The Irish Times 3rd December 2009
ANALYSIS: It’s not just about Bishop Donal Murray. Many other bishops failed and they should all resign, writes MARY RAFTERY
AS BISHOP Donal Murray thrashes about trying to save his own skin, it is clear he is doing immense damage to his brother bishops, as he divides and sets them against each other. It is not too difficult to find a rationale for his tenacity in the face of such strong public revulsion at his lack of action to protect children from gruesome abuse – he was not the only one (true), and consequently it is unfair that he be singled out to pay for the gross negligence of so many other bishops (also true).
The answer to this is not of course that Donal Murray should remain as bishop of Limerick. It is rather that all the other guilty ones should also resign. The point has been made that some of these are more seriously implicated than others, and all should not be tarred with the same brush.
However, this is to miss the single most crucial aspect underlying all of this – namely that each and every auxiliary bishop in Dublin had some knowledge of heinous crimes against children and did not perform their duty as citizens to report this knowledge of criminal activity to the Garda. This is what at heart defines the cover-up. The reason we know that each of them had such knowledge is that the Dublin report tells us that the auxiliary bishops met regularly, once a month, and that at these meetings they discussed cases of specific priests who were known to have sexually abused children.
Ten of the bishops involved in this cover-up are still alive. Five remain in office and five are retired. The focus quite properly is on those who continue to exercise the functions of bishop, particularly as this involves such an extensive controlling interest in schools.
Three former auxiliaries are now full bishops. First among these is Donal Murray, whose tenure spanned the reigns of three archbishops – Ryan, McNamara and Connell.
The details of Bishop Murray’s callous lack of action in at least three cases of clerical child abusers are by now well known. He has in his own defence chosen to emphasise that he had been a bishop for only 18 months when approached by the two men in Valleymount who voiced complaints about Fr Thomas Naughton being “too close to the altar boys”. His lack of proper action, he claims, was due to his inexperience.
It is of interest to note that Bishop Murray was no obscure curate when elevated to auxiliary bishop in 1982. He was no less than professor of moral theology at Clonliffe College, the capital’s main seminary. Further, he was expert on ethics, in which subject he lectured extensively in UCD.
Next up is Jim Moriarty, bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, who was an auxiliary in Dublin from 1991 to 2002. This is the key period during which there was an explosion in the number of complaints of clerical child sex abuse in Dublin. Consequently, the subject would have arisen repeatedly at the monthly meetings of auxiliaries during this period, adding to the knowledge of crime which each of them was covering up.
We also know he received a very specific complaint about Fr Edmondus, the priest who abused Marie Collins (among others) at Our Lady’s children’s hospital in Crumlin. His response was to pass it up the line to his archbishop and wash his hands of it.
In a statement last Sunday to his parishes in Kildare, he made no reference to this. He, like his fellow bishops, focused on the crimes of the abusing priests while conveniently ignoring their own heartless and cynical betrayal of children through their cover-up.
Then there is Martin Drennan, bishop of Galway. He is barely mentioned in the report. However, as auxiliary bishop in the capital from 1997 to 2005, he must share in the complicity over cover-up. Although he had no responsibility for the earlier periods during the 1980s and 1990s when cover-up was routine and automatic, he nonetheless functioned during a period when the archdiocese considered itself under no obligation to co-operate with Garda investigations and continued to hide information of criminal acts from the civil authorities.
Of those who remain auxiliary bishops in Dublin, the most interesting is Eamonn Walsh. He is tipped as successor to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, and is deeply immersed in the politics of the Dublin archdiocese.
An auxiliary since 1990, he was intimately acquainted with diocesan secrets even before that in his capacity as secretary to the archbishop from 1985. Previously, he had been head of Clonliffe College since 1977.
Given his longevity at the heart of the Dublin archdiocese, Eamonn Walsh perhaps more than most of his fellow bishops faces the charge of cover-up and failure to report his knowledge of crime to the civil authorities.
Finally, there is Raymond Field. An auxiliary since 1997, he is a barrister, having been called to both the Irish and the English bar, and so should have been acutely aware of the overriding duty to report all knowledge of crime to the police. There is no evidence that he did so. Further, he is directly criticised in the Dublin report. With regard to the case of Fr Benito, Bishop Field did not convey complete information to a parish priest with regard to serious concerns around this priest’s relations with certain children. This was as recently as 2003.
The retired bishops who must also stand condemned as central to the cover-up are Cardinal Desmond Connell, bishops Laurence Forristal, Dermot O’Mahony, Brendan Comiskey and Fiachra Ó Ceallaigh.
Worst among these are Connell and O’Mahony, although Comiskey and Forristal are also singled out for stern criticism by the Murphy commission.
Of all 10 of these surviving Dublin bishops, only a single one (Forristal) admitted “unequivocally” to the commission that he had handled complaints badly. This gives some sense of the moral bankruptcy that permeates the ranks of the supposed moral and religious leaders of our society.
Very interesting eh Paddy!! It gets deeper and deeper. I wonder what else will unfold!
Barry,I have mailed you today as I cannot get through.
Take care everyone.
Anne.
RE: David Quinn, Irish Independent, Friday, December, 04, 2009
As usual David has to earn his charity status within the Iona Institute from the Catholic Church but even he sometimes alludes to a truth when intending to tell a lie. He now believes that secularists, which includes church bashers, of agendas to drive the church from education. They are predominantly the only game in town anyway and own most of property where education is taught, and because of it David can sleep better for they will not be leaving us anytime soon. The money is too good. Except from right wing faiths we are quite alone in embracing still this ancient model of education which is really only brain washing the young not to think for themselves. Secularists are growing in this country while David’s followers and leaders are fast diminishing but not without a fight. Dave again tries to use his old tactics with the numbers game trying to mitigate child abuse. Let me try to translate and address David’s latest rant.
Priests are suspect only in so far because of their mass cover up of abuse and secrecy, and this latest revelation in only one diocese leaves them a little less threatening for now.
As far as the papal twat from Rome is concerned, he should be kicked back to it for pretending he was here for twelve months, never knew anything and did nothing. A vow of celibacy, an unnatural state, encourages un- natural thoughts and women should rule the world.
Does David assume also that because of a common denominator of abusers outside of clerical abuse mitigates abuse within in the church. It is a different subject and outside the focus of Catholic Clerical abuse here in Ireland. I do not write about fish when I want to talk about splitting the atom but David does if it means there are homosexual and predatory fish out there. The only thing peculiar is why he still tries to narrow the meaning of abuse in the church. Then at last he comes to the main point of the article.
Here I have to inform him that Church bashers happen to be most of the people in Ireland with many swelling their ranks because of and not limited to sexual abuse. They may not be any less Catholic because of it but simply cannot embrace Ireland view of it ever again, and most believe Murray should go. David needs to embrace this thought more, and there is no point in trying to interview a consistent and historical liar like this Bishop, that should include all the bishops in the Dublin Diocese report as well. They will resign from pressure within the church and not in response to pressure outside of it. Even if all bishops resign in the whole country there are many more Catholic priest abusers than them, leaving the rather ‘large plate’ with a lot more cleaning to do.
It has to be reminded over and over again this is about just one diocese in Dublin. It is not about Christianity and fresh starts but about legal reform, and justice. Sin is secondary to all of this for it suggests forgiveness in the next life while getting away with serious child abuse and it’s cover up in this one. Jesus would not have tolerated anything less in my understanding of him to seek justice here too.
Barry Clifford
0877511113 bgclifford@iol.ie ,
Hi:
I note from a previous message information about the Church applied for insurance to cover their risk for claims made under the heading of “child abuse”
As insurance policies are issued under “uberrimae fides”, Latin for “utmost good faith”, then people applying for policies need to supply all relevant information to allow for clarity in assessing a risk.
This would have meant that it would be expected that an insurer, if they were correctly informed that there were elements of risk then the names of the perpetrators
would have been required to have been given.
Assumably other details and the possble costs arising from their actions would also have been required to be disclosed.
Otherwise the non disclosure could and would
be considered as a basis for overturning the contract “ab initio” (from the beginning)and the insurer would be entitled to seek repayment of all claims made under
the said contract.
If the insurance company were a company operating under the basis of being a “self insurer” – i.e. a company with in reality one customer, then it would have to be considered if there were potential tax or other benefits being gained from initiating a process where claims were made without
full disclosure or without the intended risk assessment, then one would have to examine what, if any, financial benefit was being achieved by managing this in such a way.
If, on the other hand, there was disclosure, then one would have to establish what disclosures were made and to whom and
in what form. I would expect that in such a case there would be at least, names,dates and outcomes from these events to be listed on appropriate files. It would be nteresting to see if there had indeed been any private settlements made connected to abuse.
If this were the case then this might provide substance regarding the amount of knowledge and possibly even the names
and details of people who were from the churches knowledge,
– had the capacity to increase the level of risk for claims in the event of their behaviour leading to a claim on the
policy and the special terms that were applied in cases involving such individuals.
This would be one way of establishing how much was really known, when it was known and what depth of information about potential and active perpetrators of this type of criminal activity. To me it appears that to take such an action, the risk and potential financial damage was being examined and
assessed by the various authorities if they were seeking quotations for what would be, to say the least, a very unusual form of insurance coverage and one which indeed you
would not expect to see a proposal form for.
Apart from the primary insurers underwriting such a policy I would assume that there would also be reinsurers who would also have had at least part of the information for risk assessment purposes. This would require some detail to have been provided before a policy would have been processed as a contract.
I would also be interested to know if there were, apart from the “financial protection” provided to the church by such a contract what assessments of potential damage – at east in the financial sense were arrived at during this process and if so, was this information shared with the government at the time of what later became known in the Dail as the “Secret agreement”.
See: http://www.connect.ie/secret.html
It would also be interesting to know that if the church did indeed proceed with such arrangements were there other additional pecuniary (financial) benefits to this process apart from gaining protection to their assets.
It would also be interesting to check the documentation and records of discussion that occurred between the state and church before their infamous agreement was made. Was the State, through the government not acting as an underwriter to the church with regard to the monies arising as damages to be paid
for the potential abuse cases.
If so, was the basis of the contract conduct under the same legal dictum of that applied by insurance companies and based on full
disclosure of all the pertinent facts. If so, and there was not full disclosure, how can this agreement still be considered to be
binding on the State.
Martin Maguire