Nov
29
Disturbing connections between abusing priests prompts Archbishop’s request to gardai for further investigation
By MAEVE SHEEHAN
Sunday Independent November 29 2009
THE ARCHBISHOP of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, asked the gardai (Irish Police) to investigate whether a clerical paedophile ring was operating in the archdiocese.
Dr Diarmuid Martin made the request to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigations after he examined files on paedophile priests in recent years. He was disturbed by close connections between a number of clerics who were later convicted of child abuse, according to sources, and asked gardai to investigate.
The priests included Fr Bill Carney and Fr Francis McCarthy, neither of whom are any longer in the priesthood, and Fr Patrick Maguire, a Columban priest, who is living under the strict supervision of his order. The three are among 46 priests named in the damning report by Judge Yvonne Murphy which found “no direct evidence” of a paedophile ring but found “worrying connections” between a number of priests.
Fr Carney and Fr McCarthy worked together to prey on vulnerable children, visiting them in children’s homes and, in at least one instance, abused the same child. Fr Carney and Fr Maguire brought children on swimming excursions together. Fr Carney also claimed that Fr Maguire could vouch for him when he was under investigation for abusing some of those children.
Fr Dominic Savio Boland, whose real name is John Boland, called to the home of a child who had been abused by another priest, Fr Ioannes, and proceeded to abuse the child himself.
“There is nothing in the evidence available to the commission to show how Fr Boland became aware of this young boy,” the report said.
Another priest, Fr Horatio, was given the use of a holiday home by Fr Sean Fortune, a notorious child abuser in the Wexford diocese.
The report says that “Archbishop Martin has referred some of these matters to the gardai in recent times”. Sources close to the archbishop said he was concerned at the connections between the priests and asked the gardai to investigate whether a paedophile ring was operating in the clergy. A Garda spokesman declined to comment on a paedophile ring, but sources said all links between these priests and others in the archdiocese would be investigated.
The findings of the commission on child sex abuse in the archdiocese have had profound ramifications with mounting calls for the immediate resignations of serving bishops who are criticised in the report and a high-level Garda review of the report’s findings on collusion and cover-up.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen yesterday stopped short of repeating Fine Gael calls for the resignations of serving members of the hierarchy. In a statement yesterday, he said it was up to religious organisations to determine the “appropriateness” of individuals to hold ecclesiastical office. Catholic bishops are expected to issue a statement on the report today.
Nov
29
Church relationship with Irish society has itself been abusive
Filed Under Dublin Diocesan Report - Child Abuse. | 1 Comment
The Irish Times – Saturday, November 28, 2009
FINTAN O’TOOLE
OPINION: The Roman Catholic Church’s great achievement in Ireland has been to so disable our capacity to think about right and wrong that parents of abused children apologised for the abusing priest
IN HIS pastoral letter of February 1979, Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Ryan drew attention to the “corruption of the young”. And he was quite specific about the forces that were responsible for it. He attacked “the modern era of enlightenment and permissiveness”, and stated that “the new frankness and openness in regard to sexual matters had not made people more healthy in mind and body, but less healthy”.
The corollary of Archbishop Ryan’s complaint was, of course, that a lack of frankness and openness in sexual matters would make for a healthier society, and would protect the young from corruption. Like the three other holders of the office scrutinised in the Murphy report, Ryan certainly practised the first part of what he preached. He was a great enemy of openness and frankness, and a great practitioner of the arts of evasion and cover-up. It was the second part of the formula – the protection of the young – that gave him trouble.
In 1981, for example, Ryan sent a Father X as curate to Clogher Road church in the Dublin Corporation housing estate of Crumlin. He knew that this man was a dangerous and manipulative paedophile who was set on attacking children, as Ryan himself noted, “from six to 16”. He knew that X cultivated parents who involved themselves in school or parish activities so as to gain access to their children.
He knew that in one previous case, “Having got access to the home through this acquaintanceship, Father X abused a young son of six years of age.”
Yet not alone did Ryan send X to Crumlin to continue his assaults on children, but he colluded with the activities of his auxiliary bishop, James Kavanagh, in interfering in a criminal investigation into X’s behaviour, persuading one set of parents not to press charges against the priest.
As the commission concludes, Ryan took a “close personal interest” in the case of Fr X: “He protected Fr X to an extraordinary extent; he ensured, as far as he could, that very few people knew about his activities; it seems that the welfare of children simply did not play any part in his decisions.”
In attempting to come to terms with the institutionalised depravity of the Roman Catholic Church’s systematic collaboration with child abusers, it is useful to start by considering the contradiction between Ryan’s preaching about the “corruption of the young” and his role as a facilitator of sexual assaults on children.
Is there, indeed, a contradiction at all? Or are we not, rather, dealing with two sides of the same debased coin?
The arrogance and obscurantism of a church leadership that could rail against openness and frankness is in fact completely consistent with the same hierarchy’s consistent preference for secrecy over truth and for self-interest over the interests of children and families.
Nov
28
The Irish Times – Friday, November 27, 2009
The report shows that what lies at the heart of the Catholic Church in Ireland is a profound and widespread corruption, perpetrated by liars, child sex abusers and those at the very top who covered up their crimes, writes MARY RAFTERY
THERE IS one searing, indelible image to be found in the pages of the Dublin diocesan report on clerical child abuse. It is of Fr Noel Reynolds, who admitted sexually abusing dozens of children, towering over a small girl as he brutally inserts an object into her vagina and then her back passage.
That object is his crucifix.
The report details how this man was left as parish priest of Glendalough (and in charge of the local primary school) for almost three years after parents had complained about him to former archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell during the 1990s.
In 1997, he was finally moved and appointed as chaplain to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire.
The report helpfully informs us that there were 94 children aged 18 or under as inpatients here. The hospital authorities were told nothing of Reynolds’s past or of suspicions that he was a child abuser.
This kind of callous disregard for the safety of children is found over and over again in the report. Bishops lied, cheated and covered up, almost as a matter of course, in a display of relentless cynicism spanning decades. Children were blithely sacrificed to protect priests, the institution and its assets. It is, consequently, difficult to avoid the conclusion that what lies at the heart of the Catholic Church (at least in Ireland) is a profound and widespread corruption.
The Dublin report divides the bulk of its analysis into chapters devoted to individual priest abusers. But reading through the stomach-churning details of their crimes, another parallel reality appears.
Behind almost each one of these paedophiles was at least one bishop (often more) who knew of the abuse, but failed to protect children.
Some of them, Pontius Pilate-like, washed their hands, merely reporting it up the line. Others actively protected the criminals in their midst by destroying files and withholding information. Their handling of complaints is variously described as “particularly bad”, “disastrous” and “catastrophic”.
Nov
28
Murphy Report: Background And Composition
Filed Under Child Abuse | 7 Comments
PATSY MCGARRY AND CAROL COULTER
THE DUBLIN commission came about because of the RTÉ Prime Time programme Cardinal Secrets , broadcast in October 2002. Produced by Mary Raftery, with Mick Peelo reporting, it investigated the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese.
The then minister for justice, Michael McDowell, said he was “very alarmed” by the programme, which he found “deeply disturbing”. It led to the Commission of Investigation Act 2004, which allowed for the setting up of a type of inquiry which was more cost-effective and efficient than a tribunal.
Under that Act the Commission of Investigation, Dublin Archdiocese was set up in March 2006, with a brief to report within 18 months. Chaired by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy (left), assisted by barrister Ita Mangan and solicitor Hugh O’Neill, it was to investigate the handling of allegations of clerical child sex abuse in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese by church and State authorities covering the period January 1st, 1975 to April 30th, 2004 (when Cardinal Connell stepped down as Archbishop of Dublin).
The commission’s work was done in private with confidentiality expected from and assured for participants.
Nov
28
The Irish Times – Friday, November 27, 2009
CARL O’BRIEN and PATSY McGARRY
FOUR SUCCESSIVE archbishops of Dublin responded to clerical child sexual abuse over a 30-year period in their diocese with “denial, arrogance and cover-up”.
This is one of the main conclusions of the report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.
The three-year inquiry, led by Judge Yvonne Murphy, found the “structures and rules” of the Catholic Church facilitated the cover-up.
“The State authorities facilitated the cover up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes,” the report also found.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, who published the report yesterday, said it documented “a scandal on an astonishing scale”.
The report also found current child protection laws did not provide adequate powers to health authorities to protect the welfare of children who are abused, or in danger of abuse, by people with privileged access to children.
The report, which took three years to complete, said the archdiocese had an “obsessive concern with secrecy and the avoidance of scandal” and had “little or no concern for the welfare of the abused child”.
Nov
26
Report: Church had immunity to conceal sex abuse 26/11/2009 – 14:16:26
Filed Under Child Abuse | 10 Comments
The Catholic hierarchy in Ireland was granted immunity to cover up child sex abuse among paedophile priests in Dublin, a damning report revealed today.
Authorities enjoyed a cosy relationship with the Church and did not enforce the law as four archbishops, obsessed with secrecy and avoiding scandal, protected abusers and reputations at all costs.
Hundreds of crimes against defenceless children from the 1960s to the 1990s were not reported while gardaí treated clergy as though they were above the law.
In a three-year inquiry, the Commission to Inquire into the Dublin Archdiocese uncovered a sickening tactic of “don’t ask, don’t tell” throughout the Church.
“The Commission has no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities,” it said.
“The structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated that cover-up.
“The State authorities facilitated that cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes.”
Four archbishops – John Charles McQuaid who died in 1973, Dermot Ryan who died in 1984, Kevin McNamara who died in 1987, and retired Cardinal Desmond Connell – did not hand over information on abusers.
The first files were handed over by the Cardinal in 1995 but even then he had records of complaints against at least 28 priests.
The primary loyalty of bishops and archbishops is to the Church, the report said.
Bishop James Kavanagh, Bishop Dermot O’Mahony, Bishop Laurence Forristal, Bishop Donal Murray and disgraced Bishop Brendan Comiskey, a reformed alcoholic who failed to control paedophile priests when in charge of the Ferns Diocese, all knew about child abuse for many years.
The inquiry, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, said the hierarchy cannot claim they did not know that child sex abuse was a crime.
Cardinal Connell was credited for instigating two secret canon law trials which took place over the 30-year period and led to two priests being defrocked.
Monsignor Gerard Sheehy, a powerful figure in the Catholic Archdiocese, one of the largest in Europe, fought to prevent the internal prosecutions.
Nov
25
‘Shamed’ brothers handover €161m Funds to aid victims of abuse
Filed Under Child Abuse | 21 Comments
By John Walshe
Wednesday November 25 2009
THE Christian Brothers are handing over €161m in cash and property in the wake of devastating Ryan report on child abuse.
The congregation said in a statement that €34m in cash will be used directly to help victims of child abuse.
The transfer of €127m in property assets will be be used to “begin to repair trust with so many people in Ireland who felt betrayed by the brothers”.
“Our response reflects the moral obligation we collectively and individually feel,” they declared.
The move by the Christian Brothers comes as the Catholic Church is set to be rocked by another damning report on sex abuse — this time by priests in the Dublin archdiocese.
The interim report of the Commission of Investigation into clerical sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin was discussed by the Cabinet and is expected to be published tomorrow. That damning report finds the Catholic hierarchy and state authorities failed to respond to allegations of clerical child abuse made against a sample of 46 priests.
Last night, in a statement posted on their website, the Christian Brothers said they were shamed and sorrowed at the extent of abuse of children in their care. Other congregations are expected to release details of their assets today.
The 18 congregations involved had agreed to reveal details of their assets following publication of the Ryan report in May.
Politicians and the public demanded that they pay more compensation than the €128m figure agreed with former Education Minister Michael Woods as the cost to the State was estimated at a massive €1.3bn.
The Christian Brothers, previously the country’s largest male teaching order, came in for scathing criticism in the report. For instance, the Ryan Commission said that in St Joseph’s industrial school, Artane, in Dublin, corporal punishment was pervasive. Brothers used a variety of weapons and devised methods of increasing suffering when inflicting punishment and, in some cases, they were cruel and even sadistic.
Punishment
In Letterfrack, Co Galway, it was impossible to avoid punishment because it was frequently capricious, unfair and inconsistent. In cases of sexual abuse in Letterfrack, the interests of the congregation and an abusing brother were put ahead of the welfare of the boys.
After the report was published, the Christian Brothers were the first to accept that they needed to pay more than the €30m they had already paid since 1996.
In their statement last night, they said they proposed to:
*
Make a donation of €30m to an independent trust established by the Government to respond to the direct educational, welfare and medical needs of former residents.
*
Contribute €4m over the next five years to support counsellor and therapeutic services such as Faoiseamh.
*
Transfer €127m worth of playing fields and lands to a separate independent trust.
“Our fervent hope is that the initiatives proposed will assist in the provision of support services to former residents of the institutions as well as the facilities, resources and scope to protect, cherish and educate present and future generations of children,” they said on their website www.christianbrothers.eu, which also gives details of their assets and liabilities.
It shows assets at the end of June of €240.9m — this includes €51.7m in investment assets and €10m in bank accounts.
It is proposed to transfer 67pc of this total into independent trusts. The remain 23pc of their assets are accounted for by liabilities (€8.1m); continuation of services such as teacher education in Marino College, Dublin, (€29.7m) and the living, welfare and care of members (€22.9m). There are 250 brothers in the country with an average of 74 years — only 62 are under 65 years of age. Many of them need healthcare.
The latest proposed transfer follows last year’s handing over of schools and associated properties by the brothers to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust (ERST), an independent body. The transfer value, inclusive of funding and establishment costs, was €435m. The Christian Brothers added: “We understand and regret that nothing we say or do can turn back the clock for those affected by abuse”.
- John Walshe
Irish Independent
Nov
25
The Irish Times – Wednesday, November 25, 2009
STEPHEN COLLINS and PATSY McGARRY
THE CABINET was briefed yesterday by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern on the report into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations by Church and State authorities in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese.
A Government spokesman said the 750-page report would be published tomorrow.
Plans to publish it earlier were changed because of yesterday’s public sector strike. There were concerns that helplines would not be available for people who had suffered abuse.
In the High Court on Thursday last the report was cleared for publication, following some edits, by Mr Justice Paul Gilligan after a series of in camera hearings.
Victims’ groups yesterday called for victims to be given copies of the report a day before publication.
Meanwhile, Catholic Bishop of Kilmore Dr Leo O’Reilly has expressed “profound sorrow and regret” to a victim of abuse by a priest of the diocese who was jailed last Monday. Fr Michael Molloy (44), was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of defilement of a boy and one of possession of child pornography. The offences took place at a number of locations including a parochial house in 2006 and 2007.
Bishop O’Reilly said yesterday that he was first made aware of allegations against the priest by gardaí following Fr Molloy’s arrest in September 2007.
“This was the first complaint of any kind received against Fr Molloy during his years of priestly ministry. The gardaí and the HSE have been advised of all previous appointments held by him,” he said.
“I have referred his case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome and I now intend to initiate a canonical process in relation to Fr Molloy,” he said.
He said that “these past two years have been an extremely difficult and painful time for the victim and for the family of the victim.” He assured them they had been in his “thoughts and prayers”.
Nov
22
Archbishops’ cover-up of child sex abuse revealed
Filed Under News | 17 Comments
Desire to protect Church meant crimes not reported: Dublin Diocese Inquiry
Sunday Independent 22 November 2009
THE four Catholic archbishops of Dublin who preceded Dr Diarmuid Martin, were aware of complaints against priests for sexually abusing children — a practice that went on for over 35 years.
But the most senior figures in the Irish hierarchy did not report these crimes to the gardai because of an obsessive culture of secrecy and a desire to preserve the power and aura of the Church and to avoid giving scandal to their congregations.
The report of the Commission set up to investigate how the Dublin Archdiocese dealt with sex abuse scandals from 1975 to 2004 will find that there was little or no concern for the welfare of the abused children or other children who might come into contact with deviant and even paedophile priests.
While the Commission will find that there was no evidence of a paedophile ring operating among priests in the Dublin Archdiocese, there were distressing connections between more than 40 priests serving in parishes and religious orders in the diocese.
Some boys who were abused by one priest were later passed on to their friends and abused again. In another case, the notorious sex abuser Fr Sean Fortune, who committed suicide, gave the key of a holiday cottage to another priest who abused a girl there.
The Commission, which has trawled through thousands of files over more than nine years, will find that the powerful bishops of Dublin were more concerned with the power and pomp of their Church than they were with the children in their care.
Nov
21
The Irish Times – Friday, November 20, 2009
PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent
THE COST of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse could be as much as 60 times the original Department of Education estimate, it was disclosed at a hearing of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday.
Department secretary general Brigid McManus agreed the original €2 – €2.5 million estimate was “somewhat wide of the mark”. She told committee members that as of April this year, €71 million in costs had been paid.
This was expected to rise to €126 – €136 million when all third-party and other costs were covered, based on information available, she said.
The work of the commission would not be completed before the end of 2010, as preparation of its report for the deaf and visually impaired was ongoing, as was that on third-party costs and the cataloguing of documents, she said.
Commending the work of the commission, Labour Party TD Roisín Shortall recalled that originally it was expected to have completed its work within two years, at costs ranging between €2 million and €2.5 million.
“It’s now likely to last 10 years at a cost of about €130 million. This is completely out of line. Why was it that the department got it so wrong on both counts?” she asked.
Ms McManus replied that a simpler process had been envisaged than was the case, with legal representation rising and individual hearings becoming like court cases, though not on the scale of a court.
Unforeseen judicial reviews had also been initiated. At the outset people “underestimated the scale of what was being embarked on,” she said.
Ms Shortall further pointed out that the original estimated cost of redress for former residents of institutions had been put by the department at €250 million.
“It is now at € 1 billion plus,” she said. Ms McManus said the scale and number of complainants who wished to give evidence (to the Redress Board) had been underestimated.
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