The Irish Times – Saturday, January 9, 2010
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.
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