The Irish Times – Monday, March 8, 2010

PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent

THE CATHOLIC Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, has said he saw no reason why the pope would not meet Irish victims of clerical child sex abuse.

He also said funding for the compensation of victims should come from the sale of assets rather than by asking people to put their hands in their pockets.

However, he did not believe the Vatican should be approached about assisting with such funding. “I do believe this is an Irish question which has to be solved, I believe, within Ireland.”

Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s This Week programme yesterday, he said “I think it would be great” to see the pope meeting Irish victims of clerical child sex abuse but he did not know whether it would happen. It was not discussed at last month’s meeting in Rome between the pope and Ireland’s Catholic bishops.

On raising funds for compensation, he said it was better to “sell assets, sell houses, that sort of thing” rather than asking people for money. “Transparency, that’s the most important thing. That people would be consulted and know where the money was coming from.”

He said it was for each bishop in consultation with the people. “I would be very strong in emphasizing that,” he said.

There was nothing in canon law “to say that the Vatican should bail out” a diocese. There was “a question mark, of course, about church, be it Vatican or local church, holding a whole lot of valuable assets. I’m not particularly comfortable about that, but I do believe this is an Irish question which has to be solved, I believe, within Ireland.

“I think really, whether the Vatican should be selling assets or not, it is really a separate question from this. It didn’t arise at all in the meeting in Rome.”

He felt “the Rome visit certainly didn’t meet expectations of people, and I think it was unfortunate that the formalities of dress and whether people kissed the pope’s ring or didn’t kiss it . . . distracted from the real purpose of the meeting and, indeed, the substance of the meeting”.

He felt “people were angry and rightly angry at the apparent pomp and ceremony, at the kissing of the pope’s ring (which he did not do)”. He was “somewhat uncomfortable in relation to both the dress and the kissing of rings, that sort of thing. I feel it belonged to another era.”

He hoped the pope’s pastoral letter “would be more satisfactory, perhaps, from the survivors’ point of view”.

 

4 Responses to “No reason why pope should not meet abuse victims – Walsh”

  1. christy says:

    PADDY
    Did you know that the Catholic Church only paid out less then 5000 Euros to the survivors of the Child Prisons known as INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS?

    Never in the annals of Child Abuse,sexual, psychological and physical has the Irish Industrial Schools been surpassed for sheer depravity.
    Fine words, cosy little chats and negotiating with the enemy have not worked in the past only to act as a financial vehicle for so called representative leaders.

    Marching to the seat of power will achieve nothing in itself unless it backed up by a legal framework for proper compensation from the Catholic Church. The deals that have been by the various gangs of four and six and two etc. must be undone now. The further substantial compensation for survivors of institutional abuse promised by Brian Cowen on 11 June 2009 in his statement to The Dail.

    The drip feeding of funds to the financial lavadas must stop now, the only winners in this game at the moment are The State, The Church and The Licences to Print Money Groups, The Blaggers.

    We have to wake up to the fact that we are not going to bring down the Government or The Catholic Church, we can only hurt them and by hurt I mean in their pockets. I don’t need to be funded for a Degree in Astro-Physics for a start it would take three years to do the Pre-degree Course, if Mr Cowen is true to his word and I get full and proper compensation I can go out a buy myself driving lessons or go to my local adult education classes to learn my ABC’s and 123’s free of charge.The Education Fund is just a way of giving a few Civil Servants something to do and putting more money into the pockets of the already rich ‘Blaggers’.

    Christy

  2. Andrew says:

    It would be a great photo opportunity ! Do we know anyone that salivates at the sight of cameras and all the paraphernalia associated with photo opportunities? I’d call it ‘Vatican Porn’ – obscene pictures of abuse victims kissing Ratzinger’s ring! No Thanks.

    The only meeting I’d like to see is a meeting of minds – the minds of survivors that is, as the minds of those complicit in our abuse have minds set in concrete.

  3. Robert Northall says:

    The Vatican should pay for the acts carried out by its employees as any large corporation has to; the Vatican gladly received funds raised by those employees; It also received funds from the Religious orders implicated in the Ryan Report but to date has not acknowledged how much money they received from 18 Religious Orders that ran The iniquitous Reformatory an industrial Schools for profit; nor have they paid any compensation for their covering up the abuse that took place.

  4. Paddy says:

    Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s off to Rome we go!!

    Fair play to Bishop Walsh for his comments on the bishops kissing the Pope’s ring and all the other pomp and ceremony that went with that recent visit of Irish bishops to Rome.

    It’s time the men in frocks came out of the 12th century or wherever they are and stepped into the 21st century wearing denim jeans and flowery shirts…..60’s retro! Paddy.