Conor McMorrow and Shane Coleman

THE religious orders’ final offer to cover the cost of the residential institutional abuse scandal is more than €200m short of the contribution the government wants it to pay, the Sunday Tribune can reveal.

The orders, which were heavily criticised in the Ryan report, have made a final offer totalling €348m, more than €200m less than what is required to ensure a 50:50 contribution from church and state.

The final bill is expected to reach €1.36bn.

Department of Education officials told the government during a briefing last Tuesday that 16 of the 18 religious orders criticised in the report have made offers of further contributions to the state.

The Sunday Tribune has learned that the final €348m offer is made up of €235m in property transfers to the state, a further €111m in cash payments to be paid over five years and a €2m waiver of rents owed by the state to the orders.

This will bring the total contribution from the orders to €476m which is just over a third of the likely final bill.

While this is a substantial improvement on the initial €128m agreed as part of the controversial indemnity agreed between the church and the government in 2002, it will not satisfy those who argue the orders should foot at least 50% of the overall €1.36bn cost.

The cabinet now has to decide whether it should sign off on this offer or seek a further €200m from the Orders to bring the split up to 50:50.

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Friday February 26 2010

I am 76 years old and I wish to reply to James Kennedy (‘Victims of abuse milk the system’, Letters, February 24).

At the age of 23 months I was taken to a district court in Clane in Co Kildare and sentenced to 14 years in Goldenbridge Industrial School.

Most of the survivors of the institutions wanted justice. It is the leaders of the groups, put there by the Government, who are looking for money — not the victims.

Mr Kennedy is getting sick of the continuing saga of the victims of clerical abuse.

He asks what we want from the Catholic Church.

I want the judicial conviction I received as an infant to be expunged.

I want my medical files for the 14 years I spent in the hellhole that was Goldenbridge and all the details of where I came from and who my family are.

And I want the perpetrators to be brought to account in a court of law.

Mary Henderson

London

Thursday February 25 2010
Letters to the Editor, Irish Independent.

As a survivor of child abuse, I do not share the sentiments of some fellow survivors — who appear unable to come to terms with their tragic lives and are happy to play out their pain on radio and TV.

I don’t know what the survivors or media expected Pope Benedict to say or do. Even if he had made a full apology, it would not have been enough.

I have come to terms with my abuse. Nobody can live on the stale bread of hate without being consumed by it.

It is only through forgiveness that healing can begin to effect its power over a broken soul. Picked scabs never heal.

If survivors got the opportunity to meet Pope Benedict in private, a civilised discussion and a meeting of minds would bring comfort and healing.

Michael Clemenger

By Jennifer Hough

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

THE Controller and Auditor General must investigate how funds given to a Cork-based charity for survivors of institutional abuse were spent, Labour TD Sean Sherlock has said.

Mr Sherlock said there were “too many glaring inconsistencies” in relation to the organisation, Right of Place, which has received millions of euro in taxpayers’ money over the past 10 years.

The organisation is currently at the centre of a power struggle between its founder, Noel Barry, and a new committee seeking to take over the running of the charity.

Mr Sherlock recently tabled a series of parliamentary questions in relation to the running of Right of Place, one of which asked for a breakdown of how funding was used.

The Cork TD said the answers he received from the HSE were completely inadequate, and that the public demanded more detailed answers.

He said he would be asking further questions, and the person in the HSE responsible for signing over so much money to Right of Place needed to come forward and give an account of how the money was spent.

Meanwhile, the head survivor group, Alliance, called on Mr Barry, the head of Right of Place, to resign.

Tom Hayes said he raised concerns with the C&AG, and the Department of Education years ago.

“We were ignored and told it was ‘in group fighting’ – even though we are not the same group as Right of Place. As far as I know no action was never taken.”

Mr Hayes said there were about 70 members of Right of Place in Cork who were now contacting him as they could not get the help they needed in Cork.

“These are people who are wondering about education funding, if their applications have been processed, some may have concerns over medical cards and health benefits or need counselling,” Mr Hayes said.

“The offices, as far as I am aware, are closed. People need access to the building, there is often no answer when you phone up.

“Because of what is going on, we are getting more and more people ringing us. We simply are not able to cope with the influx,” he said.

A former member of Right of Place, Timothy O’Donoghue, said he felt compelled to raise the red flag after attending an AGM in 2004.

As well as writing to CORI, the Departments of Education and Health asking them to re-evaluate their monetary contributions, Mr O’Donoghue said he forwarded individual complaints about the group he received from members.

While Mr O’Donoghue has a fax confirmation document proving he sent the complaint to the Department of Education, a spokesperson for the department said it had not located any record of this complaint having been received or dealt with in 2004.

The Irish Examiner.

Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had ‘obstructed justice’ after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.

The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

It asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II’s successor last week.

Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a ‘clear obstruction of justice’.

The letter, ‘concerning very grave sins’, was sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office that once presided over the Inquisition and was overseen by Ratzinger.

It spells out to bishops the church’s position on a number of matters ranging from celebrating the eucharist with a non-Catholic to sexual abuse by a cleric ‘with a minor below the age of 18 years’. Ratzinger’s letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been ‘perpetrated with a minor by a cleric’.

The letter states that the church’s jurisdiction ‘begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age’ and lasts for 10 years.

It orders that ‘preliminary investigations’ into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger’s office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the ‘functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests’.

‘Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,’ Ratzinger’s letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.

The letter is referred to in documents relating to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against a church in Texas and Ratzinger on behalf of two alleged abuse victims. By sending the letter, lawyers acting for the alleged victims claim the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice.

Daniel Shea, the lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter, said: ‘It speaks for itself. You have to ask: why do you not start the clock ticking until the kid turns 18? It’s an obstruction of justice.’

Father John Beal, professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America, gave an oral deposition under oath on 8 April last year in which he admitted to Shea that the letter extended the church’s jurisdiction and control over sexual assault crimes.

The Ratzinger letter was co-signed by Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone who gave an interview two years ago in which he hinted at the church’s opposition to allowing outside agencies to investigate abuse claims.

‘In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offence of paedophilia is unfounded,’ Bertone said.

Shea criticised the order that abuse allegations should be investigated only in secret tribunals. ‘They are imposing procedures and secrecy on these cases. If law enforcement agencies find out about the case, they can deal with it. But you can’t investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it,’ Shea added.

A spokeswoman in the Vatican press office declined to comment when told about the contents of the letter. ‘This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it,’ she said.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

by Medb Ruane

Saturday February 20 2010

The tangled web of Church-State relations was rarely so knotted as this week, when two events conspired to tease it further. Pope Benedict met Irish Bishops in Rome to discuss the child abuse scandals, especially after the Murphy report.

In Dublin, however, the Pope’s diplomatic representative Giuseppe Leanza decided he was unable to attend the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs to discuss the same sad story. It was extremely unfortunate.

From Rome, people heard that the bishops hadn’t asked Benedict or his Curia why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the Papal Nuncio hadn’t co-operated with the Murphy Commission. Instead, Benedict seemed to present the difficulties as a faith-based issue with particular ramifications for the Irish hierarchy.

He said that a weakening of faith “has been a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors” and connected the ‘crisis’ to “the lack of respect for the human person” in society. It sounded like a campaign slogan aimed at the wider world, rather than at abusive priests or secretive Church habits.

A lack of respect for the human person struck the Vatican too because no one had invited abuse survivors to Rome. This meant neither Benedict nor his Curia heard any first-hand testimony about what happened in Dublin, as well as in Ferns, Cloyne and elsewhere.

One of the most touching elements of the abuse scandals is how deeply survivors want Benedict to meet and hear them, almost as though there’s a hope that his better judgment will win out after he realises what was done to them. For some, there’s still a deep faith that good will triumph over evil in the Catholic Church.

But the survivors are ignored, reduced to statistics and denied a voice where it matters. Their suffering is voiced, if at all, by representatives of the hierarchies who frustrated them for so long.

The ethical basis for this cutting-off of survivors must be dubious. Indeed, Benedict’s comments about a weakening of faith contributing to child abuse are exactly opposite to the Irish situation, where faith was so strong that people were encouraged to believe their Pope and bishops would act in their best interests. They trusted them.
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Tuesday, 16 February 2010 12:58

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.
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