A Failure of Leadership, Michael Kelly, Catholic World Report, February 18, 2010

"A Failure of Leadership"

By Michael Kelly
Catholic World Report
February 18, 2010

http://catholicworldreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157:qa-failure-of-leadershipq&catid=37:exclusive&Itemid=54

Pope Benedict XVI has harsh words for Irish bishops following summit on abuse

Pope Benedict XVI has challenged Irish bishops to face up to the child abuse crisis with honesty and courage.

In a communique issued February 16 after a crisis two-day summit between the Pope, Irish bishops, and senior curial officials, the Holy See said the meeting “examined the failure of Irish Church authorities for many years to act effectively in dealing with cases involving the sexual abuse of young people by some Irish clergy and religious.”

The Rome meeting comes amid public anger in Ireland after two separate judicial commissions found that Church leaders had for decades failed to report allegations of sexual abuse against priests to the civil authorities. The reports also found that in many cases senior clerics put the avoidance of scandal and the good name of the Church ahead of the rights of victims.

The Ryan Report, published in May, investigated state-financed, Church-run care homes and found that, in some homes run by religious orders, sexual abuse had been endemic. Just months later, the Murphy Report, which investigated the handling of allegations in the sprawling Dublin archdiocese, found systemic mishandling and cover-up of abuse for decades.

“While realizing that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he [the Pope] challenged the bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage,” the communique said.

The Vatican statement went on to point out that “all those present recognized that this grave crisis has led to a breakdown in trust in the Church’s leadership and has damaged her witness to the Gospel and its moral teaching.”

The Catholic hierarchy in Ireland has held several crisis meetings since, and this week’s summit with the Pope comes after the Pontiff held two similar meetings with Ireland’s Primate Cardinal Sean Brady and Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin late last year.

In a sign of the Vatican’s dismay at public disunity among the hierarchy, the statement said the Pope “also expressed the hope that the present meeting would help to unify the bishops and enable them to speak with one voice in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused, encouraging a renewal of faith in Christ and restoring the Church’s spiritual and moral credibility.”

To date, six Irish bishops have been forced to tender their resignations as a result of the mishandling of clerical sexual abuse. The crisis first emerged in the mid-90s, but came to a head in 2002 when Bishop Brendan Comiskey became the first prelate to step aside over criticism of his handling of an abusing priest. Cloyne’s Bishop John Magee, a former secretary to Popes Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul II, was forced to step aside in 2009 after a Church-run inquiry found him guilty of not implementing proper child-protection measures.

Following the publication of the Murphy Report in November, the hierarchy appeared to be presenting a united front, giving a joint news conference. However, within days, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin was publicly distancing himself from some of his own auxiliary bishops who had been named in the report. While the bishops in question had not been directly criticized, victims’ groups demanded their resignations, insisting that they refused to challenge the prevailing culture.

Within days, four more bishops had tendered their resignations to Pope Benedict XVI, bowing to public pressure. However, one of the bishops named in the report, Galway’s Martin Drennan, has stubbornly refused to resign, insisting that in calling on him to “be accountable” Archbishop Martin was, in fact, calling Drennan’s integrity in to question.

At least one of the Irish bishops, Clogher’s Joseph Duffy, admitted as he went into the meeting that there had been “tensions” between members of the hierarchy. However, he said these tensions did not amount to “serious disunity.”

Questioned about the lack of unity among the bishops, Cardinal Brady said that while there were “differences of opinion” the bishops were “united in the matter of dealing with child sexual abuse and that their unity was never greater than at their meetings in Rome,” which he described as a mini-synod.

Cardinal Brady acknowledged the “real failure in our leadership” but said he hoped that humility and penance by the bishops would bring about a change of heart.

Each bishop was granted seven minutes to offer his view on the current crisis, and it is expected that these views will form part of a special pastoral letter that Pope Benedict XVI is to address to the “faithful of Ireland” during Lent 2010. It will be the first papal letter to address the specific crisis of the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious.

In Ireland, some victims of abuse have insisted that the Pope did not go far enough. Andrew Madden, abused as a child by Father Ivan Payne, has been involved in a high-profile campaign to have Irish Catholics renounce their faith as a result of the scandals. He said it would appear that submissions made by some survivors of sexual abuse by priests have been completely ignored.

“Pope Benedict has not articulated full acceptance of the findings of the Murphy Report, as we asked him to do, in order to quell the rise in revisionism and the surge in denial from some quarters within the Catholic Church in relation to its findings,” Madden said.

Madden is referring to a growing sense of unease among some in the Church about the blanket acceptance of everything stated by the judicial inquiries.

The Vatican said that Tuesday’s meeting “took place in a spirit of prayer and collegial fraternity, and its frank and open atmosphere provided guidance and support to the bishops in their efforts to address the situation in their respective dioceses.”

The Irish bishops flew out of Rome late on Tuesday evening and were scheduled to celebrate Ash Wednesday liturgies in their dioceses the following morning.

Cardinal Brady, without giving specific details, said that bishops would carry out some form of penance during the season of Lent.

Some sources close to the Irish hierarchy have hinted that the Vatican is open to discussing the idea of a delegation of Irish abuse victims to meet with the Pope. The Pope last year held a similar meeting with victims from Canada, and during his visits to the United States and Australia prayed with victims there.

Irish bishops are due to meet again in March to discuss the crisis, and the government is expected to reveal soon details of a new compensation package for victims of abuse in state-financed, religions-run institutions. Victims have already shared more than one billion euros in payouts from the government, and religious orders have pledged hundreds of millions of euros toward a new trust fund for victims. However, at least one group, Survivors of Child Abuse, has insisted that the Vatican must also provide one billion euros toward a compensation package.

David Quinn, a leading commentator of Church affairs in Ireland, said the reaction to the meeting “depended on whether one saw the Rome summit as the culmination of a process or one phase in a long process.”

“We’ve had extremely robust procedures established here in Ireland, acknowledged by authorities on both sides of the border to be best practice, we’ve had six bishops resign, and we’ve had tens of millions of euros paid out to victims,” Quinn said.

Quinn added: “This meeting was never going to be the end of history, it is another painful day in the history of this dreadful saga in Irish Catholicism, another humiliating, and sadly largely self-inflicted, day for the Church in Ireland.”