BishopAccountability.org
	Archbishop Hopes to Help Repair Ireland's Jaded Devotion to Faith By Jennifer Green The Ottawa Citizen June 4, 2010 http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Archbishop+hopes+help+repair+Ireland+jaded+devotion+faith/3109660/story.html Prendergast planning two trips to Tuam Ottawa's archbishop says he just wants to help push the Irish Catholic Church out of the ditch of entrenched clergy abuse and get the faithful back on track. "We're looking at a very painful element of the life of the church, but it's not the whole story," Terrence Prendergast said Tuesday. "Life is going on ... the question is, there has been such a big setback that things are blocked. How can we unblock them, how can we (keep) the light of faith alive?" On Monday, the Vatican announced Prendergast would be one of four archbishops to look into the church after thousands of Irish children suffered beatings, neglect and sexual predation at the hands of priests and religious orders. So far, about 13,000 people abused as children in Ireland's church-run residential institutions have received almost $1 billion in compensation. Last year, the Murphy report found 2,000 victims of abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin alone. Archbishop Prendergast will visit the small, but ancient archdiocese of Tuam, where intellectually disabled children were punched, beaten and flogged in residential schools run by the Brothers of Charity. Some were as young as eight. The archbishop does not yet know exactly how the work will proceed. "The main exercise is to explore the protection that is being assured by the church and that survivors or victims are being looked after. I don't know any more than that. "I'm going to take a snap shot of how things are, and report, 'Here's where things are going, here's maybe where they can be improved, and here's where you're not really measuring up to what you're supposed to,' if that's what I find. "I spoke to the archbishop (Michael Neary) for the first time today. I basically reassured him. I said, 'I'm coming as a brother to help.'" The archbishop says he hopes to have a layperson assist him in his inquiries, preferably someone from outside the diocese. "I will listen to anyone who asks to be heard." He will likely go to Ireland this month to meet people in the archdiocese and then go again in October. Prendergast grew up in Montreal, but he is of Irish descent. When the family moved to another house in 1949, they did so on St. Patrick's Day because Canada Packers gave its Irish employees the day off.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.