By David Sharrock
The Times (United Kingdom)
November 27, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6933599.ece
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland connived with the authorities in a cover-up spanning decades to shield paedophile priests from prosecution, an official report concluded yesterday. Hundreds of crimes against children were not reported as the four archbishops of the Archdiocese of Dublin remained wedded to the "maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church and the preservation of its assets".
Instead, the church hierarchy shuffled the sex offenders from parish to parish, allowing them to continue to prey on victims. In some cases paedophile priests were even promoted. The 750-page report by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse on the Dublin archdiocese — the second significant inquiry this year to expose appalling levels of sexual abuse of minors in Ireland under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church — said that it had uncovered a "don't ask, don't tell" policy throughout the period that it investigated between 1975 and 2004.
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| Dermot Ahern, the Irish Justice Minister, Told Press He Felt " Revulsion and Anger" on Reading the Report |
It said that the State had helped to create the culture of cover-up and that senior police officers regarded priests as "outside their remit".
"The State authorities facilitated that cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes," it concluded.
"The Commission has no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities.
"The structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated that cover-up."
While the inquiry found no evidence of a paedophile ring, it said that there were some worrying connections and that one priest admitted sexually abusing more than 100 children.
Another admitted that he abused on a fortnightly basis during his 25-year ministry. One priest, against whom a single complaint was made, admitted abusing at least six other children.
Over the period within the report's remit "the welfare of children, which should have been the first priority, was not even a factor to be considered in the early stages", it said.
"Instead, the focus was on the avoidance of scandal and the preservation of the good name, status and assets of the institution and of what the institution regarded as its most important members — the priests."
Four archbishops, John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973, Dermot Ryan, who died in 1984, Kevin McNamara, who died in 1987, and Cardinal Desmond Connell, retired, did not hand over information on abusers.
The first files in the cases of 17 priests were handed over by Cardinal Connell in 1995 but, even then, he had records of complaints against at least 28 priests.
In one example of what the report called inappropriate contacts between the authorities and the archdiocese, it took police 20 years to decide to prosecute a priest.
Allegations were made against one priest, known as Friar Edmondus, but Garda Commissioner Daniel Costigan handed the case to Archbishop McQuaid and took no other action.
"A number of very senior members of the Gardai, including the Commissioner in 1960, clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit," the report said.
"There are some examples of Gardai actually reporting complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them."
The commission examined complaints made against 172 named priests and 11 unnamed priests before concentrating on a representative sample of 46. Altogether 320 children had made complaints about the 46 clerics, 11 of whom have been convicted of sexual assaults. "Unfortunately, it may be that the very prominent role which the Church has played in Irish life is the very reason why abuses by a minority of its members were allowed to go unchecked," the report said.
The Church in Ireland has been plagued by sex scandals for at least two decades. The disclosures in May of floggings, slave labour and gang rape in many of the now abolished industrial and reform schools eroded the Church's moral authority further.
Similar abuse cover-up charges have dogged the Catholic Church in other countries, especially the United States. Seven dioceses there have filed for bankruptcy protection to shield themselves from lawsuits by abuse victims.
Abuse cases have also been reported in Britain, Australia, Austria, Canada, France and Poland.
The Pope has condemned sexual abuse by clergy and said that paedophile priests should be brought to justice. He met abuse victims during his 2008 visit to the US.
Dermot Ahern, the Irish Minister for Justice, said: "I read the report not as Justice Minister but on a human level. As a father and as a member of this community, I felt a growing sense of revulsion and anger.
"Revulsion at the horrible evil acts committed against children. Anger at how those children were then dealt with and how often abusers were left free to abuse. What is of the utmost importance now is that we continue to pursue relentlessly the perpetrators of abuse to bring them to the justice they deserve."
Diarmuid Martin, the current Archbishop of Dublin, said: "I offer to each and every survivor my apology, my sorrow and my shame for what happened."
"I am aware that no words of apology will ever be sufficient," he said.
"The fact that many abusers were priests constituted both an offence to God and an affront to the priesthood."
Fachtna Murphy, the current Garda Commissioner, said that he was "deeply sorry".
Seeking redress
Taoiseach apologises to abuse victims (1999) An explosive documentary series, States of Fear, was broadcast on Irish television detailing the abuse suffered by children throughout the entire childcare system. In response to the programme, Bertie Ahern apologises to the victims and sets up the Commission to study alleged abuses dating back to 1936
Complaints of child abuse (2001) More than 3,000 complaints were made to the Commission by people alleging that they were abused as children within Irish educational institutions
The Laffoy Commission (1999-2003) Judge Laffoy resigned as the chair of the Commission after four years. She blamed the Irish Government for causing delays to the commission's work
Ryan Report (May 2009) Report by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a harrowing five-volume report that took nine years to compile. It said priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions. The Commission became known as the Ryan Commission in 2003 when Justice Seán Ryan took over running the body from Judge Laffoy
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