Archbishops’ cover-up of child sex abuse revealed

[BAK]

Archbishops’ cover-up of child sex abuse revealed

Desire to protect Church meant crimes not reported: Dublin Diocese Inquiry


Sunday November 22 2009


THE four Catholic archbishops of Dublin who preceded Dr Diarmuid Martin, were aware of complaints against priests for sexually abusing children — a practice that went on for over 35 years.
But the most senior figures in the Irish hierarchy did not report these crimes to the gardai because of an obsessive culture of secrecy and a desire to preserve the power and aura of the Church and to avoid giving scandal to their congregations.
The report of the Commission set up to investigate how the Dublin Archdiocese dealt with sex abuse scandals from 1975 to 2004 will find that there was little or no concern for the welfare of the abused children or other children who might come into contact with deviant and even paedophile priests.
While the Commission will find that there was no evidence of a paedophile ring operating among priests in the Dublin Archdiocese, there were distressing connections between more than 40 priests serving in parishes and religious orders in the diocese.
Some boys who were abused by one priest were later passed on to their friends and abused again. In another case, the notorious sex abuser Fr Sean Fortune, who committed suicide, gave the key of a holiday cottage to another priest who abused a girl there.
The Commission, which has trawled through thousands of files over more than nine years, will find that the powerful bishops of Dublin were more concerned with the power and pomp of their Church than they were with the children in their care.
Some of those who complained were met with denial, arrogance and even cover-up, the shocking report will reveal. The report will say that not one of the four archbishops who presided over the Dublin diocese from the 1960s revealed their knowledge of widespread sexual abuse by the clergy to the gardai until late 1995.
The Commission will find that while Cardinal Desmond Connell was shocked at the extent of child sexual abuse among the Dublin diocesan clergy and religious orders, he was slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation, took bad counsel from legal and medical advisers and failed to realise that clerical sex abusers could not be dealt with in secret.
It also says that while he was kind and sympathetic to some of those who complained to him, he appeared not to comprehend the suffering of victims. The Commission will also report that Archbishop Connell's strategies, while legally acceptable, added to the trauma and grief of abused children.
The Commission is expected to be scathing in its criticism of the bishops, who, it says, were all highly educated men who should have known that criminal acts should have been reported to the gardai as a matter of course.
In one of its most damning findings, the Commission will say that the Archdiocese of Dublin was aware from 1987 of the seriousness of allegations against its priests and that it took out specific insurance against sexual misconduct by the clergy.
The Commission is also expected to express its deep concern that in some cases professionals, such as psychiatrists and counsellors, who were asked to deal with clerical sex abusers, were not given the full facts of the priest's history of abuse. As a result, priests were sometimes allowed back into parishes unsupervised.
Despite the trenchant criticism of the Catholic Church in Dublin since the era of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, the Commission, which was headed by High Court judge Yvonne Murphy, will thank the current Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, and his legal team, who gave unrestricted access to its files.
The report is also expected to be critical of the State and some gardai for not intervening much earlier to challenge the authority and power of the Church. It will say that while some members of the force investigated sex-abusing clergy, others in the Garda Siochana seem to have regarded the clergy as being above the law.
The report was presented to Justice Minister Dermot Ahern but has since been modified because a number of those named in the original document are still facing prosecution. It is believed that a copy of the report, which has since been edited for legal reasons, will be presented to the Cabinet on Tuesday and is expected to be published in full later in the week.

 

[Babylon]

Archbishops' cover-up of child sex abuse revealed

Desire to protect Church meant crimes not reported: Dublin Diocese Inquiry


Sunday November 22 2009


THE four Catholic archbishops of Dublin who preceded Dr Diarmuid Martin, were aware of complaints against priests for sexually abusing children - a practice that went on for over 35 years.
But the most senior figures in the Irish hierarchy did not report these crimes to the gardai because of an obsessive culture of secrecy and a desire to preserve the power and aura of the Church and to avoid giving scandal to their congregations.
The report of the Commission set up to investigate how the Dublin Archdiocese dealt with sex abuse scandals from 1975 to 2004 will find that there was little or no concern for the welfare of the abused children or other children who might come into contact with deviant and even paedophile priests.
While the Commission will find that there was no evidence of a paedophile ring operating among priests in the Dublin Archdiocese, there were distressing connections between more than 40 priests serving in parishes and religious orders in the diocese.
Some boys who were abused by one priest were later passed on to their friends and abused again. In another case, the notorious sex abuser Fr Sean Fortune, who committed suicide, gave the key of a holiday cottage to another priest who abused a girl there.
The Commission, which has trawled through thousands of files over more than nine years, will find that the powerful bishops of Dublin were more concerned with the power and pomp of their Church than they were with the children in their care.
Some of those who complained were met with denial, arrogance and even cover-up, the shocking report will reveal. The report will say that not one of the four archbishops who presided over the Dublin diocese from the 1960s revealed their knowledge of widespread sexual abuse by the clergy to the gardai until late 1995.
The Commission will find that while Cardinal Desmond Connell was shocked at the extent of child sexual abuse among the Dublin diocesan clergy and religious orders, he was slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation, took bad counsel from legal and medical advisers and failed to realise that clerical sex abusers could not be dealt with in secret.
It also says that while he was kind and sympathetic to some of those who complained to him, he appeared not to comprehend the suffering of victims. The Commission will also report that Archbishop Connell's strategies, while legally acceptable, added to the trauma and grief of abused children.
The Commission is expected to be scathing in its criticism of the bishops, who, it says, were all highly educated men who should have known that criminal acts should have been reported to the gardai as a matter of course.
In one of its most damning findings, the Commission will say that the Archdiocese of Dublin was aware from 1987 of the seriousness of allegations against its priests and that it took out specific insurance against sexual misconduct by the clergy.
The Commission is also expected to express its deep concern that in some cases professionals, such as psychiatrists and counsellors, who were asked to deal with clerical sex abusers, were not given the full facts of the priest's history of abuse. As a result, priests were sometimes allowed back into parishes unsupervised.
Despite the trenchant criticism of the Catholic Church in Dublin since the era of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, the Commission, which was headed by High Court judge Yvonne Murphy, will thank the current Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, and his legal team, who gave unrestricted access to its files.
The report is also expected to be critical of the State and some gardai for not intervening much earlier to challenge the authority and power of the Church. It will say that while some members of the force investigated sex-abusing clergy, others in the Garda Siochana seem to have regarded the clergy as being above the law.
The report was presented to Justice Minister Dermot Ahern but has since been modified because a number of those named in the original document are still facing prosecution. It is believed that a copy of the report, which has since been edited for legal reasons, will be presented to the Cabinet on Tuesday and is expected to be published in full later in the week.

kwani wewe unafikiri mzee kingunge kilichomfanya alikimbie kanisa na kutoliamini tena mambo gani ?wakati huo hata wale waliokuwa wakihubiri hapa Tz walifanya waTZ kama hayo lakini watu wa hapaTZ wanahisi ni aibu kusema kuwa mchungaji amemshuhulikia ,na hasa ukiangalia watu hao hivi sasa ni mababu kama kina mzee Kingunge.

 

[BAK]

Pope Benedict faces demand to dismiss Irish bishops in child abuse scandal




International protest group warns that Catholic church 'cannot survive' endless derision

• Henry McDonald, Ireland Editor
• The Observer, Sunday 29 November 2009

An influential international Catholic organisation has written to Pope Benedict XVI calling on him to remove Irish bishops named as part of the cover-up of clerical child abuse in Dublin. The Voice of the Faithful has also challenged the pope to order an Ireland-wide inquiry covering every diocese to examine further cases of priests abusing children.

In the letter, the group says "accountability cannot be achieved while so many bishops and archbishops, who have knowingly over a considerable period of time permitted this tragedy to persist, continue in office".

The group, which also has branches in North America, Australia and Europe, asks the pope to order an island-wide inquiry into each diocese. So far the church in Ireland has resisted demands for an investigation covering all 26 Catholic dioceses.

Last week's report, carried out by Irish judge Yvonne Murphy, identified four former archbishops of Dublin as failing to report their knowledge about child sex abuse to the Garda. The Vatican and the papal nuncio in Dublin were both singled out for criticism in the Murphy report, accused of ignoring requests from the judge and her commission for information about abuse in the Dublin diocese.

The Voice of the Faithful letter tells the pope that "repeating the tragedy of Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Ferns, Cloyne, Sydney and so many other dioceses worldwide, four archbishops of Ireland's most populous diocese have behaved in a manner that facilitated the deepest psychological, emotional and spiritual trauma to many children.

"They have also endangered gravely the divine mission of the church, as well as the souls once more repelled from it. The time to act is now. The secrecy must come to an end. We are convinced that this programme cannot be speedily achieved in Ireland or elsewhere without the deployment of the full authority of your own office."
Sean O'Conaill, Voice of the Faithful's acting co-ordinator in Ireland, said that if the pope ignored their calls, "we will be forced to a conclusion that will be fatal to Catholicism globally: that the papacy also puts the Catholic clerical institution before the interests of children.

"To deny that change is now necessary in the way the church governs itself is to condemn other children of the church to the same trauma and to condemn the rest of the church to endless derision and scandal.

"Catholicism cannot survive this. To argue that God supports the present church system is to argue God approves of child abuse – and that is blasphemy."

Voice of the Faithful grew out of the abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic church in the United States and led to the sacking of Cardinal Law, the head of the church in Massachusetts. Meanwhile one of the main victims' organisations, Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, called yesterday for any national inquiry to include the alleged role of secret Catholic societies in covering up the scandal.

"We know that certain politicians were connected to 'Opus Dei' and that organisation's reach is very very long. It extends into many fields of public life in Ireland. The question any inquiry on a national level should ask is, did these societies or their members exercise any influence on the decisions not to pursue the abusers in the interest of the church's reputation?"

Irish SOCA co-founder Patrick Walsh said that despite a 10-year battle to expose the truth about abuse both in dioceses and church-run institutions, he was still shaken by the content of the Murphy report: "We wondered why at the time the Irish hierarchy were so hostile towards us. Now we know they were protecting themselves and their religious orders. We see the fuller picture from these three reports, the upshot being that we have a church disgraced, totally and completely."

However, Walsh praised the role of the current Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in helping the victims and facilitating the Murphy Commission: "He has clean hands. Unlike other bishops and cardinals, he is a man of honour who opened the books for the commission, and for that he deserves everyone's praise."