Church Has Failed Every Catholic, by Aoife Carr, Irish Times, July 13, 2011

Church Has "Failed Every Catholic"

By Aoife Carr
Irish Times
July 13, 2011

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0713/breaking60.html?via=rel

St Colman's in Cobh, which is the Cloyne diocese cathedral.

Politicians have condemned the Catholic Church's handling of clerical sex abuse in the wake of the publication of the Cloyne report.

Labour TD for Cork East Sean Sherlock said the church had failed “every practicing Catholic” by not following its own guidelines in protecting children.

“The Cloyne report clearly concludes that the Bishop of the day and another senior clergyman systematically failed to report complaints to the Gardai. This was in spite of the fact that there was a clear indication given to senior members of the Church in Cloyne that it was their duty and obligation to do so,” he said.

"The Bishop abdicated his responsibility and in so doing re-victimised and added further to the trauma endured by survivors and their families."

Mr Sherlock said thanks to the bravery of survivors the State was now in a position to ensure that child protection procedures and mandatory reporting will become the norm.

Sinn Fein’s Caoimhghin O Caolain called on the Government to demand an “urgent and formal” diplomatic meeting with the papal nuncio to account for the Vatican’s role.

“The report finds that the Vatican gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to those who, like Monsignor O’Callaghan, dissented from the stated official Irish Church policy," he said.

“This is a damning indictment of the role of the Vatican. The Vatican is not just a Church bureaucracy – it is a sovereign state with which the Irish State has diplomatic relations.”

Mr O Caolain also said the report highlighted disagreements between the Office of the Minister for Children and the HSE about the extent of the powers available to the executive in relation to extra-familial abuse of children. This is “unacceptable” and must be addressed, he added.