15/02/2011
Press Release/ Diary Notice February 15th

Liturgy of Lament and Repentance

On next Sunday 20th February at 3pm a Liturgy of Lament and Repentance for the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious will be held in St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, within the framework of the Apostolic Visitation of the Archdiocese of Dublin.

During the liturgy which has been prepared principally by survivors, Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will wash the feet of a group of people who have suffered in various ways through abuse. ENDS

Note to Editors

* Please note photographs will be made available to press following the liturgy as at the request of those taking part, media access to the Cathedral may be restricted.

Further information

Dublin Diocesan Communications Office 01 8360723

Dublin Diocese Website

WikiLeaks cables show ambassador to Holy See saw crisis as ‘most difficult he had ever managed’
John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent

As the government braces itself for the imminent release by WikiLeaks of hundreds more US diplomatic cables that refer to Ireland, a confidential US embassy cable released by the Wiki­Leaks website also reveals that the Irish ambassador to the Vatican and former ambassador to the USA, Noel Fahey, described the row between the commission and the Vatican as the “most difficult crisis he had ever managed”.

WikiLeaks is believed to have around another 900 cables emanating from the US embassy in Dublin, with 300 or so more from the US consulate in Belfast. It is expected to release these in the coming months, as it works its way through more than 250,000 such cables which it has obtained.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it had no comment on the content of the cable.

Dated 26 February 2010 and noted as having been “contributed to and cleared” by the US embassy in Dublin, it outlines how the Irish government “wanted to be seen as cooperating with the investigation because its education department was implicated, but did not want to insist that the Vatican answer the requests because they had come outside of regular channels.

“The Irish embassy to the Holy See offered to facilitate better communications between the Irish commission and the Holy See, but neither party took any further action,” it stated. “In the end, the Irish government decided not to press the Vatican to reply, according to Fahey’s deputy…. (she said) the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith probably did not have much to add to the inquiry.”

Commenting on the WikiLeaks revelations yesterday, Maeve Lewis of the One in Four charity revealed that she has yet to receive “even an acknowledgement” from the pope after her organisation wrote directly to him about the issue last February. This is despite that they had used proper diplomatic channels to do so. But the US diplomatic cables “simply confirmed what we already knew,” she said.

“We have always said it was shameful for the Vatican not to cooperate with the Murphy commission, as is its ongoing refusal to divulge the contents of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith documents in relation to clerical sex abuse worldwide,” she added.

Requests for information from the Murphy commission “offended many in the Vatican” who felt the government had “failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the (commission) investigations”, the cable also reports.

Elsewhere, it claimed Vatican officials also believed Irish opposition politicians were making “political hay” from the situation by publicly urging the government to demand a reply from the Vatican following publication of the Murphy report in November 2009.

December 12th 2010

The Irish Times – Monday, August 23, 2010
ÉIBHIR MULQUEEN in Ennis

THE FUTURE of the Catholic Church was a question which went beyond the effects the abuse scandals had on it in Ireland, historian Diarmaid Ferriter said at the concluding session of the Merriman Summer School yesterday.

Speaking on the theme “From Cullen to Connell: the rise and fall of the Irish Catholic Church”, Prof Ferriter, professor of modern history in UCD, said Ireland was a very small jewel in the Catholic Church crown in the context of its sex abuse scandals.

It would take time to absorb the sheer enormity of what was in the Ryan, Murphy and Ferns reports, but the issues were not unique to Ireland and were now being raised in other countries.

“It may well be more pronounced within Ireland for a whole host of different reasons that are relevant to the 19th and the 20th century in terms of the Catholic culture that was developed,” he said.

The Vatican’s refusal to accept the resignations of the two Dublin auxiliary bishops had been a public humiliation for Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, “which is ironic given what he has done and the way he tried to change the language that was used before”. He believed Archbishop Martin might become a fall guy to the structure, power and control of the church. “Diarmuid Martin can be jumping up and down until he is blue in the face but there are certain things he won’t be able to change on his own.”

Another issue was how long the church could sustain its structures as they were, he said. “They don’t have priests. It has been admitted that they are going to need more and more lay involvement to keep parishes running. The question is, ‘Are they [lay people] actually going to get any say?’

“Thankfully, it is not the job of the historian to predict the future.”

The future of much historical research would be within a comparative international framework, he added. “We have tended to look at ourselves in too insular a way and we do tend to think we are unique in all sorts of ways. And we are in some ways, but in other ways we are not. That is going to be a serious research project for a generation, I think.”

In regard to the church’s historical role, he said while Ireland had appeared to be a Catholic country for Irish people after independence, the reality of how it had been experienced was more nuanced.

Instances of dissent and difference were identifiable both privately and at government level, he said. Attempts to promote mass public devotion, such as during the centenary celebrations of Catholic emancipation in 1929 and the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, had a legitimising effect, but the State had had its way in many church-State tussles.

A 10-year campaign ending in 1935 to have legislation introduced regulating public dances had raised the question of why there were so many unlicensed dances. “You have got to remind yourself when you are talking about denunciations, there was a hell of a lot to be denounced.

“There is a case to be made that a lot of Irish people remained unreadily anarchic in their very daily behaviour.”

The Irish Times – Saturday, August 21, 2010

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

ABUSE FALLOUT: IRELAND’S CATHOLIC priests were criticised by speakers at the Humbert School in Castlebar, Co Mayo, yesterday for their “deafening silence” throughout the clerical child sex abuse scandal years.

Dublin abuse victim Marie Collins said that “the priests of Ireland during this crisis have let down many by their abject failure to speak up”.

Acknowledging a few exceptions, she said that in general priests’ silence had been “a huge disappointment”.

One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis described Ireland’s priests as “utterly spineless, emasculated, afraid to speak out”. There had been “an incredible lack of response by priests and religious to the various reports”.

Ms Collins felt there might be some hope with a new priests’ association which may be established soon. But, she commented: “It’s already under severe attack from conservative Catholic commentators. Will it be smothered at birth?

“Will priests be afraid to join? Will it influence the future of the church in Ireland? I hope for the latter but fear the former will be its fate.”

She felt those same conservative forces, along with “most of his priest colleagues and bishops, who wanted Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to defend the indefensible after publication of the Murphy report – and who when he didn’t defend the indefensible attacked him for not doing so – are now rejoicing that he has been put in his box” with the pope’s refusal to accept the resignation of Dublin’s two auxiliary bishops ”.

That decision “shows how empty were his words to the Irish people in March … Does he think this action will restore respect? Where is the transparency in denying any explanation for this decision?” she asked.

“The bishops told us they were resigning to bring ‘peace and healing to victims’ yet it seems then behind the scenes they fought to have the resignations rejected.

“It’s more of the same hypocrisy and insincerity that victims have had to deal with for years.”

Abuse victim Andrew Madden spoke once again of his gratitude to Bishop Jim Moriarty “for the content and tone of his resignation letter” last December.

“His acknowledgement that ‘the long struggle of survivors to be heard and respected by church authorities had revealed a culture within the church that many would simply describe as unchristian’ was also very welcome and compared very favourably to Bishop Drennan calling survivors vengeful and Cardinal Brady trying to pass himself off as a wounded healer,” he said.

“Add to that the sickening sight of bishops Walsh and Field thinking they have won some battle to preserve their precious reputations, having lost sight of the fact that preserving reputations was one of the reasons so many children ended up being sexually abused in the first place,” he said.

On the same subject, Augustinian priest Fr Iggy O’Donovan said “you may rest assured that the decision in this case has everything to do with Church authority and little to do with whether or not these gentlemen were vigilant in their duties when it came to protecting children.

“The message is clear – in Rome nobody, not even the vast majority of the faithful, tells us what to do. Whether or when or if bishops are to resign is our decision.”

He said that “of all the episcopates in the world the present Irish incumbents are the least likely to challenge party headquarters”.

He said that “in recent decades the ranks of the Irish episcopate has been manned with second-raters, rather than men of vision and imagination”.

Refusal to accept two bishops’ resignations is ‘final nail in the coffin’ of hope for real change
John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent

Well-known clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins, who has doggedly remained a Catholic in the hope that the church will reform, is considering quitting the church following Pope Benedict’s decision not to accept the resignations of two Dublin auxiliary archbishops.

Describing last week’s revelation as the “final nail in the coffin” of her hope that the church would change, Collins said she has “really gone beyond the point I was at before”.

“When I was clinging on to my Catholic faith with my fingertips in the past, I still had hope. And Diarmuid Martin was a symbol of that. I would definitely see this as the end of any hope that things are going to change,” she said. “So I’m at the point definitely of thinking this is not the church for me. I’m not just saying that for effect. I just can’t see any glimmer of hope, any reason to stay. I’m totally shattered at this point.

“I have always said my Christianity is not in doubt. I am not disillusioned with my faith in God or Christ. But I am just at the point where I’m considering that I don’t need to call myself a Catholic anymore, in a church where clerical power holds sway. My hope of reform coming from within the clerical church is gone.”

In an interview with the Sunday Tribune, Collins – who was abused as a child by a priest identified in the Murphy report – said the Pope’s decision not to accept the resignations of Bishops Raymond Field and Eamonn Walsh meant the “ground has been taken out” from under Dublin Archbishop Martin.

Dr Martin, who is in Italy on annual leave, has refused to comment on the Pope’s decision, which he communicated in a letter to priests in his diocese last week.

“I think the worst aspect of the whole thing is that Diarmuid Martin’s authority has been undermined,” Collins said. “I think he acted correctly in encouraging the resignations of the two auxiliaries not for what they did, but what they did not do.”

Along with her fellow abuse survivor Andrew Madden, Collins is due be presented with an “outstanding merit” award at the prestigious Humbert Summer School in Castlebar, Co Mayo, this week.

“We had the letter from the Pope in March, and we were disappointed with that. It had a lot of fine words, but the actions are not living up to those words. And yet you still hang on there, hoping it’s going to change. And we had the bishops offer their resignations,” she said.

“It would appear that these two others were not sincere, and still believe they did nothing wrong. But if those two had stood up, children would have been stopped from being abused. The fact that the Pope doesn’t see that is the final straw for me.”

There has been some speculation that the decision to assign both auxiliary bishops “revised responsibilities” was taken by Martin, and was not specifically requested by the Vatican. However, neither the Papal nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza nor Martin would comment when contacted.

August 15, 2010

PATSY McGARRY and PADDY AGNEW
The Irish Times. 12th August, 2010

Dublin’s catholic archdiocese last night confirmed that offers of resignation by auxiliary bishops Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field had not been accepted by Pope Benedict XVI.

A spokeswoman said there would be no comment from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin on the decision by the Vatican not to accept the resignations, submitted last Christmas Eve.

Senior Vatican figures are said to be concerned about the possibility of a “domino effect” if it were to emerge that other Irish bishops had mishandled allegations of clerical child sex abuse cases, and this is understood to have played a part in Pope Benedict’s decision.

To a certain extent, the pope has opted to differentiate between sins of “omission” and sins of “commission” in relation to the clerical sex abuse scandals, Vatican observers also said.

Yesterday Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said it was not policy to comment on resignations which had not been accepted.

Vatican sources said the Secretariat of State had recalled the excellent work done by Bishop Walsh in the role of apostolic administrator in the diocese of Ferns. The decision not to accept the resignations is in line with the decision of the Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal Seán Brady, last spring not to resign despite his involvement in an investigation 35 years ago of a case involving Brendan Smyth.

The three-page letter revealing the Vatican’s decision, which was sent by Archbishop Martin to his priests, deals mainly with preparation and arrangements for Baptism and Confirmation.

In a two-line reference to the auxiliary bishops the letter, which was leaked to the Irish Catholic newspaper, said that: “Following the presentation of their resignations to Pope Benedict it has been decided that Bishop Eamonn Walsh and Bishop Raymond Field will remain as Auxiliary Bishops and are to be assigned revised responsibilities within the diocese. This means they will be available to administer Confirmation in any part of the diocese in the coming year.”

The two bishops had been continuing in their normal duties pending the decision.

Two other bishops named in the Murphy report – Bishop Donal Murray and Bishop Jim Moriarty – have had offers of resignation accepted by the Vatican. A fifth bishop named in the report, Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway, has resisted calls for his resignation.

Abuse survivor Marie Collins strongly criticised the Vatican’s decision, saying she was “at a loss” and “past being angry”.

She said there was no hope that the hierarchy or the pope were going to change anything. The church was not “going to be accountable or take responsibility”. She felt “people, survivors in particular, are also entitled to an explanation as to why Bishop Moriarty’s resignation was accepted but Bishop Walsh’s and Bishop Field’s were not”.

Another Dublin abuse survivor, Andrew Madden, said reports that Pope Benedict had not accepted the offers of resignation were “no surprise”.

He said that “since the Murphy report was published the Catholic Church in Ireland and at Vatican level has failed to take responsibility for the findings of that report, in particular the finding that sexual abuse of children by priests was covered up by archbishops and bishops for decades”.

He continued: “Pope Benedict and Cardinal Brady both failed to protect children from priests they knew to be abusers and in both cases those priests went on to abuse more children.”

By John Cooney Shane Phelan and Tom Brady

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

click on image to enlarge

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.

OPEN LETTER TO POPE BENEDICT XVI ON BEHALF OF MARIE COLLINS, ONE IN FOUR, ANDREW MADDEN

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

The Irish Times – Saturday, January 30, 2010

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.”