wish to convey my best wishes to the bishops, priests and lay faithful of England and Wales on the wonderful news announced today concerning the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict to our nearest neighbours," said Cardinal Brady. Nor did he draw attention to the absence of Northern Ireland in the 2010 papal itinerary. Instead, the cardinal and the other Irish bishops have been summoned to a meeting with the pope in Rome on February 15 and 16 ahead of the publication of the Pope's special Lenten letter on the fall-out from the paedophile scandals. In his speech to the English and Welsh bishops yesterday, the pope attacked the Westminster parliament's planned Equity Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords. He also spoke of the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, one of the most prominent English converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Although no date has been set for the beatification, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, told reporters "it is our fervent hope and expectation" that the pope perform the ceremony during the visit. - John Cooney Religion Correspondent Irish Independent
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Date:
02 Feb 2010
Time:
09:15:04
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Pope attacks UK legislation Pope Benedict XVI has sparked fury among secular and gay rights campaigners after he attacked equality legislation in Britain for running contrary to “natural law” and restricting the freedom of religious communities. The pontiff said the effects of some legislation designed to give equality of opportunity had been to impose “unjust limitations” on the freedom of religious communities to act “in accordance with their beliefs”. “Your country is well-known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society,” he told the Catholic bishops of England and Wales gathered in Rome. “Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. “In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.” His remarks have been interpreted as an attack on the Sexual Orientation Regulations which forced Catholic adoption agencies to consider gay couples as potential adoptive parents. By the time the regulations came into force in January last year, five of the agencies in England and Wales had cut ties with their Roman Catholic dioceses to comply with the new laws. The Government also suffered defeats in the House of Lords last week after the churches voiced concerns that the provisions of the flagship Equality Bill could expose them to legal challenges if they refused to employ sexually active gay people and transsexuals. The Pope’s remarks were made in an address in which he gave the first official confirmation that he will make his first apostolic visit to Britain later this year. The Pope is widely expected to visit England and Scotland in a four-day trip between September 16 and September 19. The visit is expected to have many of the trappings of a state visit, according to reports. The beatification of Cardinal Newman, bringing him a step closer to becoming England’s first non-martyred saint since the Reformation, will possibly be held in a ceremony at Coventry Airport, it has been reported. The last Papal visit to Britain was in 1982, when Pope John Paul II visited England, Wales and Scotland. The National Secular Society (NSS) said it would mount a protest campaign against the visit made up of gay groups, victims of clerical abuse, feminists, family planning organisations and pro-abortion groups among others. Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “The Pope’s criticism that British equality legislation ‘violates the natural law’ is a coded attack on the legal rights granted to women and gay people. “His ill-informed claim that our equality laws undermine religious freedom suggests that he supports the right of churches to discriminate in accordance with their religious ethos. He seems to be defending discrimination by religious institutions and demanding that they should be above the law.”
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Date:
02 Feb 2010
Time:
10:49:50
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Three Irish priests in abuse cases worked in Boston................. Tuesday, February 02, 2010................ Under pressure from anti-abuse campaigners, the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has been forced to confirm that three Irish priests accused of abusing children, including the notorious Brendan Smyth, worked there in the past. In the wake of an abuse scandal here in Ireland, the Massachusetts-based group BishopAccountability.org, set up a database of 70 Irish- born priests who were accused of abuse and had served in US dioceses. In December, the group called on Cardinal Seán O’Malley to identify priests with links to Boston. In a statement, the archdiocese said three of the priests on the list, Brendan Smyth, Dennis Murphy and Joseph T Maguire, served in the Boston area for periods ranging from two days to four years. "Based on our research, none of these three priests was the subject of an allegation here in the Archdiocese of Boston," it said. Joseph T Maguire worked with the Stigmatine Fathers at the Espousal Centre in Waltham, Massachusetts from 1981 to 1985. He was convicted of molesting more than a dozen boys in New Hampshire, and died in prison in 2005. Dennis P Murphy was allowed to serve at St Cecilia’s in Boston in 1996 and 1997. He was placed on administrative leave by the Richmond Diocese in 2004 while the church investigated accusations of abuse. Brendan Smyth was only there for two days in 1991 and served at St Camillus in Arlington. He later pleaded guilty to 74 counts of sexually abusing boys and girls in Ireland between 1958 and 1993. He died in prison here in 1997. The archdiocese also confirmed that a fourth Irish priest who served in the archdiocese had been the subject of abuse allegations. However, it said the allegations dated back 30 years and any action against him would have to come from his religious order here.
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Date:
02 Feb 2010
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21:58:23
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Tuesday, 2nd February 2010......Priest gets one year in jail for indecent assault.............In statements to gardaí Fr Hughes said he was not a paedophile. He 'was only attracted to altar boys,' he said. An 82-year-old Catholic priest who was shielded by the church authorities during a garda investigation has been jailed for a year for indecently assaulting a young boy in the 1970s and 80s. Fr Patrick Hughes of Park Drive Court, Castleknock, in Dublin, pleaded guilty to the offences and apologised to his victim. The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that the Catholic Church authorities gave gardaí 'the run around' when they were investigating the whereabouts of Fr Hughes. Following widespread publicity about the priest, he left the country in 2002 and was located by gardaí in the UK in 2007. Gardaí agreed that the church authorities had given them 'something of the run around' in efforts to locate him. Counsel for Fr Hughes, Remy Farrell, said the church had been 'reluctant to deal with the matter in a candid fashion' but when Fr Hughes was approached by gardaí in the UK he took a different view. He indecently assaulted an altar boy in the 1970s and 80s at a parochial house and during trips to the beach. He also intercepted him on journeys to school and abused him in his car. The victim told gardaí he had changed his bus stop and his journey times but the priest still managed to find him. The court heard that the priest would ring the boy's mother and ask if he could come to his house to do odd jobs. He would also take him on trips to the beach. In statements to gardaí Fr Hughes said he was not a paedophile. He 'was only attracted to altar boys,' he said. He said he could not explain it and did not think any psychiatrist could explain it either. He had received counselling in the US and said he regretted what had happened and was sorry. The court heard that the victim chose not to attend court and declined to make a victim impact statement. He made the complaint in 2003 after his mother became concerned after reading newspaper articles about the priest. Judge Katherine Delahunt congratulated gardaí involved in the case and said they went almost beyond the call of duty to investigate the case. She said it took a long time to come before the court because it was delayed by 'persons who were shielding you'. She said it was a gross abuse of trust and jailed him for one year. The maximum sentence for the offences involved was two years, she said. In a statement read to court the 82-year-old said he was 'most profoundly sorry' for his inappropriate behaviour. He said he wants to humbly ask for forgiveness. Now in his 83rd year, he said he had not offended in 25 years and had, through the benevolence of his superiors, been rehabilitated through a programme in Maryland in the US. He said he was grateful to his superiors for this and to his family and a few friends. He said he had 'wandered into the desert', which was a lonely place
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Date:
03 Feb 2010
Time:
08:05:04
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John Cooney: Scandals, splits and a battle for the Pope's ear By John Cooney Tuesday February 02 2010 THE famous Latin saying, 'Roma locuta est, causa finita est' -- 'Rome has spoken, the case is closed' -- will not apply in Pope Benedict's promised Lenten Pastoral to the Catholics of Ireland on clerical child sex abuse and the cover-ups of paedophile priests by church authorities. With less than a fortnight to go before the heralded Rome summit of Pope Benedict with the Irish bishops, preparations for its agenda appear to be in complete confusion, certainly as far as the unconsulted clergy and laity are concerned. So far, the main focus of public attention has centred on growing indications of a split among the bishops, with the battle lines being drawn-up in a power struggle for the Pontiff's ear between Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin and the rest, with Cardinal Sean Brady trying to hold both warring factions into some semblance of unity in the interests of best child protection procedures for a 'One Church' policy. Indeed, a lay Catholic activist has warned of the danger of a systematic move being under way inside the Irish hierarchy "to oust" the Archbishop of Dublin. Brendan Butler, who has campaigned to secure the resignation of the Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, for being named in the damning Murphy report, has warned that it would be "the final nail in the coffin" of the Irish church if Archbishop Martin was forced to resign. Mr Butler issued his comment after being dismayed at the personal appeal made to priests, published by the 'Irish Catholic' last week, by retired Dublin auxiliary bishop, Dr Dermot O'Mahony, urging them to question the findings of the Murphy report of cover-ups of paedophile priests. "It seems there is now a systematic move within the hierarchy to oust Archbishop Martin because he wholeheartedly accepted the findings of the Murphy report," Mr Butler told the Irish Independent. Mr Butler, who organised a protest last month in Maynooth during an extraordinary meeting of the Irish Bishops' Conference convened to prepare for their summit meeting in Rome on February 15 and 16, was shocked to observe deep divisions between Archbishop Martin and other bishops who have been slower to accept fully accountable child protection procedures in their dioceses than the ones operating in Dublin. "There is a definite split within the hierarchy and within the ranks of the clergy over Archbishop Martin's response to the Murphy report," said Mr Butler, who also noted that the same 'Martin versus the rest' split had first surfaced visibly last May when the religious orders reacted sullenly to the Ryan report on systematic institutional abuse of children. In no uncertain terms, Archbishop Martin reminded the religious of their moral obligation to provide more financial compensation to victims. Meanwhile, as if on cue with Bishop O'Mahony, Fr Padraig McCarthy, a retired Dublin priest with 42 years' experience in the ministry, has expressed his strong reservations about key findings in the Murphy report in an article published in the February issue of 'The Furrow', the monthly journal for clergy. Pointedly, Fr McCarthy writes that Archbishop Martin was under great pressure in the days and weeks after the publication of the Murphy report on November 26. But implying that Dr Martin is remote from his clergy, Fr McCarthy adds: "What was and still is missing, however, is a considered diocesan response." The considered response offered by Fr McCarthy includes questioning the report's conclusion that "the vast majority of priests simply chose to turn a blind eye" to instances of abuse and were thus complicit in concealment of paedophile clerics. He also questions the concept of collective responsibility among those who exercised authority in the diocese, wryly noting that, in 42 years of service, "it has been more conspicuous by its absence". The enigmatic Archbishop Martin, who has established an image in the public mind of being 'the White Knight' of the hierarchy also finds himself under fire in the same issue of 'The Furrow' from a former head of the Jesuits in Ireland. Fr Gerry O'Hanlon SJ, a distinguished theologian, criticises the archbishop for expressing his reluctance to convene a national synod or assembly of bishops, priests and laity to address both the fallout from the Murphy report and to chart the way forward for "a People's Church". Fr O'Hanlon suggests that "the decisive leadership that is required is precisely the facilitation of a much wider consultative process, like that which would culminate in a national synod or assembly". Capturing the angry mood of the laity against the authoritarian clericalist structures that continue to dominate Maynooth and the Vatican, the Jesuit scholar also questions the secrecy which has clouded the approach to the Rome summit. "It will not do any more for priests, bishops, cardinals, the Pope to simply tell us what to think, what to do," he chides. "People, rightly, want to have a say." However, the big question is how can people have their right to speak guaranteed in a church that continues to operate like a closed clericalist society -- not even the Vatican press office will say what is on the agenda when each bishop has his seven-minute say with Pope Benedict? Whatever the Pontiff has to say will be far from being the last word on the scandals if priests and laity demand a national forum. If this right is not granted or exercised, they will not even listen to the Pope and the bishops. - John Cooney
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03 Feb 2010
Time:
09:24:35
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Priest pleading guilty to further sex offences……. Convicted sex offender Fr Ronald Bennett is pleading guilty to other sex offences at Gormanston College, a circuit court judge was told yesterday Bennett's solicitor told Judge Michael O'Shea at Trim Circuit Court that a jury would not be required. State prosecutor Karl Hanahoe said there would be evidence of the impact on the victim on the next court date. Bennett is charged with five sample counts of indecent assault on a boy at the Franciscan-run college in the mid 1970s. In 2007, Bennett was jailed for two and a half years on six sample charges of assault against four pupils from 1974 to 1981. He was ordained in 1961 and appointed to Gormanston as spiritual adviser and sports master in 1963. He was involved in the Irish Swimming Association from 1974
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Date:
04 Feb 2010
Time:
17:58:23
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Buffeted by priest sex abuse lawsuits, Vermont's Catholic church says it will sell its headquarters building and a children's camp to raise money for settlements to alleged abuse victims. If it does, the 118,000-member Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington would become the latest U.S. diocese to resort to selling off assets to satisfy claims stemming from sexual abuse by priests. "It sends a real signal to the parishioners (of) how serious they're taking this," said Charles Zech, director of the Center for the Study of Church Management at Villanova University. "It's serious financially, but they're also showing they're serious about working it out." Such moves have become increasingly common in the wake of the clergy sex scandal. David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the diocese "has long failed to honor its promises." "This is a fairly common maneuver by church officials, as clergy sex abuse and cover-up cases near resolution, to plead poverty, hoping to win public sympathy and persuade victims to settle cheaply," Clohessy said. McCormick said the church has had the properties appraised and is in talks with the Town of Colchester about the town buying the camp. Church officials are now looking for new office space, he said. He said the diocese has considered filing for bankruptcy but resisted it because the priest sex cases would still have to be dealt with. It remains an option, he said. A Fighting Survivor
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Date:
04 Feb 2010
Time:
18:53:07
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It appears that all the Religious Orders that have contributed to the CORI Substantial Financial Contribution to Survivors has posted their details on their websites and it is also been muted that the Catholic Church want to make a very large financial contribution into the same deal only these guys want a indemnity deal similar to the one that was done with the Unholy Orders that ran the Industrial Schools. Could this happen? Is this what the Gang of Four have been setting up in their clandestine meetings with the Catholic Church?
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Date:
04 Feb 2010
Time:
19:06:06
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I believe very strongly that a Memorial should be put in place in memory of all the children that never came home from the Industrial Schools Etc and to recognise all the Pain,Trauma, Night Terrors and damage that was done to us as innocent children. There should be a special day each year to allow us to show respect to the dead and to show that we care. It would also give Survivors a chance to pay their respects at a time that would suit them because some may want to do it in a different individual way. "Lest We Forget"
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Date:
04 Feb 2010
Time:
19:36:20
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Memorialise, according to the dictionary definition, means to record lastingly with a monument, whatever form that monument takes, be it a stone, a building, a book of faces and names. And pondering that definition brings up an intriguing question of philosophy and psychology. Why do we memorialise things and people and certain events? The answer to that question, undoubtedly, seems self-evident to many people. Apparently, it is just simple common sense that all of humanity has an innate desire, even emotional need; to stay connected with itself through the ages. To want to be remembered and to want to remember is, it seems, as natural a part of being human as are eating, drinking and sleeping. The great Ancient Greek thinker Socrates often made reference to this phenomena when he talked about his ideas regarding education. He said, in a nutshell, that the soul of each man on Earth is an infinite force possibly a part of the gods that have roamed the universe forever and will continue roaming for eternity. And through this connection with all that is, ever was, and ever will be each soul knows everything that there is to know. The job of an earthly human, therefore, is to simply learn to remember all that his or her soul ever knew. That is the definition of education, according to Socrates. The word holds Socrates idea in its very denotation. To say that we are “re” - membering a thing, assumes that we have always known that thing. So, to memorialise, is the most natural of human traditions besides being the most special. Perhaps in the spirit of Socrates idea that the people of yesteryear have been with us now and always, because of the infinite connection that each human has with each other member of humanity (past, present, and future) memorials are not just for the famous. No one would likely argue that it is every mans natural right to be memorialised even if the structure is just a simple, but very special, gravestone. Mick o'Brien, being from Clonmel should tell us all about the memorials/monuments he helped preserve while he was Mare of Clonmel --- especially the ones dedicated to the Catholic Church.
Remote User:
Date:
05 Feb 2010
Time:
09:32:28
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Irate priests critical of Archbishop Martin A MEETING of priests has heard demands that Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin be confronted over his handling of the fallout from the Murphy report on clerical child sex abuse. It also heard claims that the archbishop had become “a source of division” among priests and bishops. About 25 Dublin priests attended the meeting at Manresa retreat house on January 18th. Details of the minutes of the meeting are reported in the latest edition of the Irish Catholic published today. The minutes state that the majority of priests in attendance were middle-aged and all got a chance to speak. The meeting was specially convened to discuss the Murphy report. “Anger, frustration and a sense of helplessness [were] expressed at the lack of compassion shown by the diocese in recent months, particularly towards the auxiliary bishops,” the minutes report. “We felt that a grave injustice has been done to men who have loyally served this diocese with selfless commitment and Christ-like compassion.” The minutes go on to say that priests were “dumbfounded” by Dr Martin’s letter to former auxiliary bishop Donal O’Mahony. “To say his good name had been tarnished was untrue, cruel and insulting.” In the letter, Dr Martin had asked Dr O’Mahony to refrain from publicly administering Confirmation and to cease his association with a charity bringing disabled children to Lourdes. He also withdrew his invitation to Dr O’Mahony to sit at meetings of the diocesan council. Dr O’Mahony, in turn, claimed Dr Martin had failed to support priests in the Dublin diocese following publication of the Murphy report. He also called on priests to challenge the acceptance by media, and diocese policy, that the church engaged in a “cover up”. The clerical meeting also heard claims that Dr Martin spoke to his auxiliaries through the media. And in television interviews he seemed to have more in common with his obvious opponents than his bishops. “He enjoyed a good honeymoon period with the press . . . but now there is a general feeling that the archbishop is a source of division among his priests and among his fellow bishops,” the minutes state. “Justice demands that he be confronted and told that if he is about reform, then his priests and the laity . . . need to be part of the entire process. We are no longer content to be puppets of the diocese.” The meeting heard claims that Dr Martin had a “dictatorial manner” and said it had emerged “not just now but from the first day he returned to Drumcondra”. The minutes also claim that the chairman of the Council of Priests, Fr Joe Mullan, who appeared on television and radio after the Murphy report, had no mandate from the council to speak on its behalf and priests asked if he had a mandate from the archbishop. The meeting heard agreement that no critical analysis of the Murphy report had been carried out “and this should take place as a matter of urgency”. It also noted the silence of Cardinal Desmond Connell on the issue. The Irish Catholic article said several resolutions were tabled but were not voted on due to lack of time. They included a resolution inviting the Office for Priests to organise events to allow priests perform acts of personal reparation for the sins of clerical abuse. The archbishop’s communications office said last night that it couldn’t comment on the minutes because it had not seen them. Irish Catholic editor Garry O’Sullivan said it was clear now that, “ at least among some priests there is dismay . . . about the fact that the archbishop appears to give the impression that he is not willing to defend the reputation of the many good priests not implicated in the Murphy report”.
Remote User:
Date:
05 Feb 2010
Time:
09:33:08
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Priests: Martin is source of division.......By Garry O’Sullivan.......... Friday, February 05, 2010................... Priests are no longer content to be puppets of the diocese" according to the minutes of a meeting of up to 25 Dublin priests, where Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s "dictatorial manner" was also criticised. The meeting heard a scathing critique of Archbishop Martin’s handling of the Murphy report aftermath which was recorded in minutes of the meeting. It is believed most of the priests in attendance at the January 18 meeting spoke and the majority were middle-aged. The minutes recorded complaints that there was a lack of compassion shown towards the Auxiliary Bishops by the Archbishop of Dublin and a grave injustice was done to them. The minutes also reveal that priests were "dumbfounded" by Archbishop Martin’s letter to Bishop Donal O’Mahony and contend that the auxiliary bishops were "hung out to dry". It alleges that there is a general feeling that the archbishop is a source of division among priests and bishops and that priests "are no longer content to be puppets of the diocese" and it accuses the archbishop of having a "dictatorial manner" which it alleges he has demonstrated "from the first day he returned to Drumcondra". The minutes of the meeting, which took place in Manresa retreat house, also state that the chairman of the Priest’s Council who appeared on television and radio after the Murphy report had no mandate from the council to speak on its behalf and ask if he had a mandate from the archbishop. A critical analysis of the Murphy report was called for as a matter of urgency and Cardinal Desmond Connell’s silence was noted in the minutes. Several resolutions were also tabled but were not voted on due to lack of time. They included a resolution inviting the Office for Priests to organise events to allow priests perform acts of personal reparation for the sins of clerical abuse. Another resolution was to ask the Priests Council to commission experts to study the Murphy report. A third resolution sought an investigation into how the archdiocese failed to protect the good name and reputation of the majority of its clergy and to question why no defence was offered in the media to a sustained campaign to discredit the Church in Dublin and its clergy and office holders. The archbishop’s communications office was offered the opportunity to reply to an outline of what was contained in the minutes of the Manresa meeting but declined unless they could "see the minutes in full, and the authors – not an outline". The Irish Catholic refused to divulge its sources. * This article first appeared in the Irish Catholic, which is Ireland’s biggest and best-selling religious newspaper and is published every Thursday.
Remote User:
Date:
05 Feb 2010
Time:
09:34:53
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Vatican concern over signs of divided hierarchy AS THE countdown begins to the forthcoming Vatican meeting between Pope Benedict, senior Curia figures and the Irish bishops, Vatican insiders have suggested the Holy See has been alarmed by recent signs of internecine strife within the Irish hierarchy. Many commentators believe the Holy See intends the meeting, scheduled for February 15th and 16th, to serve as a starting point around which the Irish Catholic Church can unify as it strives to achieve closure on the pain inflicted, above all on the victims but also on the church, by Ireland’s prolonged clerical child abuse crisis. In such a context, the Holy See has been confused and alarmed by apparent factional in-fighting among the hierarchy. Reports of former Dublin auxiliary bishop Dermot O’Mahony criticising Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin for failing to support the priests in his archdiocese in the wake of the Murphy report have caused concern. Likewise, an article in today’s Irish Catholic reporting that a number of Dublin priests feel Archbishop Martin showed a lack of compassion towards the auxiliary bishops named in the Murphy report; that he left them “hung out to dry”, will only add to the Holy See’s sense of concern. Senior Curia figures are likely to be unimpressed by the fact that such tensions in the Irish church have found very public expression. The Holy See and the Italian Catholic Church are rife with bitter internal feuds. But these tend to flow along underground with churchmen rarely criticising one another in public debate. Full frontal attacks are not a constituent part of Holy See DNA. Many commentators had originally anticipated that when the Irish bishops arrive in Rome for their meeting with the pope, they would be presented with a final copy of his forthcoming “pastoral letter” to the Irish faithful. Given the obvious climate of dissension within the hierarchy, it is possible that the pope may wait until he has met and listened to the Irish bishops before issuing the definitive version of this unprecedented message. When the pope last met with the Irish bishops at their Ad Limina visit in 2006, he called on them to “deal with the problem in an efficient manner”, adding: “It is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take all possible measures so that this can never happen again in the future, to guarantee that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to heal the victims and all those who have been hurt by these abnormal crimes.” At their Vatican meetings, the pontiff is likely to suggest to the bishops that, from the Holy See’s viewpoint, the Murphy report represents an important stage in carrying out his Ad Limina recommendations. In that context, senior Curia figures are likely to express their concern at the apparent unwillingness of some members of the Irish hierarchy to accept the overall findings of the Murphy report.
Remote User:
Date:
05 Feb 2010
Time:
09:41:08
Comments
Call for church and State to be separated......Mary Minihan............ Ireland needs complete separation of the Catholic Church and State as a matter of urgency, the Leviathan political cabaret heard in Dublin last night. Former Labour Party general secretary Brendan Halligan, now chairman of the Institute of International and European Affairs, said the church should no longer have a role in primary education. “No question they should be taken out of primary education as soon as possible. We need proper and thorough complete separation of church and State,” Mr Halligan said. He understood that in the past the church had provided a health service where none existed. “We should say thanks and get on with it,” he added. The topic under discussion was “A new Constitution: a second republic?” Mr Halligan said he would like to see the Constitution changed, and called on the “political class” to give leadership and take firm decisions on the matter. “I’m with Napoleon. He said constitutions should be short, simple and vague.” Irish Times columnist Dr Elaine Byrne, adjunct lecturer in the department of political science at Trinity College Dublin, said she was in favour of cautious constitutional reform. However, she stressed the Irish people had to “take ownership” of the issue
Remote User:
Date:
06 Feb 2010
Time:
08:14:04
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Dad faces 300 charges of abusing daughters..............................Saturday February 06 2010 A FATHER has appeared in court charged with more than 100 counts of rape, buggery and the indecent assault of one of his daughters. The accused denied the offences when the charges were put to him at Harristown District Court in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, yesterday. The man faces the 102 new charges in addition to almost 200 charges of raping four of his daughters. The defendant was yesterday charged with 78 counts of rape, 12 counts of buggery and 12 allegations of indecent assault on a named daughter on dates between 1985 and 2000. He was remanded in custody to appear before Harristown District Court next Friday. His wife faces a total of 18 charges of cruelty and neglect of her children between May 2002 and June of last year. Irish Independent
Remote User:
Date:
06 Feb 2010
Time:
18:36:55
Comments
It's mind-boggling that Burlington's Catholic bishop tried to overturn a jury verdict in a clergy sex abuse case on patently flimsy grounds. Bishop Salvatore Matano claims a retrial is needed because for a few seconds, a juror innocently exchanged small talk with a man who, it turns out, was a party to the case. Matano is apparently also upset because another juror supposedly expressed concerns about how a verdict against the diocese might affect her child's parochial school tuition. It's just more proof that church officials will use any excuse, however tiny or absurd, to try and avoid being held responsible for predator priests and complicit bishops. BARBARA DORRIS (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests)
Remote User:
Date:
07 Feb 2010
Time:
12:37:09
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Archbishop McQuaid: In his biography of the Archbishop, John Cooney relates a number of stories that suggest that Dr. McQuaid had an unhealthy interest in children. The main allegation – that the Archbishop had attempted to sexually assault a boy in a Dublin pub – is based on an unpublished essay by McQuaid's bitter antagonist Noel Browne. No reputable historian or journalist supports these claims. UNTIL NOW: In Martin Sixsmith's 2009 book "The Lost Child of Philomena Lee" (Macmillan, P41 and P42) it states that Joe Coram, a senior civil servant at the then Department of External Affairs sent a note to McQuaid with these allegations in the hope that McQuaid would remove his opposition to the new Adoption Bill which would prevent the selling of Irish children to foreign parents. A week after the note was sent McQuaid sent Fr Cecil Barrett to the Department to help in the formation of the bill. Reviewers who praised the biography stated that the author should have left out these allegations (e.g. Dermot Keogh, Professor of History and John A. Murphy, Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork). There is a satirical account of the controversy by then Irish Times journalist Kevin Myers. Kevin Myers is a British-born Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish Independent and is a former contributor to The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly... in his Irishman's Diary on 10 November 1999. There is also an interesting account by Colum Kennny, Associate Professor of Communications at Dublin City University of a meeting he had with the Archbishop as a teenager in the 1960s. Although his attitude to Dr. McQuaid is hostile, he regards Cooney's allegations as absurd. He also provides this revealing vignette: "I remember the archbishop later sighing about the amount of correspondence he received from people. He waved a hand across the papers on his desk and muttered: They write to me about the system. What system? There are only people; or words to that effect." A Curious Sequel: In 1961 Archbishop McQuaid established a hostel in Dublin for boys who had been in industrial schools – mainly Artane – and assigned priests to see to their spiritual welfare and to help them integrate into society. In the mid 1960s, one of these priests was the young Diarmuid Martin who went on to become Archbishop of Dublin in 2004 and to take a strong line against alleged clerical abusers. On 20 June 2009, John Cooney wrote an article in the Irish Independent demanding to know why Martin had not denounced the alleged horrors of Artane 40 years previously! A Fighting Survivor
Remote User:
Date:
07 Feb 2010
Time:
17:50:24
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The religious orders criticised in the Ryan Report are reportedly seeking to have their legal bills covered by the taxpayer. The Sunday Tribune reports that the costs could run to €40m. Meanwhile the religious orders are close to a final agreement with the Government on making further contributions of €100m, along with properties, to the redress scheme. Fine Gael Senator Eugene Regan said the religious orders should not ask the taxpayer to pay their legal costs, saying: "It may be legally correct that the religious orders have been guaranteed the legal fees by the Government, but is it morally justifiable?"
Remote User:
Date:
07 Feb 2010
Time:
18:47:21
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UNHOLY ORDERS:.....Morality, like ethics, standards and decency, has felt like a dirty word in recent years. The modern generation must tiptoe through a minefield of dilemmas where there are few certainties. But there have been revelations of such horror that collective judgement has been immediate and absolute....... Last year the contents of the Ryan report into child abuse in residential institutions shocked Irish society to its core. We struggled to find an adequate response as the scale and depth of systematic abuse of children emerged. The acts described in the report were of the most heinous nature – repeated rapes, constant humiliation, attempted destruction of children. ...The publication of the report was a powerful moment of awakening. It forced the government to reexamine the contemptible deal struck with the religious orders that offered them indemnity against all legal claims on payment of €128m in cash and property. The arrangement, brokered in the final days of the government in 2002, was on behalf of 18 religious orders. Total liability later ran to €1.2bn.....When the disgusting detail of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse came out, the public clamour for more accountability from the religious orders grew to a crescendo. While initially resisting a reopening of the deal they later relented and agreed that it could after all be reopened. .....The 18 orders that signed the indemnity deal with the State were the same orders who had tried their best to obstruct the compilation of the report. They are: Sisters of Mercy; Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul; Christian Brothers; Good Shepherd Sisters; Presentation Brothers; Rosminians; Oblates of Mary Immaculate; Hospitaller Order of St John of God; Sisters of Charity; Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge; Sisters of St Clare; Institute of St Louis; Presentation Sisters; De La Salle Brothers; Dominicans; Daughters of the Heart of Mary; Brothers of Charity and Sisters of Nazareth.....Last May the Conference of Religious in Ireland (Cori) said: "Cori supports the 18 congregations whose institutions were investigated by the Ryan report in their efforts to find the best and most appropriate ways forward. All of us accept with humility that massive mistakes were made and grave injustices were inflicted on very vulnerable children. No excuse can be offered for what has happened. The recommendations and conclusions of the Ryan report constitute an imperative for all those involved in the care of vulnerable people.".....Yet today we reveal that these same religious orders are seeking to have the State cover their legal costs for their obfuscation in its compilation. While they have been forced, kicking and dragging, to make adequate compensation for their crimes against children by handing over more property and cash to the state, this move will effectively claw back tens of millions of euro if they are allowed to succeed in their claim.... Enda Kenny is right when he says that just because it is legally correct it does not make it morally justifiable. Unfortunately morality and the Catholic Church in Ireland are not synonymous. Our expectations for the behaviour of the religious orders at whose hands generations of children suffered are very low. Is it too much to expect that our religious leaders would know what the right thing to do is?...... The Christian Brothers and the Cori were unavailable for comment this weekend. We hope they are considering the morality of their position.
Remote User:
Date:
07 Feb 2010
Time:
18:57:55
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Named and shamed: US group exposes Irish sex abuse priests............... A Boston-based group has listed 70 Irish priests who assaulted children in the US, with more names on the way...... In a fleeting moment captured forever, the rest of the world began to comprehend the horrors that men of cloth were capable of inflicting on children.... Paedophile priestBrendan Smyth would later die in prison, having been convicted of sexual abuse of children north and south of the Irish border. He was one of hundreds of Irish priests exported to the US for pastoral duties. Some, like Smyth, were re-located to America by the church authorities when accusations of abuse began to emerge. They were treated as problems that could be placed out of sight and out of mind..... Similar crimes:- Others, like defrocked cleric Oliver O'Grady, were sent to the US fresh from the seminary. Their superiors had no idea about the criminal behaviours of child abuse these men would embark upon. O'Grady was deported to Ireland in 2000 after spending seven years in prison in the US for sexually abusing two boys. He had admitted to abusing as many as 25 children in the California area and obtained notoriety when featured in a documentary discussing his desire to have sex with children...... There are many other Irish priests who carried out similar crimes in America. Most of these men are unknown on this side of the Atlantic. But now, for the first time, a list of Irish clerics who have sexually abused children in the US has been compiled..... A Boston-based group that has been chronicling the American clerical sexual abuse scandal has assembled a list of 70 Irish priests that the church has accepted assaulted children. Many more Irish priests' names are due to be added to the list..... The group, bishopaccountability.org, says that, by revealing the names, it hopes to highlight the culture of "outsourcing" known Irish paedophile priests to the US. It took months of work to compile the list. The Ferns, Murphy and Ryan reports were studied as well as information published by Joe Rigert in his book An Irish Tragedy........ "In many ways, the Irish built the US church. Many of the bishops leading the church in the US at the moment were born in Ireland," Terence McKiernan, co-founder of bishopaccountability.org, told the Sunday Tribune...... "In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was an influx of an Irish immigrant population into the US. Irish priests were required to serve their needs, so Irish priests began to be sent over. This is how the strong link between Irish and US Catholic hierarchy began. The church is a powerful international organisation, so when a priest is accused of something, it's very easy to move him around. Part of the solution to this was to export the problem of Irish paedophile priests to the US. In a way, the US was used as a dumping ground for some problem priests."......... One-third of priests in the US are Irish or of Irish descent. Disturbing accounts of abuse perpetrated on trainee priests at Irish seminaries is slowly beginning to emerge........ Lot of influence:- So, has there been a disproportionate number of Irish clerical abusers?.. "I don't know. The Catholic church was dominant in Ireland and had a lot of influence. I do wonder if, given what we've seen, there was a problem with the way Irish priests were trained and managed and whether the sexual assault problem within the clergy wasn't especially grave in Ireland," says McKiernan....... "We are not trying to say that Irish priests and bishops have spoiled the US church. It's a case of it being a global organisation and abusers were moved around within it.".. The group is now working on trying to identify some of those given pseudonyms in the Murphy report where it is legally possible. The late clerical abuser Brendan Smyth is also the focus of another of its investigations. At present, the organisation is trying to trace the late cleric's "assignment history" around the world so that it can finally clear up where the abuser lived throughout his career.... Problem priests: The Catholic church has consistently refused to make this information public. The group has also begun to scratch the surface about how church authorities posted "problem priests" abroad to the missions...... "Irish missionary work has always been very important to the Catholic church and they have done wonderful work. But we are learning that the missions were also seen as a way of moving problem priests from all over the world out of scrutiny," says McKiernan
Remote User:
Date:
07 Feb 2010
Time:
19:13:00
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CATHOLIC CLERICAL CHILD SEXUAL TERRORISTS:- Following the trail of sexual abuse in the US......Fr John Flynn:- He stood down from his parish in San Antonio, Texas, in 1997 after admitting he molested a teenage girl in the 1970s. After he went into therapy, Bishop Edmond Carmody, a friend, then allowed him to serve in a parish in Longview, Texas despite his earlier admission of abuse. Carmody's successor asked Flynn to step down in 2002..... Fr John Lenihan:- He engaged in oral sex with a 14-year-old girl, and admitted that he got a 16-year-old girl pregnant, taking her in for an abortion. The church paid more than $1.5m to settle multiple abuse claims against him in the 1970s, and the Orange County cleric agreed to be defrocked by the pope. The late Bishop Norman McFarland had allowed Lenihan to stay in the diocese even though he had been accused of rape, and, later, his successor, Bishop Tod Brown, admitted he allowed Lenihan to work in a parish with an elementary school...... Fr Joseph Maguire:- He was sentenced to 44 years in prison after admitting he sexually assaulted three boys in New Hampshire. The prosecutor said he had sexually abused at least 10 boys in a 30-year period, starting in the 1970s. He died in prison..... Fr Michael Cashman:- Beloved as 'Father Mike' by the people of his parish in Metuchen, New Jersey, he was a spiritual advisor to New Jersey governor James McGreevey, baptised one of his two children and offered the benediction at his inaugural. But in 2002 he was accused of having molested a mother and her two teenage children, a daughter and son, over a period of several years. The church paid $145,000 to the victims along with another woman, who accused him of improper conduct. A church court in 2009 found him guilty of abusing a child in the 1980s and he was removed from the ministry........ Fr Matthew Fitzgerald:- Bishop Anthony O'Connell made it possible for Fitzgerald to retain his priestly duties in Palm Beach, Florida, despite allegations in a lawsuit that he had repeatedly molested teenage boys and young men. Before that, Bishop John McGann, serving in Long Island, moved him to another parish after receiving a complaint he had abused a boy in 1984, and then recommended him for transfer to Florida in 1989, where he continued to abuse boys into the 1990s. He was finally banned from duties in Palm Beach in 2000. The combined dioceses paid more than $100,000 to one victim alone....... Fr Andrew Millar:- Millar went to prison and was later defrocked by the Vatican for sodomising a mentally disabled 10-year-old boy in a public toilet in New York in 1999..... Fr Oliver O'Grady:- He admitted molesting or attempting to molest as many as 50 boys and girls in LA, and eventually served seven years in prison for his crimes. He cost the church more than $13m in compensation and now lives in Ireland......... Fr Brendan Smyth:- Smyth left a trail of sex abuse in Britain, Ireland and the US, serving in Rhode Island and North Dakota. In all, Smyth abused scores of children from the 1960s to the 1980s before he was finally convicted of his crimes in Ireland and twice sentenced to prison, where he died....... Bishop Anthony O'Connell:- Resigned after admitting he had sexually abused two young men at a seminary in Missouri where he was a faculty member and then rector. Further inquiry found that, starting in the 1960s, he had been sexually involved with nine young men, both as a priest at the seminary and as bishop in Knoxville, Tennessee. He resigned his position as the bishop of Palm Beach in 2002. Pope John Paul II assigned O'Connell to lead the Palm Beach Diocese in 1999, to help it heal after the resignation of Bishop Joseph Keith Symons, who admitted that he had sexually molested five boys earlier in his career. "I'm mortified and I'm saddened and embarrassed and ashamed," said O'Connell upon his resignation............ Fr Andrew Ronan:- Served in Ireland, Chicago and Portland, Oregan. He admitted sexually abusing young men in Ireland, then was exported to the United States, where he continued his predatory activity in the 1960s in Chicago and Portland. In a major case, the US judiciary has kept alive a lawsuit seeking to make the Vatican pay restitu¬tion for the abuses of its priests. Ronan was defrocked in 1966 and died in 1992......... Fr Donal Collins:- Convicted in 1998 of sexually abusing several boys at St Peter's College seminary in Florida and sentenced to four years in prison. When the first reports of child sexual abuse were made to the Ferns diocese in 1966 about Collins he was sent to a parish in London for two years, the report said. The report noted that the then bishop of Ferns, Donal Herlihy, did not tell the diocese of Westminster to which he was sent why he was removed from St Peter's College, Wexford, where he had been a science teacher. He worked in a parish in Florida from 1991-93 when he was sent to attend a treatment center in Hartford archdiocese. He served just one year at the Curragh prison for his crimes in Florida. He was released in 1999....... Fr Paul Madden:- Admitted to sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy in the diocese of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi. Bishop Joseph Latino allowed him to remain in the ministry even though he admitted sexually abusing the child. The victim said in a lawsuit that Madden abused him while they were on a trip to Ireland. The church settled a multi-million lawsuit with the victim. A missionary in Latin America for many years, Madden was accepted in a diocese in Peru in 2003..... Fr Patrick Callanan:- The Catholic diocese of Tucson, Arizona, announced that he was one of 26 priests in the diocese who had molested 96 children between 1950 and 2004. Callanan had served in four parishes from 1952 to 1964, but the abuse allegation was not received until 2002, 27 years after his death in 1975......... Fr Thomas English:- Sued in 2003 for having abused a minor in 1969 in a parish in Pomona, Los Angeles. The Los Angeles archdiocese says the allegations were unfounded, but the lawsuit remained active, which means a therapist concluded they were credible. The finding by a therapist is required before a lawsuit can be filed.) English is deceased.
Remote User:
Date:
07 Feb 2010
Time:
20:28:59
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This Album memorializes the arrival of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in May of 1944. It is the ONLY one of its kind, and it is solely due to this album that we have a visual history of what occurred in the Auschwitz-Birchenau death camp. The album was discovered after the war by an Auschwitz survivor, Lily Jacob, who donated it to Yad Vashem in 1980. http://eretzyisrael.posterous.com/the-auschwitz-album
Remote User:
Date:
08 Feb 2010
Time:
08:45:17
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Defiant Martin shrugs off his critics in clergy A DEFIANT Archbishop of Dublin has shrugged off mounting criticism from priests of him being "a divisive" figure for fully accepting the Murphy report's damning findings of cover-ups of paedophile priests. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was responding publicly for the first time to criticism that has been building since a meeting of priests in Dublin only days after the publication of the report on November 26 last. "I believe my reaction was to recognise something terrible happened on our watch," Dr Martin said in an exclusive interview with the Irish Independent yesterday. "We got it spectacularly wrong," he added. "We have to admit that, and admit it unconditionally." The archbishop also broke his self-imposed silence to speak about his expectations of the outcome of next week's summit meeting in Rome of the Irish Episcopal Conference with Pope Benedict XVI and leading members of his Curia -- the papal government or civil service. "I hope it is a time when the Bishops' Conference will be united about a programme for the future so that we can really have an Irish Church that is very different from the one we have experienced," he said. Referring to the extraordinary summit, which will be held next Monday and Tuesday, February 15 and 16, Dr Martin said that on Monday morning each bishop will have a seven-minute private audience with the Pope before meeting the heads of the main departments in the Roman civil service. But he revealed he had "no idea of the agenda" for the Rome summit. "I have received nothing since the beginning," he said, a reference to the original summons to Rome issued by Pope Benedict in early December to discuss the fall-out from the Murphy report and to chart a reform programme of change for the Irish Church. And Dr Martin emphatically dismissed media reports that he had been heavily involved in the drafting of a Lenten Pastoral letter that Pope Benedict will address to the Catholic community in Ireland. "I am certainly not drafting the letter," he said. Summit Dr Martin also revealed he had been busily engaged in low-key consultations ahead of the Rome special summit. "I have consulted with victims of clerical child sex abuse," he said, declining to give details about these contacts and their advice on the way forward. "They have been private conversations," said the former Roman diplomat, who took over the scandal-ridden diocese from Cardinal Desmond Connell in 2004. "I have been holding meetings with priests and various people, too, but I'm not doing it in a huge, open way. "I have also encouraged parishes and pastoral councils in the archdiocese to put in writing to me (about reform and change) and I am analysing the responses. "If we had more of that, we would have a Church that would be strong," he added. Asked if he was ruling out, in this reform process, the convening of a national pastoral assembly or synod of bishops, priests and laity, he said: "Let's get to see what the aim of the renewal is and find the best means when we are clear about the type of renewal we want." Dr Martin said he had been heartened by the spirit of the lay organisation Viatores Christi -- Travellers for Christ -- whose 50th anniversary he celebrated yesterday at a Mass in their headquarters on New Cabra Road, Phibsboro, Dublin, which he also blessed. Founded in 1960 by UCD students who had participated in volunteer work during their summer holidays, this lay missionary movement has sent more than 2,000 Irish Catholics to take up longer-term voluntary work overseas. "I think that Viatores Christi is an example of how, when people put the care of Christ in first place, you will attract the idealism of young people," said Dr Martin. "As I said in my homily, when Jesus calls to conversion he does so not by threatening nor by punishing, but by allowing us to experience the lavishness of his love." Among those whom the archbishop met was Maeve Bracken, a former adviser to then Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh, who was on assignment with Viatores Christi in Haiti when the earthquake struck. She told Dr Martin of her wish to return to an orphanage close to Port-au-Prince once she has received paramedical training. - John Cooney Religion Correspondent
Remote User:
Date:
08 Feb 2010
Time:
08:48:20
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Bishops meet victims ahead of 'mini-synod' Monday February 08 2010 SENIOR Catholic clergy are to meet survivors of clerical abuse today ahead of their visit to Rome to discuss the fallout of the institutional child abuse scandal with the Pope. The Irish Bishops' Conference has refused to comment on the meeting except to say that it is confidential. However, it is understood to be taking place this morning in Maynooth, and various survivors' representatives will be in attendance. The survivors will present a written submission to the bishops on the issues raised in the Ryan report on institutional abuse and the Murphy report on the cover-up of child sex abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese. Cardinal Sean Brady announced last month that he would hold discussions with survivors ahead of his visit to the Vatican. He also said the bishops would engage in as much consultation as possible with lay people, the religious and priests before meeting Pope Benedict. Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin will not be attending today's meeting and has been holding his own discussions with abuse victims. The bishops of all 26 dioceses will travel to Rome this weekend ahead of their two-day 'mini-synod' with the Pontiff, which begins next Monday. The Vatican has been criticised for failing to make a public statement following the publication of the two reports. Cardinal Brady has said that he does not know what the outcome of the mini-synod will be and, while it would be one step, it would not "resolve all our problems". "I expect to be heard very respectfully by the Holy Father, who said he wants to listen to us in order to help," he said late last month. A spokesman for the Irish Bishops' Conference refused to confirm that the Maynooth meeting was taking place today and would only say that the meeting was being done "at a local level" and was confidential. - Breda Heffernan
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Date:
08 Feb 2010
Time:
08:51:17
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John Cooney: Martin treads a righteous path beset with obstacles Monday February 08 2010 SIX years after taking over from the disgraced Cardinal Desmond Connell as Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin is highly trusted by the public nationwide for his determined commitment to root out paedophile priests. In fact, he is probably the only bishop who is fully trusted to put the welfare of children above shielding the church from scandal. The former Vatican diplomat, who did not seek the emotionally draining job of cleaning up the clerical abuse mess left by Cardinal Connell, has also proved himself to be the Irish church's most effective communicator in enforcing the best standards of child protection. Yet his stock among his fellow bishops and his own clergy in the Dublin Archdiocese has plummeted to its lowest level since he took charge in April 2004. Just as a prophet is not recognised in his homeland, so too, it would seem, a church reformer is fated to meet resistance from defenders of the status quo. As early as spring 2006, when he was just two years at the helm of the biggest of Ireland's 26 dioceses, sly digs were being made by other bishops about how detached the Archbishop of Dublin was from their largely rural perspectives and problems. Among social gatherings of Dublin priests, the French nickname was quickly given to him of 'St Martin of Tours', a reference to his habit of attending conferences and giving speeches on the international circuit. Last month, the archbishop even found time out from his demanding central role in preparations for this month's summit in Rome of the Irish bishops with Pope Benedict to address the prestigious annual get-together of the movers and shakers of the business world in Davos, Switzerland. As early as 2006, too, some of his priests were telling him at private meetings of clergy that they regarded him as a temporary phenomenon who was dispatched to Dublin as the Pope's man but who would be called back to high office in the Vatican some time after the publication of the Murphy report into the cover-ups of abuse in the archdiocese. Individual priests challenged his declared policy of immediately removing from office priests against whom complaints or even suspicions of inappropriate behaviour towards children were made. The priests complained that they were being deprived of due process, and that ensuing media publicity would severely damage their reputations even if later acquitted of unfounded charges. The archbishop has tried to keep such cases out of the news ahead of any criminal court appearances, but he was not for turning on church disciplinary policy. This criticism of his leadership, however, has reached new heights amounting almost to open revolt. An unexpected channel for airing these grievances has come from a church newspaper which was traditionally a docile propaganda medium of the bishops, but which is now to the fore in campaigning for extensive reform of an over-clericalist church. The current issue of the 'Irish Catholic' has reported the minutes of a private meeting of up to 25 priests held in January at which it was claimed that Dr Martin has become "a source of division", and had adopted "a dictatorial manner". The priests claimed it was "a grave injustice" that Dr Martin "hung out to dry" six former Dublin auxiliaries named in the Murphy report, whom he called on to take responsibility for being part of a system of church governance that put the prestige of the church above the welfare of children. This 'underground' meeting called for an analysis of the Murphy report as a matter of urgency, a move which is echoed in the February issue of 'The Furrow', the Maynooth journal for clergy, where retired Dublin priest, Fr Padraig McCarthy, openly questions its conclusion that the majority of Dublin priests were complicit in the concealment of abuse by simply choosing to turn a blind eye. Fr McCarthy makes the astoundingly arrogant claim that his analysis is an "objective" reading of the report, and he suggests that "what was and still is missing is a considered diocesan response". In other words, Fr McCarthy has laid down the gauntlet to Dr Martin with his implied criticism that his boss's response has been unobjective and unrepresentative of clerical opinion in the archdiocese. When I asked Dr Martin yesterday if he accepted he was "a divisive figure", he said that this stemmed from the question that was put to him at a meeting of priests shortly after his return to Dublin from Rome where he and Cardinal Brady briefed Pope Benedict just days after the November 26 publication of the Murphy report. Dr Martin recalled that at this meeting he was asked for his attitude to Murphy's shocking findings. "I believe my reaction was to recognise something terrible happened on our watch," Dr Martin replied. "We got it spectacularly wrong. We have to admit that. And admit it unconditionally." It was a direct answer to the often unsourced criticisms of Dr Martin's unconditional position. With the Rome summit only a week away, nothing short of an unconditional recognition of what victims suffered from clergy will be acceptable to the Catholics of Ireland, whatever the sniping from a minority of grassroots clergy. Dr Martin cannot afford to lose the coming battle for Pope Benedict's ear.
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Date:
08 Feb 2010
Time:
10:21:00
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Amnesty calls for child abuse inquiry.............Dan Kennan......... FRINGE MEETING:- AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has called for a judicial inquiry into child abuse in public institutions in Northern Ireland. Speaking at a packed fringe meeting at the SDLP conference which was attended by victims of abuse, Amnesty's executive director in Ireland, Colm O'Gorman, said: "Individual cases of child abuse must be investigated and prosecuted through the criminal justice system.... "Inquiries into child abuse in the Republic and Wales have led to significant advances in child protection and children's rights, and the Scottish government is currently developing plans to address institutional child abuse there." He said state authorities in the North have such a responsibility in respect of the child victims of institutional abuse, and Amnesty International was calling for an investigation which is independent, impartial and effective in delivering justice for the victims..... The Assembly has already called for an investigation of child abuse. Campaigners are expected to take their campaign for an inquiry to members of the Stormont Executive
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Date:
08 Feb 2010
Time:
18:06:07
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Pope Benedict XVI on Monday lamented how some members of the clergy have "violated" the "dignity" of children, rights that the Catholic Church has "over the centuries" promoted. Benedict's made the remarks in an address to participants of an assembly of the Vatican's family affairs department. In it he also recalled the 20th anniversary of the approval of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. "The Church over the centuries, following the example of Christ, has promoted the dignity and rights of children," Benedict said. "Unfortunately, in various cases some of her members, acting against this commitment, have violated these rights; actions which the Church does not and will not fail to deplore and condemn," Benedict added. The pontiff's words come amid a series of scandals involving sexual abuse of children by priests, including in Ireland and Germany. Benedict did not refer to any specific incidents, but spoke of "actions which the Church does not and will not fail to deplore and condemn." "Jesus' harsh words against those who offend one of these little ones are an admonition to everyone never to lower the level of this respect and love," he said. Benedict has summoned Irish bishops to the Vatican for a February 15-16 meeting to discuss the child sex abuse scandal that has shaken Ireland. The talks follow a December meeting between the pontiff and Ireland's two most senior Catholic churchmen, that took place in the wake of a shock government report which focused on the Dublin archdiocese, Ireland's biggest. At the time Benedict said then he shared "the outrage, betrayal and shame," felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland over the "heinous crimes" catalogued in the report issued in late November. In one case mentioned in the report, a priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children. Four bishops have to date resigned following the report, which revealed that church leaders did not report abuse to police in an apparent attempt to save the church's reputation. Reports from Germany on Saturday indicated that nearly 100 employees of the Catholic Church have been suspected of involvement is sexual abuse during the last 15 years. The latest accusations came following revelations of abuse at four Jesuit-run schools in Germany during the 1970s and 80s. The secretary of the German Bishops9 Conference, Hans Langendoerfer, said he was shocked by the revelations that showed "a dark face of the Church." Langendoerfer, who is a member of the Jesuit Order said the church would "address the subject openly"
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Date:
09 Feb 2010
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08:28:41
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Abuse victims appeal to pope in letter on sacking bishop A LETTER has been sent to Pope Benedict by abuse victims in Dublin calling on him to remove the Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, as he “still refuses to accept any responsibility for his part in supporting a culture of cover up during his time in Dublin”. It also urges the pope to accept “without any further delay” the offers of resignation from bishops James Moriarty, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field. The letter, sent in advance of the pope’s planned meeting with the Irish bishops in Rome, is signed by victims of clerical abuse Andrew Madden and Marie Collins, as well as the executive director of One in Four, Maeve Lewis. They say that “other bishops throughout Ireland who engaged in this culture of cover-up in their own dioceses should resign from their positions instead of waiting to see the extent to which they are criticised in any future reports should the commission of investigation be expanded to include their dioceses”. Writing “to ensure that the voices of the survivors of abuse by Catholic priests have a place” in deliberations between Ireland’s bishops and Pope Benedict in Rome next week, they say that “survivors find it incomprehensible that the Vatican and your representative in Ireland, the Papal Nuncio, saw fit to hide behind diplomatic protocols to avoid co-operating with the Murphy commission.” Pointing out that “responsibility for child protection properly rests with the civil authorities”, they asked the pope “to instruct the Irish bishops to comply fully with civil child protection guidelines, including the mandatory reporting of all concerns or complaints to the civil authorities for investigation”. They have further asked him to write, in his forthcoming pastoral letter, “not only to Irish Catholics, but to all people of Ireland, accepting fully the harm that has been caused by the acts of omission and commission of the Catholic Church and its priests and bishops in Ireland”. They asked this as “the lives of thousands of Irish people have been devastated by sexual abuse by priests”. Separately, representatives of people abused as children in residential institutions run by religious orders had a meeting in Maynooth yesterday with representatives of the Irish Bishops’ Conference. Afterwards Bishop John McAreavey said the “meeting was constructive and helpful to us as we prepare to meet the Holy Father next week . . . We intend to relay these concerns to Pope Benedict both verbally and in the form of written submissions which were presented to us today by survivors and which directly represent their views.” In Rome yesterday Pope Benedict promised that the Catholic Church would never fail to “deplore and condemn” the abuse of children by priests. Speaking to delegates at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, he said that throughout the centuries the church had “protected the dignity and rights of minors”. He added: “Unfortunately in some cases, some of its [church] members, acting in contrast to this commitment, have violated these rights. This is a behaviour that the church has not and will not fail to deplore and condemn
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Date:
10 Feb 2010
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08:36:35
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Wednesday February 10 2010 THE outgoing Catholic Bishop of Kildare will be among a delegation of 24 diocesan bishops attending next week's summit talks at the Vatican with Pope Benedict on the child clerical abuse crisis. Bishop Jim Moriarty offered to resign two months ago, and Pope Benedict's delay in accepting the resignation came under renewed criticism last night from victim Marie Collins. Bishop Moriarty formerly served as an auxiliary bishop in the Dublin archdiocese which acknowledged collective responsibility for cover-ups. Accepting Bishop Moriarty's sincerity, Ms Collins last night questioned why the Pope had delayed so long in confirming this resignation compared with how quickly he accepted the stepping-down of Donal Murray -- another Dublin auxiliary -- as Bishop of Limerick. Ms Collins also called on Pope Benedict to demand the resignation of the embattled Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, for having been part of the church culture of cover-ups operating in the Dublin archdiocese when he was an auxiliary bishop there from 1997 to 2004. Bishop Drennan, who was named in the Murphy Report, has become a divisive figure in the episcopal ranks after telling Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that he did no wrong and was not resigning. Summit "My hope is that Pope Benedict backs the position of Archbishop Martin," said Ms Collins. "If not, there will be no way forward to recovery for the Irish Church. It will be a disaster." Meanwhile, the Irish Independent last night learned that the Irish Catholic Bishops have retreated to the west of Ireland to seek spiritual guidance ahead of next week's crisis showdown with Pope Benedict. The bishops, led by Cardinal Sean Brady and Archbishop Martin, gathered unannounced yesterday afternoon at the Marian Shrine in Knock, Co Mayo. Last night, the spokesman for the Bishops' Conference, Martin Long, said the annual two-day retreat was arranged well in advance of the Rome summit. But informed senior church sources told the Irish Independent that the spiritual retreat was also being used by the bishops to prepare for the meeting. Twenty-four of the 26 heads of dioceses will attend the unprecedented Rome summit. But absent will be the former Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray, whose resignation has already been accepted by Pope Benedict; and the former Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, who last year was removed from office by the Pope after being found not to have applied agreed national child protection rules in his Cork diocese. - John Cooney Religion Correspondent
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Date:
10 Feb 2010
Time:
09:37:00
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Priests are guilty by association for conforming to 'abuse system' DEREK SMYTH Tue, Feb 09, 2010 RITE & REASON: Why were we so silent on child abuse? Why didn’t we speak up? IN ORDER to respond appropriately to those who were abused by priests, we need to explore clerical culture, since research attests that it does contribute to the promotion of immaturity, arrested development and irresponsibility. For example, early research by Conrad Baars and Anna Terruwe on priesthood within western Europe and North America in 1971 revealed that only 10-15 per cent of priests were mature; 60-70 per cent suffered from a degree of emotional immaturity; and 20-25 per cent had serious psychiatric difficulties. Ironically, these findings were never acted on. Culture is defined as a shared system of beliefs and values. It has within it a cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimension. Clerical culture influences the way a priest or bishop may think about a certain issue, feel about it and respond to it. However, like any culture, its ills cannot be addressed solely from within. Think of Northern Ireland. It was with the support of outside sources, particularly George Mitchell, that the road towards peace began. For clerical culture, new structures are not sufficient, as there appears to be an innate “abuse system” within this culture. Even though it may now be forced to address the issue of sexual abuse, “abuse” may rear its ugly face in other forms. One disturbing aspect for me is what I call a “convenient silence”. Why were we so silent? Why didn’t we speak up? It is also the question asked by the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer of the churches during the second World War. Bonhoeffer came, like most of us, from one of the mainline churches. However, as a result of a visit to the storefront churches in New York he would be changed forever. Here he witnessed the spirit-filled worship of African- Americans. He was deeply moved as he remembered how they were captured, tortured, enslaved and here they were full of passion and hope in contrast to the sedate and passive ritual of his own church. Despite being asked to stay in the safety of New York, he felt he had to return home to confront the Nazi movement in Germany. He joined the Resistance and eventually was captured and executed by the Nazis. For Bonhoeffer, one big question was: “Why were the churches so silent?” I have observed the same silence, as in my time I have witnessed theologians being marginalised as Vatican II has been dismantled, and as the innocent in Ireland were sexually abused by brother priests. I am also part of this silence. What causes this muteness that allows evil to flourish? It is my belief that people of my generation were conditioned by the church to distrust themselves. Take, for example, a non-Catholic neighbour who died 40 years ago. His/her Catholic friends were unable to pray in church with his grieving family. For most people at the time, this didn’t make sense. Their own integrity was telling them that it was absurd. However, such personal thoughts and beliefs were dismissed even to the point that people considered them sinful. In other words, we distrusted our own integrity and conformed with the directions of the church. And since we were made keep our thoughts to ourselves, we remained silent. This behaviour was reinforced in our seminary training. We were conditioned to surrender to the institution, to the teachings, structures and disciplines of the church. Upon ordination we made a promise of obedience to the local bishop, and even our own letter of acceptance of a diocesan post was scripted for us. Think of the docility of priests. A new bishop is appointed to a diocese and he decides to change direction. The priests follow until another incumbent arrives and they are ready to go again in whatever direction he decides. Tragically, it is within this culture that the governance of the church takes place and we are all guilty by association. It may be convenient to suggest that the auxiliary bishops must step down, but surely it is more honest to ask all of our generation to step down, ensuring a new beginning for all. Dr Derek Smyth is a priest in Foxrock parish, Co Dublin. Prior to that he had been director of Emmanuel House, Santa Ana, California, where he worked as a psychotherapist. He has co-authored two books, Being There and Defusing the Bomb 2010 The Irish Times
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Date:
10 Feb 2010
Time:
13:23:04
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As long as the Kilkenny Cat chases the Herring Choker all will be lost
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Date:
10 Feb 2010
Time:
13:33:30
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German Church Faces Child Abuse Charges BERLIN — The Roman Catholic Church faces yet another child abuse scandal, this time in Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany. The widening public scandal began last month with allegations that three priests at the elite Canisius Jesuit high school in Berlin had sexually abused students in the 1970s and ’80s. In the midst of a steadily growing uproar over the handling of that case, the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article last weekend that said nearly 100 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abusing children and teenagers nationwide since 1995. The rector of Aloisiuskolleg, a high school in Bad Godesberg, an affluent neighborhood in the former capital of Bonn where diplomats and leading politicians lived, resigned Monday over accusations that he was aware of sexual misconduct by teachers at the school. And on Tuesday a local newspaper, the Aachener Zeitung, reported new accusations of sexual abuse against two priests in the diocese in Aachen. “The subject of sexual abuse will be a topic at the plenary meeting of the German Bishops’ Conference,” said Nina Schmedding, a spokeswoman for the group, on Tuesday. Many of the cases now coming to light are unlikely to be prosecuted because the statute of limitations requires crimes to be reported within 10 years of the victim’s 18th birthday. But the revelations have driven an open debate here on the church, its policies for dealing with abuse cases — or, critics say, covering them up — and even the vows of celibacy taken by priests. Germany is home to roughly 25.2 million Catholics, according to the German Bishops’ Conference, but that number has fallen by more than three million since German reunification in 1990. The abuse of children by members of the clergy remains one of the most difficult issues for the church. In December the Vatican accepted the resignations of several Irish bishops after a report by the Irish government detailed the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children by Catholic priests in church-run residential schools, many of them run by the Christian Brothers. The report found that both the Catholic hierarchy and Irish state agencies covered up complaints by 320 Irish children who said they were abused by priests between 1974 and 2004. On Monday at the Vatican, Benedict told members of the Pontifical Council for the Family that he condemned the abuse of children by members of the clergy, but he has not commented directly on the situation in Germany. Der Spiegel said that at least 94 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abuse since 1995, based on a poll of 27 of Germany’s 30 Catholic dioceses. The magazine’s cover this week was illustrated with an image of a priest reaching suggestively under his robes. “Already a tremor is shaking the church, which could be the beginning of an earthquake” Der Spiegel said. Franz Kretschmann, a spokesman for the diocese in Aachen, said there were two cases under police investigation, one against a teacher working for the church and one against a clergyman, and the two new additional internal investigations against priests. Since 1995, two clergymen in the diocese have been convicted on molestation charges. The diocese has had a special representative since 2003 to deal with abuse accusations. “We are working for a transparent proceeding with the swiftest possible solution, also in the interest of the victims and their families,” Mr. Kretschmann said. Irish Victims Write to Pope DUBLIN (AP) — Irish victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy have written to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to take responsibility for the church’s concealment of child molestation by forcing out bishops implicated in the decades of cover-up. Their plea comes one week before a special Vatican summit meeting involving the pope and Ireland’s bishops to prepare a response to scandals in the Irish church. Three bishops have already offered to resign. The letter’s writers urge Benedict to write to all the people of Ireland, “accepting fully the harm that has been caused” by child-abusing priests, nuns and brothers.
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Date:
11 Feb 2010
Time:
07:55:13
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Home-alone children taken into care by the HSE FOUR CHILDREN who were left home alone by their mother have been taken into care by the HSE. The three girls, aged 12, six and four, and their five-month-old brother were in their home on their own when gardaí in Navan arrived at the house after being alerted to the situation. Their mother is believed to have travelled to England and is due home tomorrow. An older sibling is believed to have been left in charge but there was no adult present when gardaí arrived. The children appeared to have been otherwise well cared for and the house was also well kept. Gardaí were alerted by a member of the public and, under the provisions of the Child Care Act, they seized the children and handed them into the care of the HSE. The incident took place on Tuesday, about 28 hours after their mother left. The whereabouts of the father of the children is not known. In a statement the HSE would only say it “works closely with the gardaí to ensure the welfare and protection of children”. It said it had “a duty and obligation to protect the privacy of the children in our care”.
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Date:
11 Feb 2010
Time:
08:10:19
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Mary Kenny says I am to be pitied? Give me strength IN her column in this newspaper last Saturday, Mary Kenny chose to make reference to my spiritual life. She pitied me for having no spiritual element in my life, assuming it consisted only of the material and was therefore bland and unimaginative. Mary Kenny has, of course, never met me, never phoned me, never asked for a meeting or an interview over coffee, never tried to contact me in any way to ask me about anything. Until now I have made little or no reference in public to what spiritual life I do have, so she had absolutely no information on which to base her opinion. What she did have was the most contemptible arrogance to assume to know enough to write about it anyway. A more ignorant, condescending pouring out of sanctimonious drivel I have not read in a long time. All Kenny knew was that I had completed the formal process of defecting from the Catholic Church, and from that one single fact she assumed to know everything else. Next week she'll probably preach to us all she knows about humility. Thousands of others have chosen to leave the Catholic Church too but, unlike Kenny, I don't assume to know all of their reasons. I have been a Catholic in name only for many years, but after all I have seen of the church in recent times, I decided I did not want that organisation in my life anymore, not even in name only. To assume, as Kenny does, that I therefore have no spirituality in my life is truly reprehensible. I am crossing a line here I haven't crossed before, but Kenny's nonsense last Saturday cannot go unchecked. Almost 13 years ago I tried to stop drinking, having tried twice before and failed. I had been an active alcoholic for 14 years by then and was quite a mess at the end of it all. Anything I did, in all those years I was drinking, was done with a drink in my hand. I lived at about 10pc of what I was capable of and I struggled to do even that. When I stopped drinking I had to learn how to live without it. I had to learn how to be. How to get through a whole day without getting drunk. How to pass an evening. How to enjoy music. How to conduct friendships properly. How to relax at the end of a day's work. How to socialise and meet people sober. I also learned that I could not do all of this by myself. I had friends who themselves had crossed the bridge from addiction to normal living, but more was needed. Over time, as I slowly became happy and confident, I accepted that I was receiving more help than that of friends. I came to believe in a power greater than myself and came to believe that that power was helping me stay sober and helping me learn to live happily. I chose to call that power the "Spirit of Recovery". It didn't come easy or natural for me to start believing in any such power, but as time in recovery passed, my belief in a power greater than myself grew. Instead of believing that a higher power was just helping me stay sober, I believed that it was helping me in all areas of my life. As a friend of mine says: "He's looking after all of it, or none of it." I see my higher power as a loving, caring essence in my life that wants me to live a good life. Today I try to hand my will and my life over to the care of that higher power every morning before I leave the house in order that my actions and thoughts might be guided by my higher power's will for me. At night I review my day and thank my higher power for everything, including the fact that I didn't drink. I ask my higher power to look after other people too, just like I used to ask God to do when I was a little boy lying in bed thinking I would one day be a priest. But of course, I don't need to be a priest to believe in a power greater than myself, spirituality is not the preserve of practising Catholics. And having a sense of oneself that extends beyond the physical and the material is not an understanding exclusive to the obnoxious Mary Kenny. And the next time she chooses to write about other people she should afford them the courtesy of getting her facts right first, and keep her patronising pity to herself. Andrew Madden's best-selling book 'Altar Boy' helped expose abuse in the Catholic Church - Andrew Madden Irish Independent
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Date:
11 Feb 2010
Time:
20:44:35
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STILL LOOKING FOR ANSWERS: You can understand why some people might wish Paddy Doyle would stop asking questions and just let it go. The God Squad author, who was born in Wexford, has been searching for 20 years to find the burial place of his mother, Lil, so he can place a daffodil on her grave. He also wants to solve a mystery about the identity of his father after spending more than half his life believing it was his mother's husband Paddy. He keeps asking awkward questions about the past. There have been no definite answers in two decades but he won't give up. He doesn't want closure. He hates that word. But he seems to be driven by an irrepressible urge to slot the missing pieces of his personal jigsaw into place. The puzzle is almost complete but he just can't nail those two remaining clues. He may never find them but he is going to keep looking on the off-chance that he does. At the centre of his search is the heartbreaking story of a little boy who was born in Wexford Hospital in 1951 and lived in a cottage in Ballymore with his parents, Lil and Paddy, and later his sister Ann. He was happy and well cared for, as evidenced by black and white photos left to him by his uncle John Murphy, his mother's brother, following his death. In the summer of 1955, when the boy was four and his sister two, their mother died from breast cancer at the age of 43. Five weeks later, her husband Paddy hanged himself from a tree in the back garden. According to the inquest report from that time, the two children witnessed the horrific episode and remained alone in the house for several hours until someone came. When he was four years and three months old, he was brought to court in Wexford and charged with 'not being in possession of a proper guardian'. He was sentenced to be detained in an industrial school in Cappoquin for 11 years. He 'served' four years in the school but spent much of the remaining time in hospitals around the country after developing a condition called dystonia which causes severe contraction and twisting of the muscles in the body. He was subjected to brain surgery on several occasions and may have been the victim of medical experimentation. Metal screws and bolts were inserted in his head. By the age of 10, the boy was permanently disabled and confined to a wheelchair. That boy was Paddy Doyle and when the adult man in the wheelchair thinks about him now, he sees the able-bodied child pictured in the tragic garden of a rural cottage as someone separate from himself. 'The only way I can handle any of it is to move back from it' he says in his Dublin accent. 'I am a person looking for someone's mother. That protects you. That is a sort of armour you put on.' The little boy, who frequently suffered physical abuse in Cappoquin, especially when he told his big story about seeing someone hanging, grew up to be a man who used words and humour as defence mechanisms. In the early 1970s he met his wife, Eileen, a paediatric nurse, at the National Ballroom in Dublin. The bouncers nearly didn't let him in that night because they said he would be a fire hazard. He remembers the retort he gave as one of his finest moments of verbal retaliation. 'I can cope with disability but the idea of spontaneously combusting – I couldn't handle that,' he told them. The couple had three sons, Shane (34), Niall (33) and Ronan (29), whose privacy Paddy is keen to protect as a matter of family policy. The campaign to highlight the damage caused by institutionalised child-abuse in Ireland is his battle, not theirs. They also have two grandchildren, Seán (8) and Adam (4). He got a job with CIE when he was 21 and later became involved in disability development work. He worked on projects in UCD and Trinity College. In the early 1990s, he travelled to America as a guest of the US ambassador to view disability services there. He worked as a scriptwriter for RTÉ on a Saturday children's programme called Pago's Junkbox. Later, he hosted writing workshops for prisoners in Mountjoy Prison and St. Patrick's Institution, and also for socially deprived children. He then joined the Rehabilitation Institute and continued working there until his retirement a few years ago. He doesn't have a day job anymore but he is involved in the child abuse campaign and was appointed by Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe to a committee which is drawing up plans for a memorial honouring the victims of institutional abuse. When he sat down to write the God Squad which was published in 1988, he said to his computer, 'I'm going to tell you a story.' The book, which was one of the first personal testimonies written about State child abuse in Ireland, became a best seller. Paddy became a celebrity of sorts and was interviewed by Gay Byrne on the Late Late. Now, when he tries to tell his grandson Seán that he's famous, the disbelieving eightyear-old says: 'If you were famous, you'd be really rich.' Many people congratulated him on writing the book, but he also received anonymous letters from Wexford telling him that what he had written was wrong. This is when he was first informed that the man who hanged himself wasn't his biological father and that his father was, in fact, another local man who has since died. Paddy visited Wexford many times and attempted to establish the truth but says that the community he spent the first four years of his life in 'brought down the shutters'. He felt that he was causing trouble by raking up the past. Paddy refers to the era of his childhood as the 'hidden Ireland' and though many of its dark secrets have been exposed in recent years, he can't help feeling there is still a lingering complicity of guilty silence. He has never been able to find his mother's grave although Paddy Doyle, the man who may or may not have been his father, is buried in Ballymore cemetery, and both their deaths are listed in parish records. It may be that there is no one alive now who can help him prove his father's identity. An RTÉ documentary 'Flesh and Blood', which was broadcast last month, attempted unravel the mystery of Paddy and his sister Ann's parentage, but reached no conclusions. Despite a claim by local man Jim Power of Thornville that their father was an individual known to him at the time, the only categorical outcome of the programme was that DNA testing showed Paddy and Ann to be full brother and sister. Paddy, whose maternal grandparents came from Spawell Road in Wexford, was born 16 years after Paddy and Lil Murphy got married. Ann was born two years later. The documentary gave a harrowing insight into the inhumane treatment of vulnerable Irish children in the 1950s and the lasting emotional and physical damage that was inflicted on them. Despite everything that has happened to him, Paddy is not angry. 'It's a pointless exercise. If you could target it at someone or something, it might be worthwhile, but if you're just blasting away, it's self-destructive. I'm a great believer in what I call constructive anger. Otherwise, it's like pointing a gun to try to kill someone but you don't know who you're trying to kill.' He gets annoyed when people say that he has managed to accept his disability. He doesn't know anyone who would willingly accept a headache but if someone has a disability, people are eager to hear the immortal word 'acceptance'. He is on large daily amounts of prescibed medication for his condition but is in favour of the legalisation of medical-supervised marijuana use in Ireland, an issue he has campaigned on. 'I'm a legal drug addict. I'm on lots of medication, all prescribed by doctors, but it's highly addictive stuff.' In relation to Ireland's child abuse scandal, he says people would love to be able to say all that happened years ago and doesn't go on now. 'The Ryan Report covered cases that happened up to the early 1990s. Wherever you have vulnerable people you will have predators. You had recent revelations about abuse of disabled people in residential homes'. Something in Paddy Doyle's make-up helped him survive a horrific childhood and come out shouting – but he doesn't try to analyse what it is. He says he has no interest in spirituality and if he could bottle the answer to the question of how he coped with the emotional and physical brutality of his early life, he would do so and he would give it to people for free. 'It's one of the questions I've been asked but I don't have the answer. Something drives you. There are times when I almost weep with despair and say oh, feck it, I'll leave it so. It would be easier to walk away but because it's part of what you are, you don't give up. I think it's a natural, almost animal instinct to want to know who you are.' A Fighting Survivor
Remote User:
Date:
12 Feb 2010
Time:
09:30:37
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NOTHING CHANGED THERE:-1,000 child abuse cases reported in Cork each year..... By Fiachra O Cionnaith........ Friday, February 12, 2010...... More than 1,000 children are formally suspected of being physically, sexually or emotionally abused in Cork every year, official figures have confirmed. New social work and child protection statistics show that despite a series of high-profile child abuse cases in recent months, children are continuing to be placed needlessly at risk. According to the official figures, revealed at the latest HSE South regional health forum, since the start of 2006 social services have been asked to assess an average of 2,000 children every year in Cork due to fears of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. Over the three-year period the figure has consistently fallen to just over 1,000 formal abuse investigations after initial assessment. However, despite claims of improved measures to prevent abuse, the records show that 7,456 initial complaints have been made since January 2006 – 1,196 of which occurred in the first six months of 2009 alone. While total statistics for last year have yet to be compiled, those for 2008 show that of the 1,111 formal investigations launched that year, they included 439 referring to neglect, 261 to physical abuse, and 217 referring to sexual abuse. Between January 2006 and December 2008, a total of 3,332 formal investigations into child abuse were launched in the Cork region. However, during the same period the number of "approved designated beds" for at-risk children in Cork and Kerry fell significantly, from 67 in 2006 and 2007 to just 51 in 2008. The HSE did not clarify how many children in the region spent nights in adult units due to a lack of specialised beds over the same four years. However, the figures released after questions from Fine Gael councillor John Buttimer have confirmed that in three cases since January 2007 the HSE has been forced to send a child abroad because no "specialist residential treatment" was available – this has cost the state more than €391,000. In addition, the official statistics also show that 10 social worker posts specifically focusing on child abuse are currently unfilled in Cork out of a total of 82 positions. Since the start of 2006, the HSE has spent almost €60 million on residential units for children at risk in Cork and Kerry, with the region due to receive extra funding for the recruitment of social workers as part of the Government’s €14m Ryan report response. The HSE is undergoing a "strategic review" of child protection services after a series of child abuse scandals emerged.
Remote User:
Date:
12 Feb 2010
Time:
16:13:53
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Why Pope John Paul II Whipped Himself Pope John Paul II projected a warm, grandfatherly image to the adoring public who flocked en masse to hear his homilies or watched on TV from home as he traversed the globe. So there was no small shock when a recent book revealed that the pope, who died in 2005, whipped himself with a belt and sometimes lay prostrate all night on the floor. The pope apparently did not want aides to investigate his sleeping habits, going so far as to make his bed appear used by tossing around the sheets. Yet Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who is presenting John Paul II's case for canonization, detailed the behavior in an Italian-language book, Why He's a Saint: The Real John Paul II According to the Postulator of His Beatification Cause. Oder explains that the pope believed these acts of penance would affirm God's primacy and help him seek perfection. While self-inflicted physical suffering is unusual among Catholics, other notables have pursued holiness in this manner. Mother Teresa wore a cilice, a strap secured around the thigh that inflicts pain with inward-pointing spikes. Catholics are quick to point out, however, that these practices bear little resemblance to the bloody, masochistic flogging so graphically portrayed in the movie based on Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. So how do Catholics explain self-flagellation, a practice so foreign to Protestants, let alone non-Christians? Several writers have defended the late pope. Writing for the National Catholic Register, Jimmy Akin faults a "pleasure-obsessed culture" for portraying the pope's behavior as repulsive. "Self-mortification teaches humility by making us recognize that there are things more important than our own pleasure," Akin writes. "It teaches compassion by giving us a window into the sufferings of others—who don't have a choice in whether they're suffering. And it strengthens self-control. As well as (here's the big one I've saved for last) encouraging us to follow the example of Our Lord, who made the central act of the Christian religion one of self-denial and (in his case) literal mortification to bring salvation to all mankind." Indeed, the pope believed suffering brought him closer to Christ, according to Oder. For precedent, the pope appealed to Colossians 1:24, where the apostle Paul writes, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." With no parallel in the New Testament, this verse has vexed biblical commentators for centuries. Surveying the Old Testament apocalyptic literature, Peter O'Brien understands "what is lacking" to mean that God has appointed a measure of suffering before the end comes. Paul's suffering on behalf of the Colossians, whom he never even met, helped to fill that gap. The suffering he endured for the sake of the gospel in his apostolic ministry united him with other Christians and even Christ himself, who suffered untold anguish on the Cross. Yet for all the hardship he bore (2 Cor. 11:16-32), Paul did not harm himself in pursuit of this union. Suffering found him, and he even pleaded unsuccessfully with God to relent (2 Cor. 12:7-10). God allowed this suffering in order that he might demonstrate his power in Paul's weakness. Whether we seek suffering or not, aging does the same by inflicting hardship on nearly all of us. Does our theology prepare us to endure? As John Paul II aged, Parkinson's disease visibly ravaged his once-vigorous body. He even considered resigning, something no modern pope has done, even though Catholic bishops usually retire at age 75. Politics Daily columnist David Gibson points out that the agonizing end to John Paul II's life deserves more attention than his private suffering. "In the end, all of the revelations about flagellation and such may be more of an unfortunate distraction from the testimony of the pope's final years, when he struggled against a growing paralysis but continued to write and travel and appear in public and show the zest for life he always had—a kind of self-mortification that was also a powerful public witness for those who were similarly aged or infirm." Still, we should understand the late pontiff's self-flagellation as part of a more comprehensive Catholic theology. According to Chris Castaldo, author of Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, John Paul II's views can be found in a 2002 homily he preached about St. Pio of Pietrelcina, a Capuchin priest famous for his self-flagellation. Today you can still visit Pietrelcina and see gory traces of his self-affliction. Honoring this saint, John Paul II quoted Galatians 6:14: "But may I never boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ." According to the pope, Pio showed the redemption of Christ by conforming to the Cross. "Is it not, precisely, the 'glory of the Cross' that shines above all in Padre Pio?" Pope John Paul II asked. "How timely is the spirituality of the Cross lived by the humble Capuchin of Pietrelcina. Our time needs to rediscover the value of the Cross in order to open the heart to hope. Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, since he was very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross." Protestants recoil at mention of collaborating in the work of redemption, because believers have been sanctified by the once-for-all offering of Jesus Christ on the Cross (Heb. 10:10). But perhaps we may still resonate with the spiritual benefits of self-denial. Though we reject self-flagellation as a misguided effort to relate to Christ, we may pursue other disciplines prescribed by Scripture to express our need for God. Maybe the best example is fasting, a common Old Testament practice assumed by Jesus as a means of connecting with God (Matt. 6:16-18). But just as our age scoffs at self-flagellation, so also many skeptics consign fasting to the over-zealous. "Christians in a gluttonous, denial-less, self-indulgent society may struggle to accept and to begin the practice of fasting," Don Whitney writes in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. "Few disciplines go so radically against the flesh and the mainstream culture as this one. But we cannot overlook its biblical significance. Of course, some people, for medical reasons, cannot fast. But most of us dare not overlook fasting's benefits in the disciplined pursuit of a Christlike life." Do you want to strengthen your prayer life? Discern God's leading? Find an outlet to express your grief to God? Confess your utter dependence on God? Whipping is not necessary, but self-denial is a vital means of Christian growth. As Jesus prepared for his earthly ministry, he fasted. His example compels us to do the same. Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and co-author of the forthcoming book, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir (Zondervan). A Fighting Survivor
Remote User:
Date:
13 Feb 2010
Time:
09:19:37
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Rome meeting on sex abuse a strong test of Martin's mettle McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is heading to the Vatican to the certain derision of some Irish clerics unhappy with his unequivocal approach THERE IS among Dublin’s Catholic priests an element which has never accepted Diarmuid Martin as archbishop. Nor are they likely to. He just does not fit the template of what they expect a bishop, never mind an archbishop, to be. For instance – and unlike his predecessors Archbishops Ryan, McNamara or Cardinal Connell – he did not arrive in Drumcondra trailing a litany of academic qualifications. Dermot Ryan had been professor of oriental languages at UCD before his ordination as Archbishop of Dublin in 1972. Kevin McNamara had been professor of dogmatic theology in Maynooth before becoming Bishop of Kerry in 1976 and Archbishop of Dublin in 1984. Cardinal Connell was dean of the faculty of philosophy and sociology at UCD before he was ordained Archbishop of Dublin in 1988. However, the Murphy commission found that all three had “handled child sex abuse complaints badly” and that “not one of them reported his knowledge of child sexual abuse to the gardaí . . . until November 1995.” In that month, Cardinal Connell allowed the names of 17 priests to be given to gardaí. But the Murphy commission found that, at the time, the archdiocese knew at least 28 priests faced allegations. It seems academic achievement was no help to Archbishop Martin’s predecessors in addressing the clerical child sex abuse issue. Meanwhile, Archbishop Martin’s achievements at the Vatican do not rate with this recalcitrant element among his priests. In his 31 years there, he distinguished himself as secretary to the Council for Justice and Peace and even helped draft Pope John Paul’s 1991 encyclical Centessimus Annus. He represented Rome at various UN international conferences as well as to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. So, it came as no surprise then in 2001 when he was appointed the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN in Geneva. It came as no surprise then either to hear he resisted when asked to return to Dublin as Co-adjutor Archbishop in 2003. Nor was it any surprise that such publicly acknowledged resistance by him should be met with displeasure by an element among priests in Dublin. To them it was demeaning of an office of which, in their immediate lives, there is none greater. That the man who should look askance at such greatness had once been a boy from Ballyfermot did not encourage their sympathy either. On top of which he had been educated by the Oblates in Inchicore as well as the De La Salle and Christian Brothers, for God’s sake. An element among Dublin priests has always felt there was “too much of the street” about him. They point to his very “Dub” sense of humour and how well he gets on with ordinary people. Let’s face it, they intimate, he’s not like any other Irish bishop. There is little about him of the soft ways of those farmers, or small town shopkeepers’ sons, who make up the majority of his brother bishops. He is brusque where they are indulgent, impatient where they have all the time in the world, and tough on abuse allegations where others hasten ever so slowly. On top of which he relates to media with ease. Could anything be more suspect? So he was excoriated at that meeting of about 25 Dublin priests at the Manresa Centre in Clontarf on January 18th. They were so angry at him for not standing by auxiliary bishops Éamonn Walsh and Ray Field following publication of the Murphy report, and at his stopping retired Auxiliary Bishop Dermot O’Mahony from attending confirmations. “Ruthless” was a word used. Others were “Bully” and that phrase, “a source of division”. One priest there said of the auxiliaries: “That they should have resigned is not disputed, it’s the heartless manner in which they were treated that causes the anger.” The same priest said “the Murphy report cannot be taken as the fifth gospel; and while its core revelations are beyond doubt substantially true and shame all the men in black, it also deserves a considered professional analysis of its methodology and content. “This is not denial – it is the response of mature men anxious for justice for all implicated whether ‘by association’ or commission. DM sees such an approach as tantamount to denial and it sends him into a frenzied attack on its proponents.” This priest also believes the mentality of protecting the church “has not gone away. It has risen again in the person of DM who is willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to appear as the knight in shining armour.” However, to a man and woman, those abuse victims who have had dealings with Archbishop Martin only praise him, as do those who work in child protection and as did the Murphy commission. He may not play the clerical club game but his unequivocal approach to the child sex abuse issue is increasingly seen as the only hope the Irish Catholic Church has of a healthy future on this island, whatever his detractors may say. And they say plenty.
Remote User:
Date:
13 Feb 2010
Time:
09:24:22
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Staying with a shambolic church because I believe in the message In this section » Small party with lots of idealism but no experienceElectoral sport must follow recent theatricsOnly way Greens can survive is to pick their time to goLinks across the Med on media freedomHow religion made its way into primary school systemThis week they saidThe church needs to come out of the locked upper room and offer people hope, writes BREDA O'BRIEN THE WHITE Queen loftily declared she often believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast. When thinking about the Irish bishops’ visit to Rome, I realised that while believing six impossible things might not be necessary, knowing many more than six apparently contradictory things about the Irish Catholic Church is essential to understanding it. Take, for example, the bishops. In an important sense, they don’t exist. Certainly individual bishops exist, but as a corporate entity, they meet four times a year, issue statements that are often quite bland, and then virtually cease to exist until the next meeting. The media discusses the bishops as if they were a political party or a business. Neither model fits, and not because the bishops are high-minded creatures with loftier interests. No, the model does not fit, because no Irish political party could survive if it operated like the bishops, and no business would escape bankruptcy. In John Allen’s excellent article here yesterday, he pointed out the obvious steps that need to be taken. Unfortunately, when there is no centralised leadership, only prelates acting in what they perceive to be the best interests of their own diocese, coherent action is very, very difficult. John Allen also highlighted the need for the pope, the only one the bishops are answerable to, to be seen to act decisively. But even the pope cannot personally monitor every action of thousands of bishops worldwide. Ian Elliott is the chief executive of an independent body, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSC). He came to public attention when he revealed the problems in the Cloyne diocese, with the result that John Magee had to stand aside as bishop. Ian Elliott made an important speech last October (http://www safeguarding.ie/news-1/address byianelliottatthekeepingchildrensafeconference). As a Presbyterian, he said he had only a rudimentary understanding of the nature and structures of the Catholic Church. He believed it to be one large but single body with an overall head in charge here in Ireland. He discovered that it is not a single body but rather a number of quite separate ones that are linked. There are dioceses, religious congregations, orders, missionary societies, prelatures, and religious institutions. In all, there are 184 parts to the church in Ireland and each has its own head. In a very real sense, no one is in charge. Ian Elliot discovered that formal communication channels are slow, difficult to access, and very limited. And in my words, not his, the informal ones aren’t any better. The extraordinary thing is that they managed to get the 184 parts to agree to a single uniform standard for child protection, and to have it monitored by the NBSC, a body independent of all of them, although still funded by them. Of course, it was often in the church’s interests to pretend to be a monolith, but that pretence has been shattered in recent times, not least after the publication of the Ryan and Murphy reports. Quite unbelievably, the religious orders had no common policy worked out in advance on how to respond to the Ryan report. The bishops were no better after Murphy. So, dear reader, in many ways the Catholic Church in Ireland is a disorganised mess, at times verging on the shambolic. So why would anyone even remotely sane want to be publicly associated with it? I must admit I often ask myself that question, and I keep coming back to a really embarrassing answer. I believe in the founder. I believe in the message. The church’s social teaching in particular has shaped me. And every time I research issues such as asylum seekers, or kids with special needs, or prostitutes, or prisoners, I come across committed Catholics working in those areas, usually perfectly harmoniously alongside humanists and atheists. And who is picking up the slack in post- Tiger Ireland and softening the impact of often savage cuts on already disadvantaged people? The Society of St Vincent de Paul and other church organisations. Further, as a lazy, self-centred, lukewarm believer, with more doubts than certainties, I need a community to keep me even vaguely on track, and I have been lucky enough to find a parish that grounds me, and helps my husband and me to bring up our children with Christian values. Like most Catholics, my faith is nourished at local level, and in many ways, what the bishops do or don’t do is irrelevant. Except, in yet another of those awkward contradictions, it isn’t irrelevant at all. Catholics in the pews are ashamed and saddened that the church they love has failed children, and they desperately want to see that lessons have been learnt, and that there won’t be further appalling revelations. I have probably met more bishops than most. Despite their public image, in my experience, they are not power-hungry, but tired, often elderly, men, feeling under attack from all sides. They sometimes slip into a sense of self-pitying victimhood, but most of the time they struggle to do the right thing, and are desperately conscious of their failures. So if anything comes out of the trip to Rome, I hope it is this: an acknowledgment that the church is the whole people of God, but please, take some concrete steps to make it a reality. We are in a situation where many are hanging on to their faith and practice by their fingernails. Give us some hope. Show us proof that things have changed. In Gospel terms, come out of the locked upper room. In 2006, Benedict urged the bishops to establish the truth of what happened, take whatever steps were necessary to prevent it from occurring again, ensure that the principles of justice were fully respected and, above all, bring healing to all those affected by these egregious crimes. Those Catholics still in the pews could only say a heartfelt amen to that.
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Date:
13 Feb 2010
Time:
09:34:27
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Next week, 24 Irish bishops and cardinals meet Pope Benedict in Rome to discuss clerical sex abuse. But which Pope they enounter: the “filth”-hating hardliner, or the accommodating academic? IN APRIL 2005, US Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, like every other elector Cardinal, travelled to Rome for the conclave that would shortly elect Pope Benedict XVI. When Cardinals come to Rome, they tend to have plenty of “business” on their minds. Thus it was that prior to the conclave, Cardinal George dropped in on Cardinal Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and, of course, the deacon of the College of Cardinals, who in that role ended up dominating the period between popes. Cardinal George was concerned about a set of US Church rules on sex abuse, then on a provisional two-year approval basis. At the heart of George’s concerns was the so-called “one strike” policy which sees priests removed from the ministry for life for one act of sexual abuse on a minor. George wanted assurances that this policy would stand. He discussed the issue with Ratzinger who, in George’s words, showed “a good grasp of the situation”. Three days later, “Ratzinger” had become “Benedict”. As George kissed the ring of the newly elected pope in the Sistine Chapel, Benedict waited until the US Cardinal had got to his feet and then told him, in English, that he had not forgotten their conversation, adding that he would “attend to it”. The “one strike” or “zero tolerance” policy is still in place. This story, recounted in John Allen’s book, The Rise of Benedict XVI , is worth recalling on the eve of the Pope’s meeting next Monday and Tuesday with the Irish bishops, a meeting that will largely (but not exclusively) deal with the fallout from the Murphy Commission report. It would seem to indicate that, despite appearances to the contrary, 82-year-old Pope Benedict not only has a “good grasp” of the full horrors of clerical child abuse but that he is willing to take an unremitting hard line on the matter. Cardinal George’s version of Benedict ties in with the Pope’s numerous public expressions of “outrage, betrayal and shame” about child abuse by Catholic priests. A few days before his election as Pope, during the Via Crucis in the Coliseum, the then Cardinal Ratzinger had said in his meditation on the Ninth Station of the Cross: “Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? . . . How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him . . .”. At the time, most Vatican commentators saw the “filth” remark as a reference to, among other things, clerical child sex abuse. When this man went on to be elected to the seat of Peter, it was only logical that we might expect him to take an uncompromising hard line on all issues related to clerical sex abuse. After all, he had been dealing with the issue at first hand for at least four years, following a 2001 instruction, Sacramentorum Sanctitatis , from his predecessor John Paul II which had called for all allegations of child sexual abuse bearing “a semblance of truth” to be referred directly to the CDF, his congregation. Put another way, there is probably no one in today’s Rome Curia who has read more files on clerical child abuse than Pope Benedict. So, he gets it then, does he? And there’s the rub. Turn the clock back to the autumn of 2006, the last time the Irish bishops met the Pope in Rome. The Pope offered forceful recommendations on how they should deal with clerical child abuse: “In your continuing efforts to deal effectively with this problem, it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes.” This all sounds tough and sound, yet one month earlier Ratzinger’s old office, the CDF, had proved less than co-operative with the Murphy Commission’s request for information, complaining instead that the Commission had not “gone through the appropriate diplomatic channels”. Likewise, five months later, the Papal Nuncio in Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, failed to answer further requests for information from the Commission of Inquiry. So, which Pope will turn up in the Apostolic Palace on Monday? The Pope who is intent on sweeping the “filth” out of the Church – or the one who, at a congress in the Catholic university of St John in Murcia, Spain in November 2002 said: “I am convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the US, is a planned campaign . . . the constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information or to the statistical objectivity of the facts.”
Remote User:
Date:
13 Feb 2010
Time:
09:34:51
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NEXT WEEK’S MEETING with the Irish bishops is vital not only to the Irish Church but as a barometer of this pontificate. If, as his closest advisers say, Benedict has been on a steep learning curve since that Murcia meeting, what sort of action will he take? Clearly, the most delicate issue facing him and his senior Curia advisers, in dealing with the fallout of the Murphy Report, concerns the question of “Episcopal” responsibility. Zero tolerance for paedophile priests has already been accepted but there is no “universal” or canonical norm for the bishops who mishandled or covered for abusers. When Benedict was elected, his supporters suggested he would prove especially attentive to the “nuts and bolts” of governance, in sharp contrast to John Paul II who for 27 years largely left internal Holy See administration to his advisers. So, will he grasp this particular bull by the horns? If the experience of Boston Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law is anything to go by, Benedict may well disappoint those looking for an Irish “sacrificial lamb”. Cardinal Law was the first “Prince of the Church” to be shown to have covered up clerical sex abuse. For 11 months in 2002 and 2003, he refused to step down when faced with allegations of an elaborate cover-up. Finally, under pressure of public opinion, he resigned, apologising to “all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and my mistakes”. The Holy See offered Cardinal Law a distinctly soft landing, since he currently serves as the Archpriest in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The impression is one of sympathy for a respected elder Church figure who got caught up in the crossfire of a shoot-out that had little or nothing to do with him. Given the confusing, not to say contradictory, signals, it comes as no surprise to hear from Vatican insiders that the Pope’s forthcoming pastoral letter to the Irish faithful is not yet written. It now seems, and this would only seem logical, that the Pope will wait until after next week’s meeting before he finalises it. Benedict, too, is unlikely to have been much pleased with reports of rebellious priests and dissenting bishops in Ireland. If he really intends to clean up the “filth” in the Church, then does not the Murphy report look like an important starting point on the road to closure, for victims and for the Church? Will he forcefully make just that point, behind closed apostolic doors? Part of the fallout from the Murphy Report concerns the need to reform the archaic diocesan organisation of the Irish Church. Here, too, the Irish question is also a universal one since there are many who would argue that under John Paul II, and to some extent under Benedict, there have been too many “safe” appointments, too many time-servers and not enough imaginative, creative bishops. So then, which Pope will step up to the plate next week in the Vatican – the hardline “filth-cleaner” or the accommodating academic, keen to avoid squabbling among his “students”? Perhaps a bit of both, with the result that next week’s deliberations may do little to satisfy victims and faithful who seek some powerful, apostolic gesture that will help reach closure on a ghastly phase of Irish Church history. Next week’s meeting takes place in the Apostolic Palace in St Peter’s. There will be two sessions on Monday and one on Tuesday. The Pope is expected to attend all three, although this has not yet been confirmed. The meeting, held in English, is expected to be attended by the Pope’s closest advisers, including the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Prefect for the Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, the Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes and the Prefect of the Congregation of Consecrated Life (Religious Orders) Franc Rodé. The Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Sean Brady and the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, are expected to attend with 22 Irish bishops.
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Date:
13 Feb 2010
Time:
11:17:12
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Link 1. http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/ - - - - - - - - Link 2. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,676497,00.html
Remote User:
Date:
13 Feb 2010
Time:
13:47:56
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This week's cover of the German newsweekly Der Spiegel -- the title says "The Hypocrites -- the Catholic Church and Sex" If there ever were a time for Pope Benedict to commit a Freudian slip that we could all understand, it would be in his meetings next week with Irish bishops to discuss the clerical sex abuse scandals that have shaken the Emerald Isle. It’s not hard to imagine him meeting the Hibernian hierarchy behind closed Vatican doors and occasionally referring to the scandals “in Germany” rather than “in Ireland.” If he does, the Irish bishops will certainly forgive him. Enough has been happening in his fatherland recently to distract him from the uproar about the recent reports of clergy excesses in Ireland. The controversy caused by two official Irish reports — the Ryan report on abuse in Catholic institutions country-wide and the Murphy report on the Dublin archdiocese — prompted the German pope to take the unusual step of calling the Irish bishops to Rome to discuss the ensuing crisis. He is due to issue a letter to Irish Catholics next Wednesday, after his consultations with the bishops. All this is quite exceptional for the Vatican, which usually does not get too involved in such cases in national churches. But it was arranged a few weeks ago when the problem seemed to be confined to the Irish Church Since then, reports of hushed-up clerical abuse have been mounting in Benedict’s native Germany. These reports are all the more shocking because (1) few cases of clerical abuse have emerged in Germany and (2) the abuse allegedly occurred at elite Jesuit high schools in Berlin, Hamburg, Bonn and other cities. These boarding schools have excellent reputations in Germany, as do many Jesuit schools around the world, and charges like this disgrace a long and proud tradition of classical education that’s hard to find elsewhere these days. Ouch… this cuts a bit close to home. One of my own sons boarded at one of these schools for a month when we lived in Germany — the goal was to improve his German language skills — and he returned with much improved Deutsch and an appreciation of Jesuit education. But he also came home with disturbing rumours of wayward priests. There was widespread talk in Bonn back then — at least 15 years ago — about priests taking boys to nudist (Freikörperkultur) swimming pools. Neither we nor our friends who sent their boys to the school had any proof of misconduct, and our sons had no real complaints, but then again, we were not prosecutors investigating every single rumour either. Nor were the Jesuits, it seems, even though they were the ones we parents trusted our boys to … This shamefully hidden past has come back to haunt German Catholicism in the same way that it has shaken the Catholic Church in the United States, Ireland, Poland and other countries. The irony is that in Germany, this has not hit the diocesan priests, often the usual suspects, but the priestly order that is supposed to be the intellectual elite of the Roman Catholic Church. Jesuit schools have such good reputations around the world that even Muslims, Jews and atheists — and I know cases of this personally in several countries — send their children to them to get the best education available in their cities. All parents I know who confided their children to Jesuit schools signed on to their intellectual rigour and most of them approved of the spiritual depth – but few knew about and none would have approved of such carnal exploitation. For most of us parents, this side of these schools came out only afterwards, in rumours and gossip that could not be verified but put a disturbing cloud of doubt over an otherwise positive experience. A courageous Jesuit in Germany, Fr. Klaus Mertes S.J., has brought all this out into the open and started the purification process that these schools needed. Mertes is the head of the Jesuit high school in Berlin, the prestigious Canisius-Kolleg. He informed the Jesuit order back in 2006 of the charges against fellow teachers but — in a bureaucratic reaction we’ve seen all too often in many other countries — his superiors took their sweet time in responding. He admitted that part of the delay in answering these charges was probably based on what he called “the myth” surrounding the elite school under attack. It took too much time for him and them to crack through that myth, but at least Mertes did it. May he continue his good work. St. Aloysius College, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 23 Aug 2007 The scandal in Germany finally became public last month when the head of the Jesuits there, Fr. Stefan Dartmann S.J., announced that he knew of 25 former pupils who said they had been abused at Jesuit schools between 1975 and 1984 — 20 at the Canisius Kolleg in Berlin, 3 at the Hamburger St. Ansgar Schule in Hamburg and 2 at the Kolleg St. Blasien in St. Blasien in the Black Forest. Last week, the principal of the Jesuit boarding school in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany, resigned after two former pupils came forward claiming to have been abused at his school. One of them, Miguel Abrantes Ostrowski, now 37, wrote a book in 2007 about the abuse he allegedly suffered, entitled Sacro Pop: A Schoolboy’s Report. Fr. Theo Schneider S.J. is the first Jesuit to step down since the crisis hit the headlines in late January. He said he did it to allow the investigations to go ahead without any hindrances. If this issue wasn’t already on the agenda for the German bishops’ regular meeting on Feb 22-25, it certainly is now. Senior German Jesuits and other Catholic leaders have apologised for these cases, and that’s a good first step. But the Berlin state prosecutor’s office has said that, under the relevant statute of limitations, there would be no prosecutions of the sexual abuse charges at Canisius College. That’s all the more reason for the German Jesuits — and the German bishops as a group — to draw the moral lessons from these cases themselves and deal strictly with those who misused the trust of their pupils (and their parents) so crassly. Forgiveness is a virtue, but so is justice. A church that can’t see that risks losing even those members who believe that their faith, despite all scandals they see, ultimately stands for the good in a sinful world. What do you think? Can German Catholics turn out to be better than their co-religionists in the U.S., Ireland and other countries in admitting guilt and starting to set things right?
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13 Feb 2010
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14:17:42
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Of the thousands of radio hours Gay Byrne has lived, talk almost inevitably turns to the funereal show when he read, with the help of two actors, the letters that arrived in a blizzard in the days after Kevin O’Connor’s radio report on Ann Lovett, the Granard schoolgirl who died in 1984 while giving birth in a grotto after a secret pregnancy. Letter after letter, hand-written testaments of similar heartbreaks, of abuse, of abortion, of rape, of ruined lives and silent acceptance, the confessions that could never be uttered in a box. “Ann Lovett, yes,” Byrne says. “Kevin did a low-key, beautiful report, and what he didn’t say was important. This guy comes down from Dublin and the community closes in around. They knew bloody well what had happened but weren’t going to tell anyone from RTÉ. And in the course of the report, one of us said: ‘What the hell is this about?’ And the floodgates opened. The response was astounding. That was the first stone lifted to discover what lay underneath in this country. And Christine Buckley came in and she talked, and we got a bag of letters from Goldenbridge girls. “Synge Street, where I went to school, was a tough house, but I never saw a semblance of sexual abuse. Blood and tears on the wall, yes. There was one lay teacher that I now realise was at it. But the threat that was held over us was Artane or Letterfrack, a place of no return – that was our Korea. And I think the Ryan and Murphy reports are the culmination of what happened then. But I was surprised by the extent of it.” http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0213/1224264325263.html
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13 Feb 2010
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14:52:56
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Quote from Irish Times Sat 13th Feb 2010 by Marie Collins, this say's it all:............. "Dublin abuse victim Marie Collins claimed bishops outside of Dublin had “ignored the Murphy survivors” while preparing for their visit to Rome. Noting that four bishops had, at Maynooth last Monday, “rightly” met people who had been abused in institutions run by the religious congregations, she found it “amazing” they “did not do the same for the clerical abuse survivors”. She said: “Archbishop Martin will listen to the Murphy survivors but it is a slap in the face to so many people who are hurting that the rest of the bishops of Ireland have no interest in what they might have to say.”
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14 Feb 2010
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09:46:19
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Irish priest's extradition in rape case a step closer............... Accused could be in custody next week as US judge blocks legal bid......... By Don Lavery Sunday February 14 2010............... A Catholic priest fighting extradition to Ireland over accusations he raped a 15-year-old boy 40 years ago could be in custody as early as next Wednesday, and faces being sent back here, after a US judge blocked attempts to halt his extradition. Evidence being presented before the federal courthouse in South Bend, Indiana, regarding Fr Francis Markey may be weak and suspect but it was up to an Irish court to weigh the evidence, said magistrate judge Christopher Neuchterlein on Friday. Fr Markey, 82, was arrested by US marshals last November at his Indiana home in connection with the alleged rape of a 15-year-old boy in 1968 on foot of an extradition warrant. Fr Markey and his attorneys have been fighting the extradition bid since. The priest, who was based in Monaghan, is accused of raping a 15-year-old boy twice, including the day of the then-teenager's father's funeral. The man, who is now 57, made a complaint to gardai. Fr Markey had been working as a drug and addiction counsellor at a centre in Michigan, with clients including young people. On Friday, his attorney, Mahmoud Bassiouni, said the only evidence of the crime presented by Irish authorities in their extradition bid was a report by the alleged victim -- who recalled being molested by Fr Markey as a child while recently undergoing counselling for alcoholism. Mr Bassiouni wanted to introduce testimony from a psychologist who would cite research showing that improperly trained counsellors could "coach" or "induce" clients to recall past traumatic events as a way of rationalising current substance abuse or mental health problems. "It goes to the very heart of the credibility of the only witness in this case," said Markey's attorney. But assistant US attorney Kenneth Hays argued that Markey's attorneys were trying to "contradict" rather then merely "explain" the State's evidence, something not allowed in extradition cases under US law. The judge agreed and refused to allow the psychologist to testify. "The evidence before this court may be weak. It may be suspect. But it's simply not the role of this court to weigh the evidence. That's up to the Irish court," the judge said. The judge said he would also rule against a second argument made by Markey's lawyers, that because of a change in Irish law in 1993, which abolished the law against "buggery", his extradition was not lawful. But the judge said that, regardless of the change, it was still illegal in Ireland to have sex with children. He gave the two sides until Wednesday to make further motions and Markey's attorneys said they would file more motions seeking to block the extradition. The judge agreed to let the priest remain free on bail until then. But it's understood he could be taken into custody then and extradited soon after.
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14 Feb 2010
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16:35:45
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Irish clergy to meet Pope over child abuse shame AFP/Vatican City Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI will seek in a meeting with Irish bishops at the Vatican next week to reassure a nation severely shaken by a paedophile priest scandal. Revelations of the child abuse, coupled with evidence that Church authorities covered up for paedophile priests in mainly Catholic Ireland for three decades, were contained in an explosive report that led to the resignation of four bishops. Setting the tone for the meeting with some 30 bishops next Monday and Tuesday, Benedict this week reiterated his condemnation of Catholics who violate children’s rights, saying the Church would always “deplore and condemn” such behaviour. Cardinal Claudio Hummes, head of the Vatican department responsible for the clergy, said last month that paedophile priests should be prosecuted as criminals under “ordinary law.” Repeated revelations of paedophile priests have rocked the Church in recent months following major scandals in the United States and Australia. Ireland’s crisis erupted in November with the publication of the shocking government investigation. That was followed in January by a scandal in Germany, where an elite Jesuit school in Berlin admitted systematic sexual abuse of teenagers by at least two priests in the 1970s and 1980s. That scandal snowballed when a third teacher confessed, more victims came forward and further schools were implicated. Ireland’s bishops met last month, issuing a statement welcoming the pope’s summons, saying it came “in the context of the very serious situation that prevails in the Irish Church.” The Vatican said Benedict planned to issue a pastoral letter to Ireland’s Catholics over the scandal. The head of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics already met on December 11 with Ireland’s two most senior Catholic churchmen, primate of all Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady and Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Afterward Benedict said he shared “the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland (over) these heinous crimes.” The November report by judge Yvonne Murphy said the Church had carried out a cover-up to avoid damaging its reputation and assets. One priest admitted to sexually abusing more than 100 children, while another accepted that he had abused on a fortnightly basis over 25 years. The pastoral letter will be aimed at “restoring confidence” among Irish Catholics and to offer “concrete and effective” ways to prevent a recurrence of priestly paedophilia, a Vatican expert wrote in the leading Italian daily Corriere della Sera. “My guess will be that Benedict will repeat what he said to the Australians and the Americans,” another Vatican watcher, John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, said, recalling the pontiff’s harsh condemnations of the scandals and his meetings with victims in both countries. In the United States, “many American Catholics eight years later would say that the Church has adopted tough new policies: if any priest sexually abuses a minor he’s going to be out of the priesthood,” Allen said.
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Date:
14 Feb 2010
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18:39:35
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Sunday Tribune Sunday 14-03-2010........ "Who are these people who say that they are representing Survivors, who attended this clandestine meeting yesterday? One is a high profile male Survivor who lives in Co Dublin who has accused other people of not having a mandate and he does the same thing as he accused other people of without mandate .......Second is a high profile female Survivor from Co Dublin who has done the exact same....Thirdly is male Survivors from a high profile group in Co Cork who has followed suit and the fourth is not know at present............... Abuse victims urge archbishop to ask Pope to remove bishops Abuse survivors yesterday urged the archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, to ask Pope Benedict to remove the bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, when he meets the pope this week. They also asked him to convey to the pope their desire that he accept the resignations of Bishops James Moriarty, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field.
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15 Feb 2010
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07:36:56
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ABUSE GROUPS: POPE BENEDICT needs to take firm action, show guidance and indemnify the Irish people, the co-ordinator of the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (Soca) said yesterday. John Kelly was speaking following a meeting of some 200 industrial school survivors, which passed motions urging the Church to set up compensation funds for survivors of the events outlined in the Murphy report and the victims of the Magdalene laundries. The survivors had written to the pontiff asking him to restore the true Church and honour to the Irish nation for the atrocities committed, he said. The Vatican should underwrite the properties that the religious orders handed over to the Government as it could eventually turn them into a cash fund, Mr Kelly said. “The bulk of the properties are tied up in a trust and are of no value to victims of institutions,” he said. A motion that any financial contributions offered by the religious orders and the Church should be used to set up a fund for survivors, not a trust, was passed enthusiastically by the meeting. “We want reparations given directly to survivors so they can look after their own families,” said Chris Heaphy of Right of Place. Irish Soca will go back to the Government with its mandate to have these properties liquidated and the money paid directly to victims, Mr Kelly said. The meeting voted to have a monument to survivors, which was recommended by the Ryan report, put aside until substantial progress was made on additional contributions by religious orders. “I do not want a monument anywhere in Ireland. I want nothing to remind me of what happened,” Michael O’Brien of Right to Peace told the meeting. “If we get a memorial now, then people will say that we got what we wanted,” Mr Kelly said. He added that the Church should take action using the papal court where the Irish State had exhausted all legal actions. Separately, survivors of clerical abuse urged Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin to convey their views to Pope Benedict during the meeting in Rome between the Irish bishops and the pope. Andrew Madden and survivors of clerical abuse, as well as clients of One in Four and its director Maeve Lewis, met Archbishop Martin ahead of the meeting. They asked him to convey the ongoing suffering of victims to the pontiff. They wanted the pope to fully and unconditionally accept the findings of the Murphy report that abuse was covered in the Dublin diocese. They reiterated that the pope should remove Bishop Drennan of Galway and accept the resignations of bishops Moriarty, Walsh and Field. Any bishop who did not challenge the cover-up culture should resign, they said.
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Date:
15 Feb 2010
Time:
09:04:42
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By John Cooney Monday February 15 2010 LIKE schoolboys waiting to see the headmaster, a gaggle of Irish bishops in their white robes and purple zuchettos assembled in Rome last night ahead of a showdown summit with the Pope. The bishops filed in to St Patrick's Cathedral for the Month's Mind Mass in memory of the late Cardinal Cahal Daly, whose leadership was blighted by the notorious Fr Brendan Smyth and the later torrent of child clerical sex abuse scandals. As they waited, they sat and chatted about the looming summit. The explosive fallout from the damning Murphy and Ryan reports has brought Cardinal Sean Brady and his episcopal troops to Rome for today's summit with Pope Benedict XVI, the first such extraordinary gathering in eight years since Pope John Paul II addressed the clerical paedophile crisis that hit the US. In the hallowed setting of St Patrick's Cathedral, Cardinal Daly's successor Cardinal Brady was looking forward to the two-day engagement with the pontiff. Speaking to journalists, Cardinal Brady said the Vatican talks would be an important step on the "journey of repentance, renewal and conciliation" for the Irish church. He said the bishops were singing off the same hymn sheet in their determination to address the abuse scandals and enforce high quality child protection procedures in all 26 dioceses. At times the smiles on the faces of bishops seemed to suggest they were attending a beatification ceremony -- or present at what they believe will be a renewed Irish church. The cardinal had the air of a headmaster with colleagues such as Bishop Jim Moriarty, who awaits the Pope's acceptance of his resignation. A relaxed Cardinal Brady said the bishops were united on the challenge of bringing people forward into an era of renewal for the Irish church. If anyone said the Irish bishops were not united, they were wrong, he added. Back in their old Roman habits were former members of religious orders, the Carmelite Philip Boyce, now Bishop of Raphoe, and the Pallotine Seamus Freeman, now heading the diocese of Ossory in Kilkenny. Bishops also familiar with the Roman scene -- Bill Murphy of Kerry, John McAreavey of Dromore, Noel Treanor of Down and Connor -- attended the service and mixed at a reception afterwards. It was as if the trouncing in the media and the angry laity vanishing from the pews in the weeks of preparing for the Rome summit were washed away on the banks of the Tiber. With two cardinals from the Roman Curia, Cardinal William Levada of the Doctrine of the Faith and Giovanni Battista Re of the Congregation of Bishops, taking part in the liturgical ceremony, there was a feeling of Rome and the Irish bishops being at one. In their relief that no dressing down is expected from Pope Benedict, the bishops were readying for the fray to heal the wounds of the victims and survivors. But the absence of both Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Bishop Martin Drennan of Limerick meant that the victims' champion and their bete noir were not there last night to enjoy the calm before the storm. Today and tomorrow it is down to business when the 24 bishops will be the sole representatives of the Irish church at the summit which has excluded priests, laity and women. And above all the victims.
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Date:
15 Feb 2010
Time:
09:08:25
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THE DIRECTOR of a special care unit for troubled children turned a high-powered firehose on a teenage girl after she refused to get out of bed, it has emerged. The incident, which occurred at Ballydowd care unit in Dublin last year, prompted a number of investigations by the Health Service Executive (HSE) into care standards at the centre. The unit is due to close following a damning report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa). The report highlighted a litany of problems, including difficulties with management, security of children and basic accommodation standards. It also highlighted serious difficulties of trust between management and staff, which presented as a crisis of confidence in the management of challenging behaviour and in the recording of significant incidents. The child at the centre of the firehose incident made a complaint to gardaí at Lucan, although it is understood that no charges have been brought. Following the firehose incident in February of last year, two care staff who were alleged to have encouraged the teenager to make a complaint were placed on administrative leave. They were subsequently reinstated after almost five months. One staff member who witnessed the firehose event said: “We couldn’t believe it. The hose was turned on a full capacity, it was a powerful hose, for about a minute or more. The room was completely saturated.” The HSE yesterday declined to comment on the firehose incident except to say that under the Childcare Act, it was precluded from commenting on individual children in care. In a statement, it said: “It should be stressed that children in a special care unit can often present with difficult and complex behaviours that are associated with a high level of risk. Staff working at special care units are trained to deal with this type of behaviour, while at all times protecting the best interest of the child.” A senior source has confirmed that a social work team in the north-west reviewed the incident and concluded that the treatment of the child could be considered abusive. However, a subsequent independent report commissioned by the HSE’s assistant national director for children and families disagreed with these findings. It found the treatment could not be categorised as abuse based on official guidelines.
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Date:
15 Feb 2010
Time:
10:10:35
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LIBERTY HALL,DUBLIN,SUNDAY,14FEB 2010..... THE FOUR MAJOR GROUPS HELD A MEETING FOR THE SURVIVORS OF THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS ETC IN IRELAND AND LESS THAN TWO HUNDRED PEOPLE TURNED UP......NUFF SAID.
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Date:
15 Feb 2010
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13:00:25
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We will never again see a worker like Topper. I will never forget him a long as I live. You probably don’t remember Jeremy Tlopper. He died of TB when you were about three or four. It still plays on my conscience that I might have driven him too hard. In those days we used to get youngsters out of Kilnavarna Industrial School to work as farm labourers. They were usually aged about fifteen or sixteen. You didn’t have to pay them much and I know for a fact that most people paid them nothing. I had several lads but they were better for eating than they were for working. It was a mistake, too, to get fellows who hadn’t made their Confirmation because you would have to leave them off every day for catechism. Jeremy Topper was different. He had made his Confirmation. He was a great worker and a light feeder. He was as thin as a whippet but I never heard him complain and he worked out-of-doors, hail, rain, or shine. I often worry that I might have misused him, but no, that isn’t true, because he worshiped me as a son would. He had no father or mother but that was during the Economic War when nobody could afford a regular workman and dead calves were blocking the eyes of the bridges. The only labour we could afford were young lads or girls out of orphanages or Industrial Schools. Jeremy died when he was twenty but I think he killed himself. I never touched him, although I know of boys and girls who were whipped and punched like slaes and there were young girls who were badly abused by certain farmers who are pillars of the Church to-day. May God forgive them and the priests who knew what was going on. I put up headstone over Jeremy when he died. There was no cure for TB in those days. ...from Letters of a Successful TD by John B Keane 1967
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Date:
15 Feb 2010
Time:
13:31:10
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Mister O'Brien member of Fianna Fail and ex-Mayor of Clonmel doesn't want a memorial / monument commemorating the calamitous abuses committed against innocent children by the religious Orders:: Christian Brother, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, the Rosminians, the Order of Charity, the Presentation Brothers, Sisters of Charity of St V de Paul, the Poor Clares, the Good Shepherd Sisters, Charity of Refuge, the St Louis Sisters and the Irish State namely the Irish Department of Education - and it should be remembered that a Fianna Fail Minister held that particular ministry for almost 70 years and these Ministers worked hand in glove with the religous Orders who abused us. And also remember that Mr O'Brien, in his capacity as Fianna Fail Mayor attended numerous events commemorating events such as the Easter Rising .... indeed it can be surmised that Mr. O'Brien attended the unveiling of monuments / memorials commemorating events that happened between 1916 and 1922. SO why his objection to monuments / memorial commemorating the calamitous events in the Institutions - Institutions which were strongly supported by Fianna Fail and their cronies in the Catholic Church ..... answers on a postcard please to Clonmel Town Hall. A Fighting Survivor.
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16 Feb 2010
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01:48:36
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Maybe there are many who want a Monument erected in their honour to remember what happened to us all but I for one dont want one, It is just going to be another Monument for the drunks to piss up against as they have over the years to all our other Monuments so the one erected to us would be no different, because the people of Ireland never cared about us and never will. Give the money to those who suffered to help their kids and grand kids, plus I for one dont want to be reminded everytime I travel to Ireland what happened , I for one am looking for closure from this sorid chapter in ones life
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Date:
16 Feb 2010
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08:52:13
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A typical Irish rural village that was touched by evil Tuesday February 16 2010 THE scene of the crime is a nondescript small family bungalow in a cul-de-sac off a minor road and no more than a mile from the local village. It is a typical, rural west of Ireland setting. But there was nothing typical about the years of horrific abuse inflicted behind these walls by a bullying, sex-driven father on his terrified son. The 52-year-old, now facing a long stretch behind bars, had been living alone here in recent times. During breaks in his trial, he returned home but never had company. He was a solitary figure on these occasions, in every sense of the word. In the months leading up to his court hearing, the man would often make his way into the village and while away his time in one of the local pubs. Again, he was always alone. He neither invited company, nor was offered it, according to a local who spoke anonymously to the Irish Independent. "You'd see him in the pub and he'd be there by himself. But he certainly wasn't shy either or pretending that there was anything wrong. "Everybody here knows the story and even though no names were mentioned in the paper, we all knew that it was him who was on trial for doing that to his son," he said. As news broke yesterday of the outcome of the nine-day trial, there was little or no reaction in the village. "The news isn't really out yet for most people, but they'll all see it on the news on TV later. There wouldn't be much sympathy for him here -- there wouldn't be much sympathy for anyone who'd do something like that to a poor young lad. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a good day's work. The jury reached the right decision,"he said. - BRIAN McDONALD Irish Independent
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16 Feb 2010
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08:56:32
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Clergy 'must admit blame for abominable acts of abuse' Tuesday February 16 2010 CATHOLIC clergy who have sinned by abusing children or by turning a blind eye to paedophile priests must admit blame for their "abominable acts", Ireland's bishops were told yesterday. "Yes, storms spark fear, even those that rock the boat of the church because of the sins of its members," said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, in a sermon. He was speaking inside St Peter's Basilica shortly before they began two days of crisis talks with the Pope. Cardinal Bertone said that trials that came from within the church were "naturally harder and more humiliating", particularly when "men of the church were involved in such particularly abominable acts". However, they formed a challenge that the church "must face". He made his comments during a Mass held for survivors of sexual abuse, attended by Ireland's 24 bishops. Although Cardinal Bertone did not mention victims, prayers were offered for the survivors of abuse, the people, priests and religious of Ireland and for the intentions of Pope Benedict. Prayers were also offered for the summit's success. Irish victims of abuse by priests -- which was revealed in two government-ordered reports last year -- were unimpressed, calling on the Pope to visit Ireland to meet victims. "We want the Pope to make a proper apology to Ireland, for what happened in Ireland," said abuse victim Michael O'Brien. "We don't want a bland apology, we want an apology to those of us in Ireland who were abused and to the people of Ireland, who are 100pc behind us on this. "This is not an Irish problem. This is a Catholic Church worldwide problem." Reconciliation Cardinal Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, meanwhile encouraged the Irish people to continue to pray for healing, reconciliation and renewal. He also prayed for the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the church in Ireland at this time. Vatican analysts said the 11 hours of meetings held by Pope Benedict XVI with Irish bishops on Sunday and a further five-hour behind-closed-doors session yesterday was unprecedented. Pope Benedict will tell the Irish bishops the thrust of his action plan for resolving the child clerical abuse crisis when he closes a special two-day summit in the Vatican this afternoon, a confidential schedule of the proceedings seen by the Irish Independent reveals. Talks resume at 9am today and will run until 1pm, when there will be a discussion of "the most important proposals to emerge". This, the document says, will be followed by preparation of "the Papal Reflection" which Pope Benedict promised to send the Catholics of Ireland in the wake of the public revulsion last November to the Murphy report's shocking findings of extensive cover-ups in the archdiocese of Dublin. The document also reveals that before the final session ends, the agenda will focus on "conclusions by the Holy Father". After the bishops have departed, Pope Benedict will consider reports from his heads of departments who engaged in the talks with the bishops before issuing his official letter, possibly in Holy Week ahead of Easter Sunday. Meanwhile, after the refusal of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, last night to accept an invitation to address an Oireachtas committee, fears were growing that the Pope's response may fall short of the demands from victims, including the removal of Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan.
Remote User:
Date:
16 Feb 2010
Time:
09:01:03
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Tuesday February 16 2010 POPE Benedict has been calling on the Holy Spirit to guide the Irish bishops out of the nightmarish cycle of child clerical sexual abuse scandals -- the scandals that have shattered their moral authority and brought them to Rome in search of healing and renewal at the two-day special summit that ends this afternoon. But lodged in the Bavarian Pope's mind is the even more horrendous prospect of his having to confront an unholy ghost, in the guise of clerical paedophilia, that for decades has blighted generations of school children in his native Germany. Indeed, some commentators here are suggesting the time and energy being devoted by the 83-year-old Pope to resolve 'the Irish problem' is a trial-run for an ever bigger crisis: daily he hears more tragic revelations from the land of his birth of a spiralling series of child sexual abuse atrocities. The influential 'Der Spiegel' has published a sensational piece of investigative journalism claiming the German church's "wall of silence appears to be crumbling". So acute is 'the German problem' that it is being described as "the beginning of an earthquake of proportions which have so far only been seen in the American and Irish church." Germany is the next Ireland. With parents in shock at discovering that their Catholic schools, which were meant to provide their children with moral guidance, were play-grounds for paedophile priests, the Bishops' Conference of Germany is being forced to address the sex scandals at a meeting next week. As calls grow for a Murphy or Ryan-style investigation, the conference's chairman, Archbishop of Freiburg, Robert Zollitsch, has so far failed to offer any convincing apology or act decisively to give victims redress for 'the sins of the Fathers'. Just as Cardinal Desmond Connell refused to take part in Mary Raftery's television documentary, 'Cardinal Secrets,' so has Archbishop Zollitsch declined to be interviewed by 'Der Spiegel'. The cracks in the wall first surfaced in Berlin when an elite Jesuit high school, Canisius College, disclosed that a number of members of the order abused students at the school in the 1970s and 1980s. As in Ireland, after the publicity surrounding the notorious paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, a surge of previously unknown victims have come forward to tell their harrowing stories of abuse. Other cracks in the wall have spread to two other prestigious colleges, the St Ansgar School in Hamburg, and the St Blasien College in the Black Forest, where more former students accused three Jesuit priests of molesting them as children and adolescents. According to a 'Der Spiegel' survey of Germany's 27 dioceses at least 94 priests and laity are suspected or have been suspected of abusing countless children and adolescents since 1995. Just 24 of the 27 dioceses responded to the magazine's questionnaire. Even worse, a group called the Round Table for Care in Children's Homes has published an interim report showing that more than 150 victims of sexual abuse had come forward with their stories in recent months. These stories could be straight out of those told by survivors of Ireland's industrial schools in the Ryan Report. For instance, one woman tells of how, as a 15-year-old girl, she was forced to sit in the confessional and watch a priest masturbate. When she tried to get away from him, she was beaten by the nuns who ran the home. The same pattern of secrecy, suppression and shielding of offending priests, as is documented in the damning Ferns and Dublin reports, is also starkly emerging in German dioceses. For example, in the archdiocese of Cologne, one priest died before the accusations could be clarified, another priest was sentenced, but three cases were dropped. Ominously for Pope Benedict, the files are likely to land on his desk from the overcrowded office of Cardinal William Levada, his successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as 'The Inquisition'. Already, Benedict's own track record when prefect of the doctrinal watchdog under Pope John Paul II is being questioned. The Joseph Ratzinger being recalled in the German media is that of a conservative academic who sees the crimes against children as "the ultimate, most egregious expression of a culture of godlessness, (which) unfortunately not even clerics are immune to". In a recent address, Pope Benedict's recommendation to his priests was to simply follow the example set by St Dominic and devote themselves fully to prayer and learning. "For those who have already fallen prey to 'weaknesses of the flesh'," writes 'Der Spiegel', "the Pope offers the relative leniency of an internal church proceeding," held in secrecy and in Latin. Ironically, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's policy of removing priests suspected of abuse and his full cooperation with gardai in seeking prosecutions of priest offenders could be the way forward for the German pontiff. A success in Ireland could be applied to Germany. But if Benedict's letter to the Catholics of Ireland harks back to the Irish Celtic equivalents of St Dominic, he will land himself in deeper trouble in both Ireland and Germany. - John Cooney Irish Independent
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16 Feb 2010
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10:14:36
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Irish attempts to grapple with abuse frustrated by Rome............... ANALYSIS: Criticism of the Irish bishops this week should not deflect attention from the role of the Vatican in the clerical abuse scandal, writes PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent, in Rome.................. It can only be hoped that today’s discussions in Rome on what Cardinal Claudio Hummes has memorably described as “the painful Irish happenings” will reflect on the role not just of the Irish bishops but also of the Vatican itself. Rome consistently tripped up the Irish church as it attempted to come to grips with the issue of clerical child sex abuse, and Cardinal Hummes – who is taking part in this week’s discussions with Pope Benedict XVI, his senior curial colleagues and 24 Irish bishops – is uniquely placed to understand just how................ He is prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy which refused to give recognition to child protection guidelines introduced by the Irish bishops in their 1996 Framework Document and again in their updated 2005 Our Children, Our Church document. It meant those guidelines were “only guidelines”, as Cardinal Connell memorably told Marie Collins in December 1996, less than a year after that Framework Document was published (in January 1996). They did not have to be followed and were not binding in canon law, Cardinal Connell said. He should know. He was then a member of the Congregation for the Clergy and was known to be unenthusiastic about the Framework Document . His concern was with the risk to the good name of an accused priest........... This lack of recognition by Rome meant that an accused priest could appeal to the Vatican over his bishop’s head if action was taken against him on foot of an allegation of child sex abuse and that, most likely, the priest would win as there was no backing for such a bishop’s action in Rome. As Cardinal Connell would have been aware there was a precedent for this in an “Irish happening” of the early 1990s. Following a canonical trial it was recommended to Rome that an Irish priest be laicised on foot of allegations of child sex abuse. The priest appealed the decision to Rome, which decided he should not be laicised but should spend time in a monastery before resuming his priestly ministry. However, in the intervening years between the priest’s making his appeal and Rome’s decision he abused another boy, on foot of which he was jailed. It was then Rome decided to laicise him. Despite this Rome still refused to give the Irish bishops’ 1996 Framework Document or their Our Children, Our Church document of 2005 its backing, meaning those documents were not worth the paper they were written on.......... As the Murphy report put it: “The Framework Document (1996) was not a norm and therefore was not binding on individual bishops. The Holy See did not formally recognise it either. Victims have expressed disappointment that neither the Framework Document nor its successor, Our Children, Our Church (2005), received recognition from Rome, thus leaving both documents without legal status under canon law. “This was in direct contrast to the approach adopted by the Holy See to the request of the American Conference of Bishops, who sought and received recognition for their 2002 and 2006 norms. The fact that a number of the bishops in the USA disagreed with the norms was probably a factor in Rome granting recognition to the USA norms and thus making them binding in canon law.”........... The report continued: “Bishops wanted procedures that they could be certain of; they felt extremely vulnerable because in 1996 . . . they were meeting an onslaught of complaints and Rome was pulling any particular solid ground that they had from under them.” The former chancellor of the Dublin archdiocese, Msgr Alex Stenson, told the commission that “Rome had reservations about its [the Framework Document ’s] policy of reporting to the civil authorities. The basis of the reservation was that the making of a report put the reputation and good name of a priest at risk.”.............. Not content with “pulling any particular solid ground that they had” from under the Irish bishops, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith went on to ignore co-operation with the Murphy commission and, for good measure, its papal nuncio twice refused to respond to commission correspondence. It is clear Rome itself has profound questions to answer concerning “the painful Irish happenings
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16 Feb 2010
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10:22:59
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John Cooney: Unholy ghosts of clerical sex abuse stalk Pope's homeland..... By John Cooney.............. Tuesday February 16 2010................ Pope Benedict has been calling on the Holy Spirit to guide the Irish bishops out of the nightmarish cycle of child clerical sexual abuse scandals -- the scandals that have shattered their moral authority and brought them to Rome in search of healing and renewal at the two-day special summit that ends this afternoon. But lodged in the Bavarian Pope's mind is the even more horrendous prospect of his having to confront an unholy ghost, in the guise of clerical paedophilia, that for decades has blighted generations of school children in his native Germany. Indeed, some commentators here are suggesting the time and energy being devoted by the 83-year-old Pope to resolve 'the Irish problem' is a trial-run for an ever bigger crisis: daily he hears more tragic revelations from the land of his birth of a spiralling series of child sexual abuse atrocities.................. The influential 'Der Spiegel' has published a sensational piece of investigative journalism claiming the German church's "wall of silence appears to be crumbling". So acute is 'the German problem' that it is being described as "the beginning of an earthquake of proportions which have so far only been seen in the American and Irish church." Germany is the next Ireland. With parents in shock at discovering that their Catholic schools, which were meant to provide their children with moral guidance, were play-grounds for paedophile priests, the Bishops' Conference of Germany is being forced to address the sex scandals at a meeting next week. As calls grow for a Murphy or Ryan-style investigation, the conference's chairman, Archbishop of Freiburg, Robert Zollitsch, has so far failed to offer any convincing apology or act decisively to give victims redress for 'the sins of the Fathers'.................. Just as Cardinal Desmond Connell refused to take part in Mary Raftery's television documentary, 'Cardinal Secrets,' so has Archbishop Zollitsch declined to be interviewed by 'Der Spiegel'. The cracks in the wall first surfaced in Berlin when an elite Jesuit high school, Canisius College, disclosed that a number of members of the order abused students at the school in the 1970s and 1980s. As in Ireland, after the publicity surrounding the notorious paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, a surge of previously unknown victims have come forward to tell their harrowing stories of abuse. Other cracks in the wall have spread to two other prestigious colleges, the St Ansgar School in Hamburg, and the St Blasien College in the Black Forest, where more former students accused three Jesuit priests of molesting them as children and adolescents............. According to a 'Der Spiegel' survey of Germany's 27 dioceses at least 94 priests and laity are suspected or have been suspected of abusing countless children and adolescents since 1995. Just 24 of the 27 dioceses responded to the magazine's questionnaire. Even worse, a group called the Round Table for Care in Children's Homes has published an interim report showing that more than 150 victims of sexual abuse had come forward with their stories in recent months. These stories could be straight out of those told by survivors of Ireland's industrial schools in the Ryan Report. For instance, one woman tells of how, as a 15-year-old girl, she was forced to sit in the confessional and watch a priest masturbate. When she tried to get away from him, she was beaten by the nuns who ran the home.................. The same pattern of secrecy, suppression and shielding of offending priests, as is documented in the damning Ferns and Dublin reports, is also starkly emerging in German dioceses. For example, in the archdiocese of Cologne, one priest died before the accusations could be clarified, another priest was sentenced, but three cases were dropped. Ominously for Pope Benedict, the files are likely to land on his desk from the overcrowded office of Cardinal William Levada, his successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as 'The Inquisition'................ Already, Benedict's own track record when prefect of the doctrinal watchdog under Pope John Paul II is being questioned. The Joseph Ratzinger being recalled in the German media is that of a conservative academic who sees the crimes against children as "the ultimate, most egregious expression of a culture of godlessness, (which) unfortunately not even clerics are immune to". In a recent address, Pope Benedict's recommendation to his priests was to simply follow the example set by St Dominic and devote themselves fully to prayer and learning............... "For those who have already fallen prey to 'weaknesses of the flesh'," writes 'Der Spiegel', "the Pope offers the relative leniency of an internal church proceeding," held in secrecy and in Latin. Ironically, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's policy of removing priests suspected of abuse and his full cooperation with gardai in seeking prosecutions of priest offenders could be the way forward for the German pontiff. A success in Ireland could be applied to Germany. But if Benedict's letter to the Catholics of Ireland harks back to the Irish Celtic equivalents of St Dominic, he will land himself in deeper trouble in both Ireland and Germany.
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16 Feb 2010
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10:32:51
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Report on rights of the child is finally published............ By Aine Kerr Political Correspondent............ Tuesday February 16 2010........... A Child should be treated as an individual citizen with standalone rights under the Constitution, a new cross-party Oireachtas report will recommend today. The 120-page report by the Oireachtas committee on children's rights follows months of delays, 200 submissions, 65 meetings, two interim reports and constant wrangling over the precise wording of changes to Article 42 of the Constitution which will be voted on in a referendum. The new wording for Article 42 will include a declaration on the rights of the child and list their rights. It will also provide for the adoption of children of married parents in certain circumstances and alter the conditions enabling the State to intervene in order to protect the welfare and rights of a child. The wording will give stronger rights to children in the hope of providing for more child-focused court decisions............. The Oireachtas committee has been meeting since November 2007, but has been dogged by extensions and debate. At one point, the Government backed off from holding a referendum, signalling changes could simply be made through legislation in the Dail. But the revised Programme for Government between the Greens and Fianna Fail last September committed to holding a referendum based on the findings of the Oireachtas committee. The breakthrough on the wording for a referendum follows the recent Murphy and Ryan reports and the 'Baby Ann' case in 2006. That Supreme Court ruling saw a two-year-old girl returned to the custody of her birth parents from her adoptive parents when they withdrew consent for her adoption.................. Children's rights campaigners have claimed there is regular "sub-ordination" of children's rights to the rights of the family under the Constitution. "What we are saying is that specific rights should be given to the child for the first time and for the child's voice to be heard in his or her own interest for the first time as a matter of constitutional right," one source familiar with the report told the Irish Independent. The wording, which will be voted on in a referendum if approved by Cabinet, would still protect the institution of the family and the family's position under Article 41. Up until now, every citizen had rights under the Constitution but the rights of children were mediated through the family under Article 41. In the past, there were "very high hurdles" that needed to be overcome before the welfare of the child could become paramount in terms of the institution of the family, another source said........... The idea is to see, for the first time, the child as an "individual citizen holding rights in and of him or herself to be vindicated on that basis alone if the child's rights are impugned". Another source added today's report would ensure the rights of children "shine through". Vindicated "That doesn't mean we are setting aside the institution of the family or that there will be an easy penetration of the family by any external force on behalf of the State or anybody else but it does mean that a child will be seen as a constitutional individual who has standalone rights that need to be vindicated," the source said................ Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has already pledged €3m for holding a referendum. Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin hinted on Sunday that a referendum could take place on the same day as the two by-elections and Dublin mayoral elections later this year. Speaking ahead of today's publication, Jillian van Turnhout of the Children's Rights Alliance said: "The time is ripe for a referendum on children's rights."
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16 Feb 2010
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11:51:54
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Whatever form a monument takes, whether it be a work of stone or an electronic archive, it's fundamental purpose would be to remind the Irish nation of what was done to little children in their name by the Religious Orders and the State, to make sure that those human rights abuses are never again repeated. A Fighting Survivor
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16 Feb 2010
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13:29:18
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Who was the Lord Mayor of Clonmel who had all the inmates of Ferryhouse washing and scrubbing all the Holy Statues in the area in preparation for the month of May as that been the month of prayer and devotions to the Blessed Virgin.
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16 Feb 2010
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16:54:10
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Vatican press release.............. Tuesday, 16 February 2010 .................. Press release issued by the Vatican press office following the conclusion of the meeting between the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI and Irish Bishops: 'On 15 and 16 February 2010, the Holy Father met the Irish Bishops and senior members of the Roman Curia to discuss the serious situation which has emerged in the Church in Ireland. 'Together they examined the failure of Irish Church authorities for many years to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people by some Irish clergy and religious............... 'All those present recognized that this grave crisis has led to a breakdown in trust in the Church's leadership and has damaged her witness to the Gospel and its moral teaching. 'The meeting took place in a spirit of prayer and collegial fraternity, and its frank and open atmosphere provided guidance and support to the Bishops in their efforts to address the situation in their respective Dioceses. 'On the morning of 15 February, following a brief introduction by the Holy Father, each of the Irish Bishops offered his own observations and suggestions................. 'The Bishops spoke frankly of the sense of pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame expressed to them on numerous occasions by those who had been abused. 'There was a similar sense of outrage reflected by laity, priests and religious in this regard. 'The Bishops likewise described the support at present being provided by thousands of trained and dedicated lay volunteers at parish level to ensure the safety of children in all Church activities, and stressed that, while there is no doubt that errors of judgement and omissions stand at the heart of the crisis, significant measures have now been taken to ensure the safety of children and young people.............. 'They also emphasized their commitment to cooperation with the statutory authorities in Ireland - North and South - and with the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland to guarantee that the Church's standards, policies and procedures represent best practice in this area. 'For his part, the Holy Father observed that 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. 'While realizing that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he challenged the Bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage............. 'He also expressed the hope that the present meeting would help to unify the Bishops and enable them to speak with one voice in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused, encouraging a renewal of faith in Christ and restoring the Church's spiritual and moral credibility. 'The Holy Father also pointed to the more general crisis of faith affecting the Church and he linked that to the lack of respect for the human person and how the weakening of faith has been a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors. 'He stressed the need for a deeper theological reflection on the whole issue, and called for an improved human, spiritual, academic and pastoral preparation both of candidates for the priesthood and religious life and of those already ordained and professed................ 'The Bishops had an opportunity to examine and discuss a draft of the Pastoral Letter of the Holy Father to the Catholics of Ireland. 'Taking into account the comments of the Irish Bishops, His Holiness will now complete his Letter, which will be issued during the coming season of Lent. 'The discussions concluded late Tuesday morning, 16 February 2010. 'As the Bishops return to their Dioceses, the Holy Father has asked that this Lent be set aside as a time for imploring an outpouring of God's mercy and the Holy Spirit's gifts of holiness and strength upon the Church in Ireland.'
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16 Feb 2010
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17:00:26
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AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE -THERE IS MORE SAID THAN DONE..CARRY ON WITH BUISNESS AS USUAL TO ALL THE IRISH CATHOLIC CLERICAL CHILD SEXUAL TERRORISTS....... Tuesday, 16 February 2010 16:46................. The Pope has told Irish bishops at a special summit in the Vatican that paedophilia is a heinous crime and that the Catholic Church must address the issue with resolve, according to a statement. The Pope has urged the 24 Irish bishops to show unity in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to survivors of abuse. He said he realised that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly and he urged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve and face the present crisis with honesty and courage............. The Pope's statement follows a two-day meeting with most of the Irish hierarchy to discuss the fall-out from the Ryan and Murphy reports. The Pope also said that the weakening of faith has been a significant contributing factor leading to the sexual abuse of minors. He called for an improved preparation both for candidates for the priesthood and religious life and of those already ordained and professed Last night, the bishops stayed in Vatican accommodation that is reserved for Cardinals when they are electing a new Pope............ Over a working dinner, the visitors continued to discuss their advice to those who are drafting the Pope's forthcoming letter to Irish Catholics. It is the first such Pastoral to be devoted exclusively to child abuse by priests and religious. After today's meeting with the Pope the All Ireland Primate Cardinal Seán Brady told a packed news conference that the abuse of children by priests and religious was not just an Irish problem or a problem of the English speaking world. He said the Pope emphasised the need for the bishops to be united in the face of the abuse crisis................ The bishops will now be reporting to their respective Diocese on the discussion of the past two days. In a statement this afternoon Andrew Madden, who was abused as an altar boy, said it would appear that submissions made by some survivors of sexual abuse by priests have been completely ignored. He said that: 'Pope Benedict has not articulated full acceptance of the findings of the Murphy Report, as we asked him to do, in order to quell the rise in revisionism and the surge in denial from some quarters within the Catholic Church in relation to its findings'................. He also expressed disappointment that a number of bishops cited in the report have not yet resigned or removed from office. Mr Madden added that 'it would appear that self preservation and damage limitation for the Catholic Church is still a higher priority for Pope Benedict and the Bishops than the concerns and wishes of people who had been sexually abused as children by priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin over many decades, and that hardly represents change.'
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16 Feb 2010
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19:21:48
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Victims fear whitewash in Irish abuse scandal........... By Philip Pullella.......... Pope Benedict and Irish bishops ended crisis talks over a paedophilia scandal on Tuesday but victims' groups expressed fears of a whitewash where those who facilitated child abuse by priests will not face justice. Skip related content A Vatican statement issued at the end of the pope's meetings with 24 Irish bishops called sexual abuse of children by priests a "heinous crime" and said the bishops had promised the pope they are committed to cooperating with civil authorities in investigations of the scandal.......... But victims groups expressed deep dismay, saying the meeting did not conclude who should pay for a policy of cover up and failed to mention any Vatican responsibility for looking the other way for decades. "It is very disappointing. The Vatican has accepted no responsibility for its role in facilitating the sexual abuse of children," said Meave Lewis, executive director of victim-support group One in Four........... "In fact it is quite insulting to victims to imply that they were abused because of failings of faith rather than the fact that sex-offending priests were moved from parish to parish and those in authority looked away," she told Reuters............. Benedict, the Irish bishops and top Vatican officials met in response to outrage in Ireland over the Murphy Commission Report, a damning indictment of child sex abuse by priests. The report, published in November, said the church in Ireland had "obsessively" concealed child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese from 1975 to 2004, and operated a policy of "don't ask, don't tell." At the meetings the pope challenged the bishops "to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage."......... VICTIMS WANTED CONCRETE ACTION....... But victims' groups' hopes for concrete action were dashed. "I am dismayed, hugely, profoundly upset and disappointed," said Christine Buckley, a victim of abuse and founder of the Aislinn support centre, told Ireland's Newstalk radio. The Murphy report said all Dublin bishops in charge during the period under study had been aware of some complaints, but the archdiocese had been more preoccupied with protecting the reputation of the church than safeguarding children. Four bishops have offered their resignations and the pope has so far accepted one. Victims' group One in Four called on other bishops throughout Ireland who had engaged in a "culture of cover-up" to step down........ At a news conference, five of the bishops were bombarded with questions about why the Vatican did not accept its own institutional responsibility. Cardinal Sean Brady said the Irish bishops "do not feel like scapegoats" and the "the Vatican wants to help bring about spiritual renewal in Ireland." But while the Vatican statement said the meetings "examined the failure of Irish church authorities for many years to act effectively" in cases of sexual abuse, victims were dismayed. "I'm normally an optimist and for some unknown reason I really thought that the Pope was going to say 'let's start with Ireland. I will go to Ireland. I will meet with the victims of institutional and clerical abuse. I will unveil a memorial. I will start a first world conference for victims of institutional and sexual abuse'," said Buckley............. "Instead he has washed his hands of it, he thinks it's okay and that a Lenten pastoral letter is going to help our pain. No, it is not," she said. The pope will send a letter to the Irish people, the first ever papal document devoted exclusively to paedophilia, probably next month. The bishops said it would centre on victims. The Murphy report said the church's prominent role in Irish life was one of the reasons abuses went unchecked. One priest admitted abusing more than 100 children. Another said he had abused children every two weeks for over 25 years
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16 Feb 2010
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19:38:29
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“When will people ever learn that the Catholic Church will always protect itself, damage limitation is what they are all about and as for the innocent Irish children that had the most heinous abuses visited on them by the Irish Catholic Clerical Sexual Terrorists……..”Give them a few quid and tell them to offer up their pain to God”, this is their mind set. So all these plans and clandestine meetings with the Irish Clergy by hand picked groups in Ireland who gave the impression to some Survivors that they will “SORT THIS OUT AND SHOW WHO IS BOSS” has come to nothing and it has come back to haunt them.
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16 Feb 2010
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19:47:17
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Abuse survivors round on Vatican...... Tuesday February 16 2010.............. Survivors of clerical abuse have rounded on Pope Benedict XVI for not acknowledging senior clergy covered up decades of sickening mistreatment. At the end of an unprecedented two-day Vatican summit with Irish Bishops, the Pontiff branded the sexual abuse of children and young people a heinous crime and a grave sin. The Vatican said the Pope also told Bishops the weakening of faith was a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors................ Maeve Lewis, of support group One in Four, hit back and said Pope Benedict's response was inadequate. "It is deeply insulting to survivors to suggest that they were abused due to failures of faith, rather than because sex offending priests were moved from parish to parish, and those in authority looked away while further children were sexually abused," said Ms Lewis. The 24 senior clergy were summonsed to Rome over the past mishandling of child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic church in Ireland in the last year................ A statement from the Vatican read: "While realising that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he (the Pope) challenged the Bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage." Andrew Madden, who in 1995 became the first in Ireland to go public with an abuse lawsuit against the church, said submissions made by survivors had been completely ignored during the summit........... "It would appear that self preservation and damage limitation for the Catholic Church is still a higher priority for Pope Benedict and the Bishops than the concerns and wishes of people who had been sexually abused as children by priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin over many decades, and that hardly represents change," said Mr Madden. "I can only conclude that the Catholic Church remains a disgraced, discredited organisation that seems to be entirely incapable of responding in any intelligent, meaningful way to the findings of the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy Reports."
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17 Feb 2010
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08:13:32
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By God there's going to be an awful lot of whitewash sold in Ireland next week , each 10 liters comes with a sorry letter from the Pope, talk about been duped, I think I will go out and buy my own brick wall and start banging my head againist it.We have our monument, a Monument in Lies and Deceit built on our Suffering. Those who are suppose to represent us without our vote sold us down the River. Talk about lambs been led to the slaughterhouse only this slaughterhouse was in the Vatican thought up by four people who only want Monetary Gain as I said we have been Duped.
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17 Feb 2010
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08:18:48
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FURIOUS victims of clerical sex abuse last night accused the Pope of "washing his hands" of the scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland. Victims condemned Pope Benedict XVI for not acknowledging that senior clergy covered up decades of abuse. They said the pontiff's unprecedented two-day summit with the 24 Irish bishops in the Vatican was "a charade", which had achieved nothing. The bishops were summoned to Rome over the past mishandling of child abuse scandals that rocked the church last year. The Ryan report found that the Catholic Church and Irish Government covered up almost four decades of sexual abuse and beatings by priests and nuns on thousands of children in state care. And the Murphy report unveiled a catalogue of cover-ups by the Catholic hierarchy in Dublin to protect the church. But in a Vatican statement, the Pope failed to acknowledge the cover-up or apologise for the abuse -- leading to widespread condemnation from victims. The Pope also failed to sack under-fire Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan -- or even formally accept the resignations of other bishops who were criticised in the Murphy report for their mishandling of cases of sexual abuse. The pontiff also ignored the failure of the Papal Nuncio to co-operate with the Murphy Commission's investigation into abuse in Dublin. In a statement, the Vatican said the Holy Father told the bishops the sexual abuse of children and young people was 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. "While realising that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage," it stated. The Vatican said the Pope also told bishops the weakening of faith was a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors. Maeve Lewis, of support group One in Four, hit back and said Pope Benedict's response was inadequate. "It is deeply insulting to survivors to suggest that they were abused due to failures of faith, rather than because sex-offending priests were moved from parish to parish, and those in authority looked away while further children were sexually abused," she said. Concerns Campaigner Andrew Madden, who was abused by Dublin priest Ivan Payne, said the meeting showed "self-preservation" was the church's priority. He said Pope Benedict and the bishops placed this over the concerns of people who had been abused for decades. "I can only conclude the Catholic Church remains a disgraced, discredited organisation that seems to be entirely incapable of responding in any intelligent, meaningful way to the findings of the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy reports," he said. Abuse victim and campaigner Marie Collins said the Pope insulted the survivors by failing to put the bishops' resignations on the agenda and again ignoring the chance of reforms. "This is a clerical club in a clerical world. . . they are living in a different century," she said. "I see no hope for the future." Goldenbridge orphanage survivor Christine Buckley labelled the Vatican's statement on abuse in Ireland "a charade". She said she was disappointed with news the Pope is to issue a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on the scandal. "This is a charade. A collection of 24 bishops who appear to have been lectured about the disunity of their members rather than trying to find out why these abuses happened. Instead the Pope has washed his hands of it, he thinks a Lenten pastoral letter is going to help our pain. No, it is not." The Rape Crisis Network also expressed deep disappointment at the outcome of the meeting. Executive director Fiona Neary said: "It is now clear that the most senior levels of Catholic institutions remain unable to take responsibility for their collusion with the abuse of children in Ireland." - John Cooney in Rome and Ciaran Byrne Irish Independent
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Date:
17 Feb 2010
Time:
08:23:18
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Tuesday February 16 2010 NINE vacancies will soon occur in the 26 dioceses in the Republic and Northern Ireland. This represents an unprecedented one-third of the total, and these nine posts will need to be filled by the German Pontiff. These sweeping changes in the personnel of the Irish hierarchy will provide Pope Benedict with the opportunity over the next two years to appoint a younger generation of "new blood" priests to a jaded bench of bishops. Three existing bishoprics have become due for new men as a result of two resignations and one removal last year over the mishandling of child clerical abuse complaints. Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, a former secretary to three popes, was removed from office and given the title of former bishop by Pope Benedict after he was found by the bishops' own independent watchdog to have failed to implement agreed child-protection procedures. The resignation of Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray, was accepted by the Pope in the immediate aftermath of the Murphy report last November; while Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Jim Moriarty, also criticised in the Murphy report, submitted his resignation to Pope Benedict. He is awaiting news of its acceptance, which may be announced today. In the next two years, another six bishops will retire on age grounds. The popular Bishop of Killalloe, Willie Walsh, and the sturdy Colm O'Reilly of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, have already offered their resignations to the Holy Father on reaching the obligatory retirement age of 75, as has the vastly experienced Bishop of Clogher, Joe Duffy, the head of the Episcopal communications commission. Also due to step down in the near future at 75 is Bishop of Elphin, Christopher Jones. Two Dublin auxiliary bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, are still waiting for their resignations to be approved by Pope Benedict. - John Cooney Irish Independent
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17 Feb 2010
Time:
08:31:31
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Wednesday February 17 2010 CARDINAL Sean Brady last night strongly denied that tensions with other bishops had led to Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin's immediate departure from the Vatican. Immediately after the summit ended at 1pm yesterday afternoon the Archbishop of Dublin hurriedly left Rome for Dublin to fulfil a public Ash Wednesday engagement. The speedy departure of the leading advocate of bringing victims into fuller dialogue with the church authorities sparked off a wave of speculation that he was isolated from the other bishops. Dr Martin had promised victims of clerical abuse in his Dublin archdiocese to make known to the pontiff their demands that Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan should resign or be removed from office. He had also promised survivors of institutional abuse by religious orders in industrial schools to bring to the Pope their request for a meeting with the him at the Vatican. Neither of these two demands were addressed in the statement issued by the Vatican in which Pope Benedict claimed that a weakening of the Catholic faith in Ireland had been "a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors". Pope Benedict also expressed his hope that his participation in the two-day talks "would help to unify the bishops and enable them to speak with one voice", a statement that sounded like a rebuke to Dr Martin for his public call on Bishop Drennan and the other auxiliary bishops of Dublin to be accountable for their part in a culture of cover-ups condemned by the Murphy report. Renewal The Pope instructed the bishops to speak with one voice "in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused, encouraging a renewal of faith in Christ and restoring the church's spiritual and moral credibility". These comments, released by the Vatican press office, instantly enraged victims in Ireland who saw it as a charade and an insult. Asked by the Irish Independent about the disunity among the bishops over the "divisive" continuation in office of Bishop Drennan and the failure of the Pope to invite victims to Rome, Cardinal Brady said: "I want to make it quite clear that there is no disunity among the Irish bishops concerning the importance of the safeguarding of children. "We have all signed up to the national guidance material which we have prepared with the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children and we are implementing it. So there is no disunity in that regard." The cardinal was also asked if Dr Martin's decision to return from Rome to attend an Ash Wednesday public engagement at UCD was because of tensions among the bishops. The cardinal replied: "Archbishop Martin's absence is most certainly not -- most certainly not -- due to tensions among the bishops. "During the five days we spent last week in Knock, and these two days in Rome, our unity has never been greater," added the cardinal, claiming that the talks with the Pope and senior cardinals of the Roman Curia had amounted to "a mini-Synod". "Each of the 24 bishops spoke for five minutes from their hearts and their heads with passion on these (abuse) issues which have engaged so much of our time, energy and resources," he added. - John Cooney in Rome
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17 Feb 2010
Time:
09:15:25
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I wish people would stop saying 'abuse going back four decades." It didn't just start four decades ago. I should know as I was an inmate in the so called Institutes for 14 years in the early 1930-40s. Of course it went on longer than that. Many lives of that period have been ruined including members of my family I never got to know. They went to their graves feeling too ashamed of the stigma of having served time in those hell holes of the time, when the State/Church kept children in worse conditions than the livestock. Trying to research mine and my families background is like going through an obstacle course. It would appear that both the Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers at Killkenny and Artane can each provide only one sheet of paper containing details of my 14 year 'stay' whilst in their custody. Most of the 'information' they have produced are just downright lies, and I have the proof. None the less I shall continue with my research, because one lie requires another and another to try and cover up each one. Why do the Sisters of Charity reply on solicitors to respond to requests for information for its release? At times I'm told that they have very little information about my eight years with them. When I raise questions on some matters they appear to be able to come up with plenty of information. Their mind-set has changed very little over the years. There is no 'sorry'; still no compassion or regrets for the pain and hurt caused to so many. It's still a cold heartless Church. I must battle on till I have the full shocking story for my next book. Padraig
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Date:
17 Feb 2010
Time:
10:17:31
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Pope admits trust breakdown but no abuse apology............. By Noel Baker............ Wednesday, February 17, 2010........... Pope Benedict has admitted clerical child sex abuse in Ireland had led to a breakdown in trust in the Church’s leadership but he failed to issue an apology. In a statement released following the conclusion of two days of meetings with Irish bishops, the Pontiff did not issue an explicit apology but asked this Lenten period be set aside as a time for "imploring an outpouring of God’s mercy". This infuriated victims’ groups, with Christine Buckley of the Aisling Centre describing the meeting between the Pope and the bishops as "a charade"................. The One in Four group said the meeting and subsequent statement was "very disappointing", particularly as the Pope has offered no explanation for the failure of the Vatican and the papal nuncio to cooperate with the Murphy Commission. The statement from the Vatican, which appears to have done little to quell anger at the Church over the abuse perpetrated by clergy members and covered up by members of the Church hierarchy, recognised the "grave crisis" that has "led to a breakdown in trust in the Church’s leadership and has damaged her witness to the Gospel and its moral teaching". He also cited "the failure of the Irish Church authorities for years to act effectively over cases of sexual abuse against young people"............ According to the statement: "For his part, the Holy Father observed that 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." The Pope challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve and they would speak with one voice in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused. He also mentioned a "general crisis of faith affecting the Church" and linked that to the lack of respect for the human person and how the weakening of faith has been a "significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors". The input of the bishops will be taken into account in the drafting of the pastoral letter from the Pope to the Catholics of Ireland, which will be issued during Lent........... Speaking on Lunchtime with Eamon Keane on Newstalk, Ms Buckley said: "This is a charade. A collection of 24 bishops who appear to have been lectured about the tensions and the disunity of their members rather than trying to find out why these abuses happened and how to resolve them." She said the Pope could have pledged to visit Ireland "but instead he has washed his hands of it, he thinks it’s okay and a Lenten pastoral letter is going to help our pain. No, it is not".
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17 Feb 2010
Time:
10:21:02
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Brady: Sex abuse crisis not limited to our Church........... By Noel Baker.............. Wednesday, February 17, 2010............. Irish bishops have told Pope Benedict of the devastation caused by child sex abuse, while victims still demand top-level resignations over the subsequent cover-up. Cardinal Seán Brady said there had been an appeal in the meeting with the Pope that the bishops should show strong leadership and to lead from the front. He later said the problem of sex abuse was not just limited to the Catholic Church. "We also know and we recognise that this is not just an Irish problem... but it is a great problem and at the centre of it all must be the welfare of victims," he said. Bishop Joe Duffy of Clogher also said the bishops shared the responsibility "for not doing the job" regarding tackling child sex abuse in the past. According to the statement issued yesterday following the two-day meeting between the Irish bishops and the Pontiff in the Vatican, each bishop had a chance to speak on the issue to the Pope. "The bishops spoke frankly of the sense of pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame expressed to them on numerous occasions by those who had been abused," the statement said. "There was a similar sense of outrage reflected by laity, priests and religious in this regard." The bishops cited the support being provided by thousands of trained and dedicated lay volunteers at parish level to ensure the safety of children in all Church activities, and stressed that, "while there is no doubt that errors of judgment and omissions stand at the heart of the crisis, significant measures have now been taken to ensure the safety of children and young people. "They also emphasised their commitment to cooperation with the statutory authorities in Ireland – North and South – and with the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland to guarantee that the Church’s standards, policies and procedures represent best practice in this area." The bishops discussed a draft of the Pastoral Letter of the Holy Father to the Catholics of Ireland and their contributions could feature in the finished letter, to be delivered during Lent.
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Date:
17 Feb 2010
Time:
10:24:16
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To Cardinal Seán Brady I say that this is what's known as "PASSING THE BUCK" and "Don't do as we do but do as we say".
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Date:
17 Feb 2010
Time:
10:56:42
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After all the roaring and shouting done at the Meeting in Liberty Hall, Dublin on Sunday 14th Feb 2010 we now have the biggest sell out of all by the Gang of Four. All the wheeling and dealing in their clandestine meetings with Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Bishops and all the other priests has came to nothing and once again Survivors who believed them are left stranded. This Gang of Four...John Kelly...Chris Heaphy....Michael O'Brien....Tom Hayes have well and truly sold Survivors down the river.They will need to revisit their latest statements at this meeting last Sunday where they made the most malicious and unfounded attacks on other Support Groups. Mr John Kelly further stated that he has never received money from any Department of the Irish Government for "his" Irish Soca which is a lie and it must be remembered that he and his group boycotted the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, if they had got their evil way there would have been no Report and all that we went through in the Irish Gulags would have forever remained in the archives of the Religious Orders and the various Government Departments never ever to see the light of day.The fact that the Report came out in our favour is in no way contributed to John Kelly and "his" group. Now we see this Egoist is making gain from the people who went through the Pain,Trauma and bared their soul to the Commission. Has he no shame? Is there nothing he won't do to stay in the limelight and that go for the rest of the "Gang of Four"
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Date:
17 Feb 2010
Time:
11:13:14
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We must not forget Nora Brennan who also attended a clandestine meeting along with the Gang of Four and the Catholic Church in Meath St, Dublin. "To Nora the Roarer" I say you cannot serve two masters and you might like to explain the the reunions you organised for the girls that passed through Banada, Sligo and where the money came from for same. You also might like to explain the outrageous attacks you made on your own brother on another site..the same man that kindly lent you quiet a substantial amount of money in your hour of need and hopefully you have paid it back by now.
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Date:
17 Feb 2010
Time:
22:15:23
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The So called survivors who were on this website night and day for years when they had no other website to post on or a website that would even tolerate them have turned out to be nothing but two faced traitors to their own kind and like all liars they always end up being found out in the end and to you Hanora Brennan if you think for one moment that this website is as you think “redundant “ how wrong you are the only redundancies on this site have been the liars and Prima Donna's you being one of them this site is not called ultimate disposal for nothing . but I just wonder how long it will take the website you are now posting on and contaminating with your innuendo’s and lies will see to your ultimate disposal you are I know one of the victims of abuse who is now an abuser you takes pleasure in abusing your own brother and the site you are doing this on “will be in time made very aware of it you have my word on that but what really sums you up as a woman with feeling for no one but yourself is your remark to another woman you tell this woman that she wasn’t pretty enough to be abused as a child ???it speaks volumes about you maybe in your warped way of thinking you though that you were getting one over on her ?well all you did was insult other female abuse victims What a sad person you are ….Patrick A member of S.O.C.A.UK
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Date:
18 Feb 2010
Time:
07:59:59
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I was led to believe that this new site was set up to get the prima donna's off and gone and also the ones who abuse surviviors on this site, Tell me if I am wrong, is there not some on this site still who are still nameing surviviors, apparently one has suddenly poped up, no names no pack drill that's why we have division amongest us we are looseing respect for each other. To succeed in what we are after we have to learn to have some sort of harmony between us not malice or jealousy, my advice get your act's together and we can win as one, not as divided freeloders.One more thing a few years ago I went to see a psychologist for my problems after telling him about the beating's and the cold also the hunger and mind games he asked me one question in the end was I ever sexually I said no, he asked who was I replied I think most that were had no parent's I had both. But one thing sticks out in my mind that day , I said maybe the reason I was not sexually abused is because I thought I was ugly, was that wrong to say about one's self or was it a complex them brothers gave me to burden me through life.
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Date:
18 Feb 2010
Time:
08:25:48
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Dismay in Vatican at negative Irish response to 'historic' meeting In this section » 'No division' in hierarchy about child protectionResignation of bishops not on agenda, says BrennanDismay at lack of reply to open letterMassgoer reaction 'If this was just a normal crime from somebody else, something would be done immediately'PADDY AGNEW in Rome REACTION: ON THE day after the historic two-day meeting between the Irish bishops and Pope Benedict, there was a certain dismay in the Vatican at the widespread negative Irish media reaction. Speaking of what he called a “dialogue between deaf parties”, one commentator said neither the Holy See nor Irish public and media opinion had fully understood the other. What seemed a very useful, groundbreaking meeting to one, looked like a total waste of time to the other. From the Vatican viewpoint, all sight has been lost of the exceptional nature of this week’s meeting and, above all, of the forthcoming pastoral letter. This letter, destined to become a benchmark and part of the magisterium of the church, represents the first time that a pope has devoted an entire teaching to the complex and painful question of clerical child sex abuse. Vatican insiders argue that a meeting like that held this week could never produce obvious, tangible results. This meeting was much more about listening and understanding. The issue, they say, is too complex, and the Holy See moves to a very different beat than that of the secular media. Issues such as the resignations of bishops and arranging a “symbolic gesture” meeting between abuse survivors and Pope Benedict were simply never on the agenda. Some insiders acknowledge, however, that the Holy See could have handled the historic meeting with greater dexterity. In particular, the limited scope of the talks should have been more fully explained to the world’s media. Furthermore, many commentators wonder if, prior to this meeting, the Holy See fully understood the level of Irish public anger. There seems little doubt but that this message has got through now, amidst the fall-out from the gathering. Even the refusal of the papal nuncio to Ireland, Dr Giuseppe Leanza, to go before the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee is seen as a misleading polemic. Experienced diplomats argue that not all ambassadors are willing to go before such committees. It is also true, however, that the Vatican has a legendary reluctance to allow nuncios to take any step that might imply any sort of legal culpability, in this case in relation to sex abuse. Pope Benedict himself knows this problem all too well, having himself been sued in relation to clerical sex abuse. As Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith he was sued in 2004 by three victims of clerical sex abuse in the US. Lawyers argued that the then Cardinal Ratzinger had acted outside his authority in sending a letter to bishops, subjecting accusations of abuse against priests to secrecy and the authority of his office. One year later, by which time he had become Pope Benedict, the court ruled that he was covered by “head of state immunity”.
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Date:
18 Feb 2010
Time:
10:05:04
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Sex abuse survivors set to meet Martin.............. By Claire O’Sullivan.............. Thursday, February 18, 2010............. Survivors of clerical sex abuse and the One in Four support group are due to meet with Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin tomorrow to discuss the ongoing fallout from the bishops’ meeting with the Pope in the Vatican. Marie Collins, Andrew Madden and One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis will meet with the archbishop to discuss "disgust" at the Vatican’s statement following the meeting. Andrew Madden said he wants to ask the archbishop two questions. "Firstly, can he tell us why the submissions made by survivors were ignored and secondly, did he ask the Pope, before he left Rome, how he and the other bishops could face survivors and the people of Ireland when there was no acknowledgement of us and our statements in the proceedings," he said. Maeve Lewis said even the most hardened survivors, who spent many years battling with the Catholic Church over clerical abuse, were shocked at the contents of the Vatican statement. "The Pope missed such a huge opportunity here. There were many people who thought this meeting in Rome would be a turning point but it was anything but. We understand they operate much slower in the Vatican and that they use a more diplomatic language. People were, however, insulted by the Pope’s failure to acknowledge what was allowed to happen by the Church and also to discuss the Papal Nuncio’s failure to co-operate with the Murphy commission," she said. "My hope is the archbishop won’t be silenced by all of this and that he will continue to be a huge symbol of hope to survivors." The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre described the meeting as "yet another let down in a long, long line of let-downs". "The survivors and victims are the most important people... and those who have contacted the national helpline were not surprised by the lack of anything meaningful coming from the meeting with the Pope. It is quite unbelievable at this stage... the Pope and the bishops don’t get it even yet. No acknowledgment of cover up was in the statement from the meeting nor was there any apology to the survivors. The victims were again ignored," said chief executive Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop.
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Date:
18 Feb 2010
Time:
10:08:46
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Archbishop: Absence from press call not due to tensions............. By Seán McCárthaigh................ Thursday, February 18, 2010.............. The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has denied his absence from a press conference by the Irish Hierarchy in Rome earlier this week was linked to any tension with his fellow bishops. Dr Martin insisted his non-attendance at a press briefing by senior clergy following their historic meeting with Pope Benedict to discuss the fallout of the Murphy report was solely due to the fact that he had booked an early flight back to Dublin to attend Ash Wednesday ceremonies. "My travel plans were made well before any press conference was talked about," said Dr Martin. The archbishop stressed that the Pope’s response to the meeting with the Irish hierarchy was only part of a process which will include a pastoral letter to be issued to all dioceses in Ireland over the Lenten period. Dr Martin said there had been "no turning back" on the Murphy report and no denial about its findings. He claimed Pope Benedict had been both angry and distressed about clerical sex abuse in Ireland, particularly the Archdiocese of Dublin. The archbishop said messages from survivor groups were presented to the Pope and the question of a future meeting between them and the Pontiff had not been excluded. He pointed out that Pope Benedict has previously met privately with victims of clerical abuse from other countries in a manner which ensured the meeting had not become a media event. However, he said victims were entitled to feel dismayed at the Vatican’s response to the meeting with the Irish bishops "if they feel what they wanted to be done wasn’t addressed". But Dr Martin encouraged survivors not to lose heart as he admitted his own impatience with the need for reform. Dr Martin is due to meet victims, Andrew Madden and Marie Collins as well as the One in Four group tomorrow to discuss the Rome meeting. Asked why there had been no explicit apology from the Vatican, Dr Martin replied that the tone and calling of the meeting had clearly stressed that it was "a moment of great concern". "There comes a time when just repeating the word ‘apology’ may even be empty," he said. Speaking to reporters after a Mass to celebrate Ash Wednesday at the UCD chapel in Belfield, Dr Martin said it had been agreed in advance that the issue of resignations by bishops would not be discussed at the meeting with the Pope. "Standing down and resigning is a personal decision — a decision which involves people assuming accountability and responsibility. Otherwise, it is not resignation," said the archbishop. However, he declined to comment on the position of the Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan, who has resisted calls to stand down over his former role as Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin. Dr Martin defended the controversial refusal of the Papal Nuncio, Giuseppe Leanza, to appear before an Oireachtas Committee to discuss the Vatican’s non-cooperation with the Murphy report. He claimed Dr Leanza was "well prepared" to talk about such issues through the normal diplomatic channels. He incorrectly claimed the details of any such meeting with officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs would be available to the media through FoI legislation. Documentation on diplomatic relations cannot be accessed through FoI legislation. Asked if he had ever considered resigning as a result of the Church’s response to the Murphy report, the archbishop said: "I’ve never shrunk in the face of tasks in the past. If there is a disagreement, I’m not afraid to say it." Referring to the abuse at a Mass for students, Dr Martin said: "It is a sad part of Irish church history. It is my hope and my commitment to move forward and deal with the problems of the past and to create a different type of future. But I need your generation to help. The Church needs young people and wants young people."
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Date:
18 Feb 2010
Time:
11:46:16
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Betrayal:- Your fickle hand of friendship, Your lifelong allegiance now absurd, Your recent connivance and input to the rampant raging herd, The word betrayal and deceit are yours and honour a foreign word, But remember revenge is sweet my dear and the Vulture she is a patient bird.....A bum from Dundrum
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Date:
19 Feb 2010
Time:
09:06:42
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The.Service level Agreement Between the Department of Education & Science & the Congregations: Discipline & Punishment in Certified Schools: The Minister for Education has had under consideration the question of discipline and punishment in Certified Schools, and he desires to impress on the Resident Managers their personal responsibility, to insure that the official regulations on this matter are faithfully observed by all the members of the staffs of these schools. It is appreciated that the maintenance of discipline in these schools presents considerable difficulty.. Many of the children committed to them come from unsatisfactory homes, where discipline, if not altogether lacking, is very defective. Moreover, some of them may have acquired bad habits, which are difficult to cure. The inculcation of principles of obedience, truthfulness and good conduct in children thus handicapped is naturally a slow process which calls for much sympathy, understanding, patience and tact on the part of those entrusted with their training. It is only natural to expect that some of these children, owing to their family background, will respond but slowly to the best efforts of their teachers: speedy reforms cannot be expected in such cases. Due recognition should be given to every effort at improvement which a child makes. Encouragement by way of rewards, privileges, etc., is a useful stimulus to good behaviour, and should be employed as much as possible. While it is true that punishment plays an important part in the training and discipline of the young, it's use as a means of correction demands much discretion, especially in the case of children detained in Certified Schools. Where punishment has to be resorted to, it should be confined, as far as possible, to the forfeiture of rewards and privileges obtained by good conduct. The privilege of home.-Ieave should not, however, be withdrawn as a punishment for misconduct except in very special cases and where the manager has serious reason to anticipate a repetition of misconduct during the period of home leave. Corporal punishment should be resorted to only where other forms of punishment have been found unsuccessful as a means of correction. It should be administered only for grave transgressors, and in no circumstances for mere failure at school lessons or industrial training. Corporal punishment should in future be confined to the form usually employed in schools, viz., slapping on the open palm with a light cane or strap. This punishment should be inflicted only by the Resident Manager or by a member of the school staff specially authorised by him /her for the purpose. Any form of corporal punishment not in accordance with the terms of this circular is strictly prohibited. Any other form of punishment, which tends to humiliate a child, or to expose him/her to ridicule in front of the other children, is also forbidden. Such forms of punishment would include special clothing, cutting off a girl's hair (as a punishment), exceptional treatment at meals, etc., Resident Managers will recognise that any instances of improper treatment and punishment in Certified Schools tend to cast an underserved reflection on their schools generally, and the Minister relies on their co-operation in seeing that such instances do not occur in the future. The Department's Medical Inspector is willing to advise Resident Managers regarding any children who are specially troublesome or difficult to control if he/her attention is drawn to such cases when he/she visits a school in the course of his/her inspection. You are requested to acknowledge receipt of this circular and to bring it to the notice of all the members of staff at your school, especially those directly concerned with the maintenance of discipline. Cir. No. 11/1946. A Fighting Survivor
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19 Feb 2010
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