May

29

HSE orders probe into threats claim at charity

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By Jennifer Hough

Saturday, May 29, 2010

THE HSE has ordered an investigation into alleged abuse and threats made by members of a charity for survivors of institutional abuse.

Catherine Coffey, a founding member of the Kerry branch of Right of Place, has made a complaint to the gardaí and the HSE over alleged threats made to her at the offices of Right of Place.

Ms Coffey is claiming she was verbally abused and threatened on several occasions by a member of the charity.

The HSE subsequently wrote to Ms Coffey stating the matters raised needed to be dealt with “as a matter of urgency”.

The charity has been dogged by difficulties following revelations that the group, unknown to its members, had, received hundreds of thousands or euro from religious orders and bishops.

The organisation has been under scrutiny since late last year after the HSE ordered that its founder Noel Barry answer questions in relation to how it was spending its money. One of the country’s largest survivor groups, it has received millions of euro in Government funding since 2002 and continues to receive money.

Labour TD Sean Sherlock brought the issue to the attention of the Dáil this week.

He requested there be a discussion on Right of Place, and the need to ensure transparency where Exchequer funding applies to such organisations as an “important matter of public interest requiring urgent attention”.

Mr Sherlock called for an examination of the 2009 service agreement between Right of Place and the HSE and queried whether such a service agreement existed prior to that date.

He said questions needed to be asked about the board structures of Right of Place and the publication of its annual reports.

He asked that details of established company accounts, where such accounts exist, be published, and whether it should be necessary for the Garda Síochána (Irish Police) to be called in to investigate the role of the HSE and its relationship with Right of Place.

Speaking in the Dáil on Tuesday, Mr Sherlock said the Government should “shine some light” on the amounts of money allocated to Right of Place, the transparency procedures in relation to the allocation of taxpayers’ money and whether appropriate financial governance systems were in place to stand up to independent scrutiny.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, May 29, 2010

May

24

O’Brien got €61k for abuse group

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John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent The Sunday Tribune.

Former mayor of Clonmel Michael O’Brien has received over €61,000 in the past eight years from the state to run his Right to Peace group for survivors of abuse.

O’Brien, who has repeatedly stressed in media interviews that he has not per­sonally sought or received any money for himself, also received some €10,000 from the Rosminian Order over the past decade to help cover the cost of running his group.

The most recent payment of €4,000 was made in February of this year. The registered address which the Department of Education holds for the group is O’Brien’s family home. However, he says he has used most of the money provided to the group to rent offices in Clonmel over the years, with rent payments covered directly by South Tipperary VEC, which administers the money on the department’s behalf.

According to Department of Education figures, Right to Peace has received a total of €61,202 in funding since 2002. This includes a sum of €12,000 paid in 2002, and €6,000 in advance funding for this year.

“Right to Peace has received funding from this department for the provision of an information and referral service since 2002,” he said. “In 2008 funding (of €1,574) for Right to Peace did not include office rental. Since the Ryan report was published the level of enquiries has increased and funding was provided in 2009 for office rental.”

Fr Joe O’Reilly, provincial of the Rosminian Order, which ran St Joseph’s Industrial School in Ferryhouse, said the Rosminians have given O’Brien around €10,000 “to support the establishment and running of his office, Right to Peace, for his services to other survivors.

“All monies were given for the establishment and running of his office for the benefit of survivors. Nothing was given for him personally. No compensation was given to him personally,” he said.

O’Brien confirmed the details of the funding when contacted last week.

May 23, 2010

May

24

Calls for state to investigate charity

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By Jennifer Hough

Monday, May 24, 2010

THE HSE is incapable of sorting out ongoing serious difficulties in a charity for survivors of institutional abuse so the Government must now step in, it has been claimed.

Labour’s Sean Sherlock said a raft of serious question marks remained over Cork-based charity Right of Place, but despite this, it seemed to be “business as usual”.

He will raise the matter in the Dáil this week saying it is time for ministerial intervention.

Mr Sherlock said the experience of a female volunteer at the charity, Catherine Coffey, which was brought to his attention was the “straw which broke the camels back”.

Ms Coffey, a founding member of the Kerry branch of Right of Place, has made a complaint to the gardaí and the HSE over alleged threats made to her at the offices of Right of Place.

Ms Coffey is claiming she was verbally abused and threatened on several occasions by a member of the charity.

She claimed the founder of the project, Noel Barry, was allowing this to go on and claimed the charity was “dysfunctional”.

She has written letters of complaint to the HSE, the charity’s founder Noel Barry, and the head of the new committee Oliver Burke.

Mr Burke said he was aware of Ms Coffey’s claims and said she had a “genuine complaint”.

He said Right of Place needed to be investigated fully to move forward in a new era of accountability and transparency

However, Mr Burke said he now had “grave concerns” that the HSE would not tackle the real issues within Right of Place.

Mr Sherlock said there was a complete lack of transparency within the charity. He said there was a “triangular relationship” between the HSE, the department of Education and the charity, and it appeared as though Mr Barry enjoyed the support of an existing Government minister.

Mr Sherlock said if this was the case, the Government now had to answer questions about the organisation and how it was run in the past.

“The focus now has to switch to the Government and the Cabinet must make a statement. This is an issue that is not going away and needs ministerial intervention,” he said.

The organisation has been under scrutiny since late last year after the HSE ordered that its founder Mr Barry answer questions in relation to how it was spending its money. One of the country’s largest survivor groups, it has received millions in Government funding since 2002 and continues to receive money.

An Irish Examiner investigation last December revealed the group, unknown to its members, had, as well as Government funds, received hundreds of thousands from religious orders and bishops.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, May 24, 2010

May

23

Centre defends hiring of abusive former nun

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John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent The Sunday Tribune

The founder of the Cuan Mhuire centre in Athy, which treats vulnerable people with drug and alcohol problems, has defended its decision to allow the former Mercy nun Nora Wall to continue to work there despite the findings of the Ryan report in relation to her.

The report said that Wall – given the pseudonym St Callida in the report when it was published 12 months ago – beat children in her care, and exposed them to “additional risk” by allowing male outsiders to stay overnight at St Michael’s home in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

It also highlighted how she engaged in lesbian relationships while in charge at the centre, would consume alcohol to excess in front of the children, and would take children away for weekends to stay in hotel “family rooms”.

According to one of those interviewed in the report, she and her female partner would typically share one bed while the children would share other beds in the same room.

Nora Wall formerly of St. Michael's Industrial School, Cappoquin - accused of abuse in The Ryan Report

Sr Consilio Fitzgerald, founder of the internationally respected Cuan Mhuire group of treatment centres, told the Sunday Tribune that Wall is employed as a full-time gardener at Cuan Mhuire in Athy.

Set on 49 acres of land, the centre’s land and the cultivation of its produce is a “central part of the rehabilitation programme,” its website states.

But Fitzgerald said she was not aware of the Ryan report’s concerns in relation to Wall’s time at Cappoquin, adding that she was “very happy” with her work at Cuan Mhuire.

“Nora Wall gets up every morning and gets on with her gardening. She keeps quite busy,” she said. “I never considered changing her role. She gets up and gets on with it. She’s helping with our preparations here. She just works in the garden on her own. She has her work to do and does it faithfully and does it very well here.”

Former Cappoquin resident Gerry Kelly, who was sexually and physically abused at the Artane Industrial School.

But he said he was “ostracised” in Cappoquin after he tried to raise his concerns. This included going public in 1999 with his claim that when he returned to the centre as an adult in 1979, Wall – who went by the name Sr Dominic – invited him to join her and another nun in bed together.

“I couldn’t have made that up. Why would you make something like that up?” he told the Sunday Tribune. Kelly suffered a stroke seven years ago which he attributes to the stress of his childhood experiences.

Wall, who is in her early 60s, had her conviction for the rape of a 10-year-old girl in the same home declared a miscarriage of justice by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2005 after it emerged that evidence had been given by a witness known to be unreliable.

She has since launched a High Court challenge to the alleged refusal of the state to make a decision on her claim for compensation over a miscarriage of justice in her case.

May 23, 2010

May

16

Shooting At Shadows

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Sketchy on detail but heavy with suggestion, Diarmuid Martin’s address on sex abuse last week succeeded in undermining his internal critics. But who were the ‘strong forces’ referred to?
News Investigations Correspondent John Downes reports

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin: ‘I am surprised at the manner in which church academics and church publicists can today calmly act as pundits… as if they were totally extraneous to the scandal’
David Quinn: ‘personally annoyed’
Ian Elliot: ‘the archbishop’s knowledge exceeds mine’

Make no mistake, this was a verbal hand grenade launched with impeccable precision. When Archbishop Diarmuid Martin got up to deliver his address to a meeting of the Order of the Knights of Columbanus in Dublin last Monday night, his words were designed to create an impact far beyond the room in which they were delivered.

“There are still strong forces which would prefer that the truth did not emerge,” he said. “I am surprised at the manner in which church academics and church publicists can today calmly act as pundits on the roots of the sexual abuse scandals in the church as if they were totally extraneous to the scandal.”

Speaking of his belief that there were “signs of subconscious denial on the part of many about the extent of the abuse which occurred within the church of Jesus Christ in Ireland and how it was covered up”, he added that there were “worrying signs that despite solid regulations and norms these are not being followed with the rigour required”.

The inquest started immediately.

Who were these strong forces? All manner of names were speculated about, to the annoyance of many. For Iona Institute director and religious commentator David Quinn, the very fact that Martin was so unspecific in his references was a matter of real frustration.

All week, he said, he had been receiving calls from people asking him if he believed that he was one of the “pundit publicists” referred to by Martin. For the record, he does not.

“I’ve been asked a few times was it me, was I one of them. And I’m personally annoyed at that. Because that statement is so vague and nonspecific, it has people chasing off in all directions,” he said.

“He was talking about people who were not extraneous to the scandals, which presumably on the face of it means people who are giving out about how the church handled things, when actually they knew at some level about the scandals in the past. So he’s talking about people who would have worked inside the church… He wasn’t talking about me.”

He believes that Martin’s speech would have been a positive contribution “if there were actually specific strong forces that need to be weakened, and he made it possible for people to follow the trail to those strong forces. But because it is simply not possible to follow the trail anywhere, except everywhere, it becomes unhelpful… And also it actually does a great disservice to people who are doing their damnedest to improve the church’s child protection procedures.”

Conservative religious commentator Senator Ronan Mullen said Martin’s address was a “very significant speech” which deserved a “very wide readership”.

But Mullen, who was a spokesman for the Dublin archdiocese during Cardinal Desmond Connell’s tenure, said he had no evidence of the “strong forces” to which Martin referred.

Similarly to Quinn (and indeed to at least one of Martin’s fellow bishops), he would like Martin to elaborate further on his concerns.

“It would be hugely damaging for the church if there were people in the church who did not want the full truth about sex abuse to come out,” he said.

He has not wondered if he was among the “pundit publicists” Martin spoke about.

“God, no. I became a press officer at a time when the diocese had already taken on and publicly proclaimed its duty of reporting all cases to the police and civil authorities,” he said. “I think Diarmuid knows me well enough… I very much support the work that he is trying to do.”

Catastrophic

During his speech, Martin also made a pointed reference to criticism of his archdiocese’s media strategy following the publication of the Murphy report, noting that some had claimed it was “catastrophic”.

“My answer is that what the Murphy report narrated was catastrophic… You cannot soundbite your way out of a catastrophe,” he said.

Eddie Shaw, a former spokesman for Cardinal Connell who is a director of public relations with Carr communications, used the same phrase – “catastrophic” – when describing the archdiocese’s communications strategy in the wake of the Murphy report during an interview with RTé’s Marian Finucane late last year.

Shaw told the Sunday Tribune it was a “reasonable conclusion” to suggest that Martin was referring to him in this part of the speech.

But he argued strongly that communication should not be confused with public relations, and stood over his criticisms.

“I can understand that there is a difference of opinion on what it is ‘crisis communications’ is about in a situation like this. And I absolutely agree it is not about soundbites. In fact it is the complete opposite,” he said.

“People need to know more than just the Murphy report. So, for example, they need to know that predominantly, this is an issue that is in the past, and has to be dealt with as an issue for the past.

“What I mean by that is if one were to ask and to get an answer to the question how many new abusers within the Dublin diocese have been reported in, say, the last 10 years or the last six years, that would at least give people a sense of understanding that this behaviour and the discovering of it is substantially in the past .

“I want to be very clear about this. I’m not talking about new cases of survivors of abuse coming forward as people who were abused by those who were already known. I’m speaking about new cases of proven abusers.

“[But] that needs to be told in a way that has not been told up to now. And my guess is that the reason it hasn’t been told is there is a fear that it will be seen as seeking to in some way defend or explain.

“But it is not defending and it is not explaining. It is simply providing the lay faithful with a context in which they can come to understand the scale of what happened, when it happened, and if it was covered up and how different things are now.”

Central to Martin’s speech was his implication that abuse is still being covered up by some within the church.

Step forward Ian Elliott, director of the church’s own National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church.

If anyone should know about issues of concealment, it is surely Elliott, whose explosive report into the diocese of Cloyne ultimately led to the resignation of its then bishop, John Magee,when it was eventually published in December 2008.

Asked whether he shared Martin’s concerns, and who he thinks Martin was referring to in his allusion to “strong forces”, Elliott said that to answer all of those questions “would involve speculation on my part which I would be reluctant to engage in”.

However, Elliott, who is a Northern Irish Presbyterian, did acknowledge that the “archbishop’s knowledge and understanding of the Catholic church far exceeds mine. I do not know specifically what he was referring to. However, I can say that I am not aware of widespread non-compliance with the standards issued last year. If anyone has a concern about any part of the church not following the agreed standards then let my office know and we will address it.”

Disheartened

At another point in last Monday’s address, Martin spoke of how he felt personally “disheartened and discouraged” about the lack of willingness in the Catholic church to begin “what is going to be a painful path of renewal”.

It was a characteristically frank and open message, from a man who has been subjected to huge criticism from within his own church since the launch of the Murphy report.

In this context, it could be argued that, far from being a misjudgement, Martin’s decision not to name names was a deliberate and calculated move aimed at undermining his many internal critics.

For if you fail to specify who these shadowy forces are, they could be anyone.

May 16, 2010 The Sunday Tribune.

May

16

‘Just another report on another shelf’

Filed Under RYAN REPORT - Institutional Abuse of Children in Care | 16 Comments

One year ago this Thursday, Justice Sean Ryan published the long-awaited results of his report into child abuse at church-run industrial schools and orphanages, where rape and abuse of children was found to be ‘endemic’. As the anniversary approaches, John Downes asked a variety of people for their thoughts on what progress, if any, has been made since then

Christine Buckley, Abuse survivor and co-founder of the Aislinn centre
Alan Shatter, TD, Fine Gael spokesman on children
Barry Andrews, Minister for children
Paddy Doyle, Abuse survivor and author of ‘The God Squad’
Jillian van Turnhout, Chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance
Maeve Lewis, Executive director of One in Four

Christine Buckley – Abuse survivor and co-founder of the Aislinn centre

20 May 2009 is a day etched in my memory forever. I grabbed the report’s executive summary and fled to a nearby hotel. Despite reading the document three times I still could not believe that we at last had been vindicated.

The outrage of society propelled the religious to do what was morally right. The second tranche of money [from the religious orders], €110m, is disappointing. Nevertheless under the secrecy deal they were not compelled to make further contributions.

Of the 16 congregations involved in this process, 14 have stressed the establishment of a trust fund, “to offer and provide support to people who have experienced institutional care and their dependents and as a mark of genuine regret for suffering experienced”. We welcome the fact that religious organisations have been asked to contribute €200m towards redress costs, particularly in these recessionary times.

But the Magdalene women should never have been excluded from the redress board and I’m hoping that the government finds a way to pay redress money to these women because it’s a disgrace.

Alan Shatter- TD, Fine Gael spokesman on children

I think there have been a lot of promises made by government but in reality very little has been delivered. In the context of the child protection services, we know they are still seriously dysfunctional and fragmented.

The implementation plan published by Minister Andrews was worthy. But very little has happened since. For example, the HSE’s managerial culture and child-protection structures are still grossly ineffective, and legislation for the use of soft information for vetting purposes has still not been introduced. I believe 12 months on from its publication, very little has changed on the ground. There have been one or two initiatives, but there is still a lack of transparency in the running of the HSE. The failed attempts to cover up the case of Tracey Fay illustrates the change of ethos which needs to occur.

This government is paying lip service to child protection, but hasn’t taken the action required. If you compare the speed with which the complex Nama legislation was enacted in the House, with the failure utterly to legislate post Ryan, you get a true picture of this government’s priorities.

Barry Andrews – Minister for children

The government accepted in full the 20 recommendations contained in the Ryan report. The recommendations were framed to recognise and support the victims of past abuse and to ensure that children in state care today are supported and the events of the past are not repeated.

I was asked by government to formulate a plan that would comprehensively respond to the recommendations contained in the report. The 99-point implementation plan went beyond the Ryan recommendations and proposed wide reform of our child-protection services. That plan was widely welcomed by children’s organisations and is, I believe, a road map to improved children’s services.

In order to support and realise the commitments in the plan, the government allocated €15m as part of the budget last December.

This specific financial allocation will provide for a range of improvements including the recruitment of 265 additional frontline child-protection staff, extra aftercare services and enhanced oversight of the Children First Guidelines.

Paddy Doyle – Abuse survivor and author of ‘The God Squad’

In the year since the publication of the Ryan report not a lot has happened by way of bringing the culprits of horrendous deeds to book. On the contrary, the paedophiles that are still alive received the protection of Mr Justice Ryan who allocated them pseudonyms. This raises serious and very troubling questions apart from the obvious one as to why they should be so protected. Where are these people now? Do they have access to children? Why are they not on the sex offenders’ list?

While nobody would disagree that the Ryan report is a damning indictment of the religious orders and the state, we must ask why it is that, one year on, nothing of substance has been done to remove religious orders from the teaching and the care of children.

Apologies have become tedious and meaningless at this point in time and serve only to irritate those of us who were the children who bore the brunt of perverts and deviants into whose care we were placed. Like many reports in the past there is every chance the Ryan report will be just another report on another shelf. That appears to be where it is now heading.

Jillian van Turnhout – Chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance

The government’s Ryan Report Implementation Plan is critical to ensure that the abuse suffered by children at the hands of those tasked with caring for them can never, ever, happen again.

The Children’s Rights Alliance believes the plan to be excellent and can, if implemented, make a real difference to children’s lives. For that reason we awarded it a ‘B’ grade in our Report Card 2010.

That said, commitments alone do not equal action: plans and recommendations are meaningless without the political will and resources to make them real. The government must maintain its commitment to act with urgency on the promises made. To date, there has been some progress. Depressingly, however, some deadlines have already been missed or are looming large – and unless the government takes action immediately, they will be missed too… We are yet to be convinced government is truly committed to children’s rights. Setting a date for a referendum to strengthen children’s rights in the constitution is a real test of the government’s commitment to children.

Maeve Lewis – Executive director of One in Four

At One in Four we have had three times as many clients as normal in the past year. The long-term impact of childhood abuse has been revealed as people disclose lives filled with anguish, suffering and struggle.

With skilled support, pain can be transformed into wellbeing. Survivors deserve no less, but as a society we choose to fund professional services meagrely.

The children in the institutions were not invisible, and we must question how we allowed ourselves to be silent witnesses, never challenging what we saw. Perhaps because of our colonial past, we have no tradition of personal or collective accountability for the type of society in which we live. The same passivity persists today, as we permit children to live at risk of abuse because our disgraceful child-protection system does not function.

The Ombudsman for Children published a damning investigation into that system last week, but it has provoked astonishingly little debate. Our policies regarding children are amongst the most progressive in the world: the problem is that they are not implemented.

May 16, 2010 Sunday Tribune.

May

16

Survivors at loggerheads over denial of sex abuse

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Christine Buckley questions Michael O’Brien’s radio interview from 10 years ago
John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent

Survivors of sexual abuse in religious-run residential institutions are embroiled in an increasingly bitter row over how some €680m in compensation from religious orders identified in the Ryan report should be shared out, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

Michael O'Brien and Christine Buckley accept their People of the Year award last September

The dispute took a dramatic twist this weekend when the Aislinn Centre’s Christine Buckley criticised a decade-old radio interview with the former mayor of Clonmel, Michael O’Brien, where he claimed not to have been sexually abused while he was incarcerated in St Joseph’s industrial school, Ferryhouse.

This directly contradicts a highly-charged intervention on RTE’s Questions and Answers programme in May of last year, where O’Brien detailed the extent of abuse he suffered, prompting widespread public sympathy and anger.

During the 1999 interview on a local radio station, O’Brien expresses sympathy for victims of sexual abuse who suffered at the hands of the notorious Rosminian abuser at Ferryhouse, Brother Sean Barry. He goes on to say: “But I must say, and I have to say it here and now, because I had to meet my family when this came out. And say it never happened to me, I never seen it happening, I never heard of it happening in my seven years in Ferryhouse. I never seen or heard of it.”

Although O’Brien acknowledges in the interview that he was subjected to physical abuse and deprivation at Ferryhouse, he also pays tribute to the Rosminians and says that this was the state’s fault, not Ferryhouse.

“We were left there to those brothers and those priests to become our parents, and look after us. And as far as I’m concerned, 99.9% of them done a good job… out of every group, no matter what organisation you’re in, you’ll find bad eggs, Ferryhouse is my home. And I will defend it to the end as long as I live, because I was reared by them.”

Goldenbridge survivor Buckley told the Sunday Tribune that she has “very deep reservations and concerns” about the interview.

“I couldn’t doubt any victim of institutional abuse nor have I ever questioned anybody before. This is the first time I have done this,” she said. “Being in denial is being in denial. But why be so vociferous in protecting the Rosminian order on the radio?”

Buckley pointed out that O’Brien gave the radio interview before the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s apology on behalf of the state to victims of institutional abuse on 11 May, 1999.

Buckley added that she was passed a copy of O’Brien’s radio interview in October of last year anonymously. If she had known its contents a month earlier, when she accepted a People of the Year award with O’Brien, she said she did not think she could have gone onstage with him.

When contacted by the Sunday Tribune this weekend O’Brien strongly defended the interview, which he said he had given in recognition of the fact that Ferryhouse was the “only home I ever knew”.

“The reason I didn’t say anything about sexual abuse on local radio was that I didn’t want my family or anybody to know about it. I didn’t want to talk about it… I had been mayor of Clonmel and I didn’t want anyone to know about it,” he said. “I want nothing off anyone out of this. I said that to the Taoiseach, I said it everywhere I went. I want nothing off you. I said it to the Bishops, personally I want nothing off of anybody. But I’ll fight on my back for former residents, I do want the former residents set up. I do not want money out of it. I never wanted money out of it. And that is a fact.”

Both Buckley and O’Brien were among a group of representatives of survivors who met with Taoiseach Brian Cowen last April. But O’Brien and other groups such as the Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) Ireland stormed out after they were informed by Cowen that just €110m out of some €680m expected total compensation from religious orders was to go into a state-administered fund for former residents of the institutions.

They were told at the meeting that the congregations had offered additional compensation which they value at €348.51m, on top of the €128m already contributed under the controversial 2002 indemnity deal. The government also intends to seek over €200m more from the congregations to reach some €680m, or a 50% share, of the €1.36bn cost of the indemnity deal.

Buckley and others such as One in Four, who have extensive experience of providing counselling and support services to abuse survivors, have broadly wel­comed the allocation of €110m, although they say more will likely be needed. They argue that it would be impossible to provide individual financial compensation to survivors fairly.

“How can we have people stating that they’re entitled to this money, when the same people do not see the importance of education and counselling, and the Barnardos tracing service for example?” Buckley said.

They believe it is far preferable for education, health, housing and other counselling services to be provided on an “as needed” basis to the tens of thousands of survivors both in Ireland and abroad, regardless of whether they went before the Redress board.

However, John Kelly of SOCA told the Sunday Tribune that his group and others, including O’Brien’s Right to Peace group, want the entire €680m placed in a fund which would provide financial compensation to survivors, for them to spend as they see fit.

May 16, 2010

May

16

Archbishop Martin’s too good a man to be a Catholic

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The tragedy is that the Dublin prelate should be the authentic voice of the church, writes Emer O’Kelly

Sunday May 16 2010

I WONDER how many of the men listening to the Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin last Monday night in the imposing premises of the Knights of Columbanus in Ely Place in Dublin felt that he did not belong there?

Did any of them, I wonder, go further and think that he did not even belong in the Roman Catholic Church that they know and believe in? Because I, for one, do not believe that Dr Martin belongs in a Roman collar; and I do not believe that he belongs in the Roman Catholic Church. He is too good a man for any of them.

And sometimes I wonder if somewhere in the depths of his being, Dr Martin may not wonder the same thing as he struggles singlehandedly for dignity, justice, and wisdom as principles to underpin religious practice and belief.

On Monday night, he called “the future of the church in Ireland . . . one where we truly learn from the arrogance of our past and find anew, a fragility which will allow the mercy and the compassion of Jesus to give us a change of heart”.

Fragility, aka sensitivity and inwardness, linked to stalwart, tolerant witness? I don’t think so. That describes Diarmuid Martin; it is not a description of the hierarchy of the Irish church at large. Nor, unfortunately, of the majority of believing Catholics as they present themselves, whether or not they practise the rites of the church on a regular or irregular basis.

As it happens, I don’t think Jesus was fragile in Dr Martin’s sense, or in any other sense.

Dr Martin was speaking to a group of men who are self-proclaimed conservative Catholics. The Knights of Columbanus were formed as an “antidote” to the Order of Freemasonry in Ireland because the Catholic Church condemned Masonic rites as “satanic”. (The fact that Freemasonry worldwide had a long and stalwart history of free-thinking and solidarity against religious oppression might also have had something to do with it.)

But one thing is certain about the Knights of Columbanus: they do not question the authority and relevance of the institutional church. For them, it is what Dr Martin called a “reality of faith”. The difference is that he also added that as a man of faith himself, the future of the church was not in his hands, but would be guided by the Lord. One suspects that the rest of the Irish hierarchy with very few exceptions see themselves as uniquely qualified to know the mind of the Lord.

In that, they actually have a lot in common with those who see themselves as sceptical of the institutional church, and who react against those who stress the institution, as Dr Martin pointed out, by proclaiming that “we are the church”. Rather, he says, it is a case of both sides feeling “I am the church,” that the church must be modelled on my way of thinking or on my position. But renewal, the archbishop said, is “never our own creation; it will only come through returning to the church, which we have received from the Lord”.

It was one in the eye for a la carte Catholics who sign off with a flourish in the letters pages of the newspapers, dogmatically proclaiming what Jesus would have said and thought were he around now, just as it was for the fervent supporters of the received wisdom and structures laid down by an arrogant hierarchy.

Are the latter the people he was identifying, both lay and clerical, when he spoke of “the sub-conscious denial of the extent of the [child sexual] abuse which occurred within the church of Jesus Christ in Ireland?”

How often have we seen them on television screens, microphones thrust at them as they enter or leave churches for daily Mass, defiantly proclaiming that it was all “a long time ago” or that “it’s time to move on” or “none of this would have happened if it weren’t for the media” while the men in black and red whom they support so fervently drag their heels, and see themselves as the real victims? But despite such “strong forces”, Dr Martin believes, “the truth will make us free”.

He also emphasised, however, that “the moral teaching of the church cannot simply be a blessing for, a toleration of, or an adaptation to the cultural climate of the day”. The rules, in other words, are not for bending if you wish to bear witness to a faith, despite the frequency with which believers “albeit unknowingly to themselves, often view the reality of faith through a secularised lens”.

They are all around us, as he did not point out, but we know them: “I’m a cultural Catholic, but I’ve no time for the institutional church.” They are the people who, according to Dr Martin’s reasoning, would have received a tongue-lashing from the real Jesus rather than the personalised milksop they have manufactured for themselves. The teaching of that strong Jesus, (and this Dr Martin did say) is “both compassionate and demanding”.

The church, he added, is not a collection of individuals who worship when they feel the need; the church is “fundamentally a worshipping community, founded in and nourished by the Eucharist”, just as “Catholic identity is more than about vague ethos: it is about witness”.

And that witness, he said controversially, has been badly served because the Irish Catholic tradition has greatly neglected the place of the scriptures. “Catholics do not know the scriptures.”

What’s more, he added, sounding more and more like an advocate of the beliefs and teaching of the Church of Ireland, “we need a more demanding catechism (the teaching of religion) for those who wish to come forward for admission to the sacraments. Admission to the sacraments is not something which is automatically acquired when one reaches a certain class in school”.

As in the Church of Ireland (again he didn’t say it, but the inference is obvious) where Communion can only be received after one is confirmed, and Confirmation does not happen until halfway through the teen years. Opting for religion for Anglicans is a conscious, semi-adult choice.

I’ve looked for signs of the authentic Roman Catholic voice in this wonderful address, and found none. As a prelate, the voice is one of humility and pain. As a priest, the wish is for the Eucharist to have real meaning for those who presume to receive it rather than a catch-all to ensure the membership numbers stack up, however meaninglessly. As a teacher, the earnest wish is to open the gates of scriptural knowledge rather than keeping them firmly closed in favour of authoritarian interpretation and spiritual immaturity.

It’s revolutionary stuff, and that’s the tragedy: it should be the authentic Catholic voice, but it’s a voice that Rome has always been determined, and continues to be determined, it seems, will not be heard officially.

Sunday Independent

May

12

Survivors Rally in Dublin.

Filed Under News | 14 Comments

A Great Day for the Irish, and Catholic Victims Survivors Rally in Dublin for International Action against the Vatican
by Kevin D. Annett

I have a message to the Catholic church today: Get out of my country!”

Kevin Flanagan stood with me and fifty others, including a swarm of all the major media, as he said these words outside the Dail, the Irish parliament, in downtown Dublin today.

Tortured as a child in a Catholic school, Kevin faced the truth unafraid, and shared it with all of us who gathered to confront the state coverup of horrible crimes by the church in institutions across Ireland – and to reveal how these crimes continue.

“My brother Christopher Smith was thrown into a mental institute in Cork by the police for being homeless. They held him there for forty years, and experimented on him with drugs until he died in 2007, a burned out shell of a man. They’re still doing that to people, to little kids, in St. Stephen’s Hospital in Cork, in Unit 5, right now. Where is the justice?”

So said Mary Smith to our crowd, as national televsion and newspaper media recorded the stories and asked me what I as a Canadian was doing there.

I spoke of how such crimes were international, of children who died in Christian Indian residential schools in Canada, of how there, as in Ireland, the churches responsible have gotten away with murder. And I spoke of how most of the crimes led to Rome, and the Vatican.

At one point, Paddy Doyle, a world-renowned author, pulled his wheelchair next to me, as we unfurled the banner that has flown outside the Vatican, in London, and around the world, declaring “All the Children Need a Proper Burial”.

Holding out to me a bundle of children’s shoes that were recently hung at another protest by survivors in Ireland, Paddy asked me to carry these shoes as a remembrance of all the children who suffered and died under church control.

Of all the moments I have shared on this long journey, Paddy’s offering struck home the hardest. Taking the shoes, I said I would bring them with me wherever I went in the world.

Something seemed to join us all at that moment, and I suddenly knew that, in the midst of the official lies, the corruption, and all the unmarked graves, people like Paddy and Mary and Kevin are part of what keeps the soul of humanity alive.

Even the police there today felt it. Watching from the entrance to the Dail, two young Gardai approached us as the rally ended, and extended their hands to me.

“I want to wish you luck, Reverend” said one of them.

But that wasn’t good enough for all of us. Kevin and John and a few of the best stalwarts hurried to the other side of the Dail after the rally, where an “official” meeting between church and government officials was taking place to plan so-called “compensation” to their victims. As the officials entered the side door, Kevin began berating them with Gaelic fury.

“Shame on you!” he yelled.

“Shame on you murderers! We don’t want your blood money! We want you in jail!”

I marveled at the moment, as the church flunkies looked terrified and the policemen smiled, and Kevin allowed himself a rare sense of victory. I marveled at how the same spirit that defied the biggest empire in the world, just blocks away during the 1916 rebellion, lived on in the very hearts and lives targeted for death at a tender age.

Later, over tea and beer, Paddy Doyle announced that he planned to arrest the Pope when he comes to England in mid September. And I fully expect that all five foot two inches of him, a “disabled” man in a wheelchair, will do just that.

Today was more than our sixth “Aboriginal Holocaust Remembrance Day”, celebrated now in the land of my ancestors. Today was our resurrection day.

To all the children, and to those we may have protected today.

………… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………

Note: Kevin Annett will be continuing his European speaking and organizing tour in eight German cities between April 19 and 26.

May

12

Sins in the Church to blame for child abuse scandal, admits Pope

Filed Under Child Abuse | 3 Comments

The Times 12th May 2010

The Pope admitted for the first time yesterday that the Roman Catholic Church must accept responsibility for the child sexual abuse scandal that has engulfed it.

Speaking on a visit to Portugal, Benedict XVI said that “sins inside the Church” must be blamed, rather than “outside enemies”. He added that “forgiveness is no substitute for justice” and that the Church had to “relearn prayer and penance”.

His comments were hailed from within the Vatican hierarchy, with one senior figure on the Pope’s staff telling The Times that it amounted to a “sea change” in the way that the Church is dealing with the scandals.

Benedict’s five-year papacy has been rocked by allegations that the Vatican protected paedophile priests from prosecution in Europe and the United States. Bishops sometimes simply moved accused priests to new parishes, where the abuse continued.

Even after yesterday’s contrite statement, however, the Vatican’s critics insist that the Pope has still not done nearly enough to repair the damage or protect children from a culture of secrecy that allowed priests to rape and molest children unchecked for decades. Some have noted that while the pontiff has accepted some bishops’ resignations, no bishop has been actively punished or defrocked, not even those who admitted molesting children.

“Many are tiring of hearing about his ‘strong comments’. They want to see strong action,” said David Clohessy, the director of the main US victims’ group, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Marie Collins, an Irish victim of clerical child sexual abuse, said that the Pope’s comments were “a step forward but not a breakthrough”.

She said: “It’s a big change from saying it’s all a media conspiracy but we still need more. The cover-up of abuse was a policy which came from Rome, not a sin in the way the Pope means. He has not gone far enough.”

Before the Pope made his comments, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, of the Dublin Diocese, said that there were “strong forces” still at work in the Catholic Church in Ireland “which would prefer that the truth did not emerge” about clerical child sex abuse.

Until now the Vatican and individual cardinals and bishops have sought to lay the blame for allegations of priestly abuse on the media, the Devil, the permissiveness of the 1960s, and on petty gossip and homosexuality.

But the Pope struck a very different note yesterday. “Attacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from outside the Church, but the suffering of the Church comes from inside the Church, from sins that exist inside the Church,” he told journalists on the plane to Lisbon. “This we have always known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way. The greatest persecution of the Church does not come from the enemies outside, but is born from sin inside the Church. The Church has a profound need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on the one hand forgiveness, but also the necessity of justice.”

The Vatican claims that Benedict has taken the lead in investigating abuse, as pontiff and previously as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Three weeks ago he prayed and wept with victims of sex abuse at an orphanage in Malta.

On the defensive

Vatican editorial, March 25 “The prevalent tendency in the media is to stretch interpretations with the aim of spreading the picture of the Catholic Church as the only one responsible for sexual abuse”

Pope Benedict XVI, March 28 Faith in God leads “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip”

Mgr Giacomo Babini, retired bishop, April 12 “Zionist attack” is behind criticism of the Pope. “They do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies. Historically speaking, the Jews are God-killers”

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, April 7 “The errors of priests are being used as weapons against the Church”

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, April 14 “Many psychologists, many psychiatrists have demonstrated no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia but many others have demonstrated that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia”

Source: Times archives

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