By Andre Bagoo
Trinidad and Tobago's Newsdayi
March 22, 2010
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,117738.html
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO -- ON THE SUNDAY after Pope Benedict XVI issued a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics in which he apologised for the church's handling of cases of child sex abuse in Ireland, local priest Fr Garfield Rochard revealed there have been unproven reports of child sex abuse at the hands of priests in this country.
As pressure continued to mount on the church internationally in the wake of Pope Benedict's apology, which was displayed outside of the Vatican walls on Saturday, Fr Rochard also revealed that the local church has "a mechanism" for dealing with reports of child sex abuse at the hands of priests which does not necessarily involve the report being referred to the police at the soonest opportunity.
 |
Asked if there have been reports of priests sexually abusing children, Rochard said, "There have been reports but they have not been substantiated...There have always been reports."
Were such reports ever referred to the police?
 |
| Fr Garfield Rochard |
"I am not aware of that," Fr Rochard said. "When I say there are reports, it's alleged. If there have been reports you have to investigate. That is the process. You determine how you deal with it if it is substantiated and how you deal with it if it is not substantiated."
At the same time Fr Rochard, parish priest of Assumption Church, Maraval, said there has been "no real clear cut" case of child sex abuse at the hands of a priest, as far as he was aware.
 |
| A COPY of Pope Benedict XVI\'s letter addressing sex abuse by priests. |
"I don't think that is a problem here," he said.
Asked what steps, if any, are taken in relation to a priest who is the subject of a report of sexual abuse, Fr Rochard said, "Well you know it is unfair to wrongly accuse somebody or to come to a conclusion without substance. And therefore it becomes embarrassing when people have been wrongly accused. One always has to be careful about that."
 |
| PRIMATE OF All Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady, left, hands out a letter from the Pope to a child at St Patrick\'s Cathedral in Northern Ireland. In letters read out at Masses over the weekend, Pope Benedict XVI rebuked Irish bishops for 'grave errors of judgement' in clerical sex abuse and ordered a Vatican investigation into the Irish church. |
Is the priest allowed to continue in his post?
"If there is nothing substantial, then why should they be barred?" he said. "If there is evidence that there has been a misdemeanor and if it is that corrective therapy can help with putting people straight then there is that opportunity." Would the church refer the findings of any investigation to the police?
"No. The Church would do its own investigation and deal with its own process. In other words, there are two different processes," he said.
What steps are taken to protect vulnerable members of the church?
"If he is to undergo therapy, he may have to be removed from where he has been functioning and put somewhere else for the time being," Fr Rochard said. "He is removed from wherever he is. And then if it is that he needs counselling he can go to a place where there is counselling. He will be out of sight...And then when he returns he comes back in under a certain arrangement where he is supervised. That is how it is supposed to work.
"Years ago every diocese (regional grouping of the church) put in place a process to deal with the event that something like this happens," he said. "I am just telling you what I know has been put in place."
The comments will deepen concerns over the local church's ability to properly deal with reports of priests sexually abusing children in light of a now clear history of the church failing to properly act on such reports internationally. In his seven-page open letter, Pope Benedict admitted that the problem of child sexual abuse was not confined to Ireland.
"It is true . . . that the problem of child abuse is peculiar neither to Ireland nor to the Church," he said. "To the victims of abuse and their families: you have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry."
However, the Pope provoked outrage yesterday by failing to mention his apology at his weekly Vatican appearance. Rights activists had hoped that he would have used his weekly sermon to apologise in public.
Another local priest Fr Reginald Hezekiah yesterday admitted that the scandal has dissuaded many from joining the clergy and the church. He also argued that the issue of child sex abuse is not in any way related to the vows of celibacy taken by priests.
"It really is not related," he said. "The psychologists tell you this."
He noted that the church has dealt with the issue in the past by making its recruitment procedures for priests more rigorous. But executive director of the Caribbean Centre of Human Rights, Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, yesterday warned that such procedures may not be enough.
"You can't tell what a person is going to do 30 years down the line," she said.
An Anglican, Mahabir-Wyatt noted that the problem of child sexual abuse was not limited to the Catholic church alone.
spacer
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.