Tuesday March 09 2010

A NOTORIOUS paedophile priest named in the Murphy report on clerical sex abuse has spoken out to dispute its findings.

Bill Carney (60) made the comments after being tracked down by the BBC’s ‘Panorama’ TV programme while he was taking a sun holiday in the Canary Islands.

Carney, who was named as one of the worst serial offenders in the Murphy report, pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assaulting altar boys in 1983.

He was kicked out by the Catholic Church in 1992 after being found guilty under canon law of child sex abuse.

Carney later moved to the UK and settled in St Andrews in Scotland, where he got married.

The Murphy report stated that there were complaints or suspicions against him in respect of 32 named individuals.

In a ‘Panorama’ programme, being broadcast this evening, Carney disputes these findings.

“I have read the Murphy report six or seven times,” he told reporter Olenka Frenkiel.

“And I would dispute all of it except that I pleaded guilty to two charges in 1983 and the matter was dealt with by the court and I was sentenced.

“It is now 26 years later and I continue to get my life back together one day at a time and that is all I have to say.”

In the programme he is confronted with the fact that Paul Dwyer, one of his alleged victims, committed suicide in 2004, not long after making a complaint to gardai.

“I’ve no comment to make,” he said in response to those allegations.

He also denies being responsible for any instance of abuse since his conviction.

“I haven’t done that in 26 years and I have had no inclination.”

Pyschopathic

He refused to confirm or deny whether he abused other children before the 1983 case.

The Murphy report quoted a psychiatric assessment diagnosing Carney as suffering from a “psychopathic personality disorder”, which it warned must still pose some risk to children. Complaints against Carney were diverted away from gardai to the late Bishop James Kavanagh, who, it is claimed, had a “soft spot” for him.

In 1992, Cardinal Desmond Connell, then Archbishop of Dublin, removed Carney from the priesthood after a canonical secret trial, and later paid him £30,000 to leave his Dublin parish house.

Carney, was married in 2004 after moving to Britain, where he first lived in Cheltenham, England.

For the past 10 years he has lived in St Andrews, where he runs a family-friendly guest house, and enjoys the local golf club facilities.

Despite the findings of the Murphy report, the Irish Independent has established he is not currently being sought by gardai and there is no warrant for his arrest.

A number of alleged victims were interviewed by gardai and files were sent to the DPP but no prosecutions were brought.

In the case of Mr Dwyer’s complaint, the DPP did not proceed with a case due to insufficient evidence.

His mother Bridie later attempted to get access to the garda file on the case, but was refused on the grounds of confidentiality.

In Britain, the Home Office said Carney was not on the Sex Offenders Register because his admission of guilt in Ireland pre-dated the enacting of the UK register.

- John Cooney Shane Phelan and Tom Brady

Irish Independent

The English translation is
The Hypocrites
The Catholic Church and Sex

Protecting Offenders, Ignoring Victims

A tremor is currently passing through the Catholic Church in Germany. It could be merely the beginning of an earthquake of proportions which have so far only been seen in the American and Irish Church. Tens of thousands of abuse cases were brought to light in both countries. Could Germany be next?

Full Der Spiegel Article online in English

Includes Graphic: Results of the SPIEGEL survey of German dioceses

OTHER CATHOLIC CHURCH ABUSE CASES

* Austria
* Canada
* United States
* Australia
* Philippines
* Ireland

Comments on Der Spiegel article are here.

German translation of The God Squad. click on image to enlarge.

Dear Pope Benedict,

As the Irish bishops gather in Rome for their meeting with you, we are writing to ensure that the voices of the survivors of abuse by Catholic priests have a place in your deliberations.

The distress, anger and frustration experienced by survivors since the publication of the Report of the Commission of Investigation into Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin (the Murphy Report) is enormous. Many who have suffered throughout their lives from the impact of sexual abuse by priests in childhood now realise, having read the Report, that their pain and suffering could have been avoided if senior churchmen and the civil authorities had acted properly in response to complaints received from earlier victims.

Survivors find in 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.

Bishops Donal Murray, James Moriarty, Eamon Walsh, Raymond Field and Martin Drennan were all bishops in the Archdiocese of Dublin during some of the period investigated by the Commission. When the Report was published each of these Bishops attempted to remain in office by insisting that the findings of the Report did not warrant their resignations. They initially took no responsibility for either their actions or their failure to challenge a culture of cover up which they instead became a part of. Since then Bishop Murray has resigned and his resignation has been accepted by you. We understand that Bishops James Moriarty, Eamon Walsh and Raymond Field have offered their resignations too, which we urge you to accept without any further delay. We would also urge you to remove Bishop Martin Drennan who still refuses to accept any responsibility for his part in supporting a culture of cover up during his time in Dublin.

The core finding of the Murphy Report was that the sexual abuse of children by priests was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities over much of the period 1975 – 2004. Furthermore it found that the Dublin Archdiocese’s pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid 1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the perseveration of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities.

This finding was rightly accepted by the Irish Catholic Bishops in their December 2009 statement where they said that they were shamed by the extent to which child sexual abuse was covered up in the Archdiocese of Dublin. They also said that they recognised that this indicated a culture that was widespread in the Church. We also now request 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.

Responsibility for child protection properly rests with the civil authorities. We ask you now 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.

The lives of thousands of Irish people have been devastated by sexual abuse by priests. We ask you to write, 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.

Yours sincerely,

Marie Collins, survivor of Clerical Abuse, Maeve Lewis, One In Four, Andrew Madden, survivor of Clerical Abuse

SIMON CARSWELL in Davos, Switzerland

THE 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.”

Friday, January 29, 2010

VICTIMS support groups and clerical sex abuse victims have accused former Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Dermot O’Mahony of questioning the validity of the Murphy report and said that if this attitude is widespread within the Church, it will never be a safe place for children.

One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis said she found it “unthinkable” that a senior member of the clergy in the Dublin archdiocese could adopt such a stance.

Correspondence between Bishop O’Mahony and the Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was published in the Irish Catholic yesterday. The letters reveal strong anger on the behalf of retired auxiliary bishop, Dermot O’Mahony, over Archbishop Martin’s ready acceptance of the Murphy Commission’s conclusion that a culture of cover-up dogged the archdiocese’s handling of abuse complaints.

“It is incontrovertible from evidence given to the Murphy Commission and from the histories of clients attending One in Four that the archdiocese was guilty of the reckless endangerment of children, many of whose lives have been racked with pain and suffering as a result,” she said.

“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. If this response to the Murphy report is widespread, then the Catholic Church will never be a safe place for children.”

Former abuse victim, Andrew Madden said he was greatly disappointed at Bishop O’Mahony’s denial of events: “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.”

Mr Madden described the commission of investigation’s findings in relation to Bishop O’Mahony as “shocking”.

The commission of investigation found that the former auxiliary bishop failed to tell Archbishop Ryan about complaints and that he gave a character reference to Fr Vidal when he moved to the US, even though he had been the subject of several complaints.

He also failed to tell the National Rehabilitation Hospital, archdiocesan authorities or the Gardaí that Fr Reynolds, who was chaplain to the hospital at the time, “might have a problem with child sexual abuse”.

The commission also said Bishop O’Mahony gave a character reference on behalf of Fr Tyrus despite being aware that he had had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl when he was a teacher. The character reference was for a job where he would work with children.

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE FIRST person in Ireland to have gone public – in 1995 – about his abuse by a Catholic priest has formally left the Catholic Church.

Andrew Madden, who was abused when an altar boy in Cabra parish in Dublin by Ivan Payne, wrote to the Dublin archdiocese before Christmas saying he wished to leave the Church. He received notice of his “cessation of church membership by formal act of defection. . .” from church authorities last week.

He also received a letter, dated January 11th, from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin expressing sadness at the decision to leave and saying it made him wonder whether the church could learn from it.

In a response to Archbishop Martin at the weekend, Mr Madden said that following publication of the Murphy report, he was “appalled, as I believe you may have been, by the behaviour of your fellow bishops as they did everything to try and hold onto office, four of them failing”.

The bishops “added insult to injury by a collective failure to immediately offer their resignations in acknowledgement of what they had done, or failed to do, and out of respect for the experiences of children sexually abused by Catholic priests in Dublin”.

He continued: “A church whose leading members behave in this way is not a church I want in my life, not even in name only. A church whose bishops shielded paedophile priests is not a church I want in my life.

“A church whose priests congregate to express support for those bishops continuing in office in direct opposition to what many victims asked for is not a church I want in my life. “A church which finds Bishop Drennan acceptable in its episcopal ranks, despite having been part of a church in Dublin between 1997 and 2004 which covered up the sexual abuse of children is not a church I want in my life . . . A church which parades itself as a state when it wants to avoid accounting to the citizens of a country whose children it has abused is not a church I want in my life.”

He said: “No priest will ever preach to me standards his own church doesn’t even try to live up to. No priest will ever comfort me when I am sick. No priest will hear my ‘sins’. No priest will instruct me in penance. No priest will bless my relationship with my beautiful partner, Alan. No priest will pray over my coffin when I am dead. And no priest will bury me in ‘consecrated ground’,” he added.

He recalled that in 1983, the church in Dublin decided he was not suitable for the priesthood.

“Two years earlier the same Catholic Church had allowed Ivan Payne to continue as a priest despite knowing that he had sexually abused me for 2½ years when I was aged 12-14 years.”

A dedicated team of detectives working under an assistant garda
commissioner, John O’Mahony, is preparing to interview up to
half-a-dozen members of the force whose actions were criticised in Judge
Yvonne Murphy’s report on child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese. It is
understood that some individuals have already been interviewed but it is
not clear whether these are priests or former members of the force.

The report is not only focusing on gardai but also on the actions of
priests and clergy to see if there is evidence that they failed to act
in relation to a criminal act.

Those who are expected to be interviewed include the retired Cardinal
Desmond Connell and the retired chief superintendents Maurice O’Connor
and Joe McGovern. There have already been calls from victims groups that
Cardinal Connell be prosecuted.

Mr O’Connor was criticised in the report for having “inappropriate
dealings” with Bishop James Kavanagh, at a time when the paedophile Fr
Bill Carney, was investigated for indecent assault. The report found
that Bishop Kavanagh tried to influence the investigation but was
unsuccessful. Fr Carney was convicted because “lower-ranking gardai had
done their job properly”. The report said Chief Superintendent O’Connor
could not take credit for that.

Mr McGovern is criticised in the case of another priest, Fr X, who is
not named in the report. The report found that two gardai failed to take
notes when interviewing the priest about child sexual abuse allegations.
When the priest later made limited admissions to the then-Chief
Superintendent McGovern, the garda told his priest rather than
investigating gardai. Other gardai who investigated Fr X were also
criticised but not named by Judge Murphy, who concluded that the
“connivance” of gardai in stifling one complaint and failing to
investigate another was shocking.

“It is noteworthy that the Commission would not have been aware of the
garda activity in question were it not for the information contained in
the Church files,” the report noted.

Other gardai who were criticised have since died.

The report is expected to take several months to complete and then it
will be given to Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy.

He will decide whether the report should be forwarded to the DPP.

Justice minister Dermot Ahern said that under current legislation,
anyone who knowingly failed to protect children from paedophiles is
guilty of an offence.

- MAEVE SHEEHAN

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

BISHOP OF Galway Martin Drennan has been criticised by abuse victim Andrew Madden for not responding to a request from him to meet people from Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese who were sexually abused by priests there.

Bishop Drennan was an auxiliary bishop of Dublin from 1997 to 2005. Mr Madden also accused the bishop of “arrogance” and of “being out of touch with reality” because of his refusal to answer any further questions on the Murphy report.

Meanwhile, moral theologian Fr Seán Fagan has said “it is not enough for Church leaders who discussed these problems in their monthly meetings for years to claim that they were not criticised by the Murphy report.”

He said: “God’s holy people who ARE the Catholic church find it hard to understand how they could preach the Gospel throughout their lives and never have the courage to say no to this massive collective blindness.”

Speaking last night Andrew Madden said of Bishop Drennan: “It is a measure of the man that he will meet priests in his diocese but has yet to respond to my invitation to him to meet Dublin victims of abuse. I e-mailed him on December 27th about such a meeting and he has not even responded.”

In a statement to the media on December 27th last, Mr Madden said: “Bishop Drennan advises against anger and adds insult to injury when he describes our calls for accountability as vengeful.

“He says he met with 60 priests from the Diocese of Galway and seems to enjoy their full support. I have today e-mailed the bishop and asked him to formally invite 60 victims of sexual abuse by priests in Dublin to come and meet him in Galway . . .”

Should Bishop Drennan remain on, Mr Madden said that it was his intention to make representations to the Government, when calling on it to extend the remit of the Murphy commission to other Catholic dioceses in Ireland, that it abandon the representative sample method.

Instead all allegations of abuse should be examined, he said. In employing the representative sample method in Dublin, the Murphy commission was attempting to establish the systems, structures and practices in the archdiocese which facilitated the abuse of children, he said.

“It did that, and anyone who had a leading role in the archdiocese at the time should resign,” he said. “It is not appropriate that a bishop should hide behind the words of the report, depending on the extent of criticisms in the report. All attempted it and four failed. It was not looking at what individuals did. It was looking at systems, a culture, practices.”

Bishop Drennan’s remaining on in office “is an insult to survivors and will have implications” for future inquiries, he said.

Mr Madden also criticised Fr Vincent Twomey, retired professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College Maynooth, for changing his stance on Bishop Drennan, now saying that calls for the bishop’s resignation were “unfounded.” He called on Fr Twomey to debate the matter.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Fr Seán Fagan said: “What saddens me is that I have met very few people, especially clerics, who have bothered to consult these very important documents .”

Arguing that “all dioceses should be examined” by the State, he said the Catholic Church in Ireland should begin “with the three As approach.”

These were “Admit, Accept, Adjust: don’t hide or cover up . . . don’t look for excuses . . . and adjust to the situation with appropriate remedies.”

“Sorry is not enough, no matter how sincere,” he said.

CALLS FOR the resignation of the Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, “are unfounded”, a former professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College Maynooth has said.

Rev Dr Vincent Twomey also said: “If I was in any way guilty of inciting such calls, I am sincerely sorry and ask forgiveness.”

In a letter to The Irish Times today Fr Twomey says: “Since I am on record as calling for the resignation of the bishops mentioned in the Murphy report (December 3rd, 2009), I should have expressly excluded Dr Martin Drennan.”

He continues: “The present Bishop of Galway was not found guilty of either negligence or cover-up by the Murphy commission. The one substantial reference to Bishop Drennan in the report (51.1-51.2) indicates that, when he was auxiliary in Dublin, he acted appropriately in the case in question.

“The report itself concludes that ‘The archbishop acted correctly in immediately addressing the concerns and suspicions in this case.’ This amounts, if I am correct, to a recommendation of Bishop Drennan’s initial response with regard to a young priest acting suspiciously with young males.”

Meanwhile, an online petition calling for the resignations of people named in the Murphy report was said to be “going well, but slow” yesterday. Dublin Catholic social activist Brendan Butler launched the petition last week.

Yesterday, Mr Butler said he was “very disappointed” Bishop Drennan hadn’t resigned and quoted Talleyrand, who said “the most difficult farewell is the farewell to power”. The petition is at www.ipetitions.com/petition/ brendan13/

Meanwhile, The Irish Times has forwarded a supplementary question to Bishop Drennan following replies to four questions he sent to this newspaper last Friday. Question 4 asked: “Was he aware of the legal stance adopted by the archdiocese against Martha and Mary after they initiated legal action in 2001? If so, did he do anything about it?” He responded “I was not aware of the legal stance taken.”

Two articles in this newspaper,published in June 2003, gave extensive details of the abuse to which Martha and Mary (pseudonyms) were subjected by Fr Noel Reynolds and of the legal stance adopted by the Dublin archdiocese. It argued that, as it was not a legal entity, no claims could be made against it. It denied it was the priest’s employer or had any supervisory role in relation to him.

It claimed Cardinal Connell was not responsible in law for any alleged wrongdoings by Fr Reynolds and said the wrongs alleged against him were criminal acts and were not a part of his duties. (These wrongs had been admitted by Fr Reynolds in 1998 to authorities in the archdiocese.)

The supplementary question put to Bishop Drennan by this newspaper yesterday was “As details of the cases of Martha and Mary were in the public domain for two years of his period as an Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin and prior to his installation in Galway (July 2005), did Bishop Drennan take (a) any action on their cases; (b) query the legal stance of the archdiocese towards them; and (c) if not, why not?”

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

INTERVIEW: Bishop Martin Drennan responds to questions concerning his time in the Dublin Archdiocese

BISHOP MARTIN Drennan of Galway replied yesterday to four questions posed to him by this newspaper last Tuesday concerning the handling of allegations of child sex abuse made against the late Fr Noel Reynolds.

The allegations were made to the archdiocese after Bishop Drennan was ordained an Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin in September 1997 and also affected his areas of responsibility in the archdiocese, which were south Dublin and north Wicklow.

The questions and responses follow.

Was he aware of information available to the archdiocese about Fr Reynolds while he was chaplain at the National Rehabilitation Institute in Dún Laoghaire up to July 1998 and which was located within his area of the archdiocese? If so did he do anything about this?

Was he aware of the meeting attended by priests* of his own area of the archdiocese concerning Fr Reynolds? If so, did he do anything relevant following that meeting?

“What the report says is that priests in all the places where Fr Reynolds worked were brought together (cf 35.43), not all the priests of my area of responsibility. They were told about the allegations against Fr Reynolds. I did not attend that meeting, but I did have a meeting with the then parish priest of Glendalough, because of the implications for a parish and especially for a school in my area and because of the possibility of other victims coming forward.”

*The reference in the question is to priests of Glendalough parish.

Was he aware of the legal stance* adopted by the archdiocese against Martha and Mary after they initiated legal action in 2001? If so, did he do anything about it?

“I was not aware of the legal stance taken . . . The Murphy report draws attention to breakdown in communication in the archdiocese. At the time of my appointment, I was not furnished with information concerning priests working in my pastoral area.

“During the period covered by the Murphy report, when I was an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese, the Archbishop made all major decisions, which was his responsibility by virtue of his office.”

*In opposing a legal action by Martha and Mary the archdiocese argued that, as it was not a legal entity, no claims could be made against it where allegations of abuse by Fr Reynolds of Martha and Mary were concerned. It denied it was the priest’s employer or had any supervisory role in relation to him. It claimed Cardinal Connell was not responsible in law for any alleged wrongdoings by the priest. It said the wrongs alleged against Fr Reynolds were criminal acts and were not a part of his duties.