By Patsy Mcgarry and Pamela Duncan
Irish Times
July 14, 2011
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0714/1224300714114.html
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| Msgr Denis O'Callaghan "kept all the files relating to complaints of child sexual abuse in his house", the report noted. |
MSGR DENIS O'CALLAGHAN: RECENTLY RETIRED Msgr Denis O’Callaghan who was vicar general in the diocese of Cloyne and delegate was left to his own devices by Bishop Magee when it came to dealing with clerical child sex abuse allegations.
The fact that Bishop Magee took “little or no active interest” in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases in Cloyne until 2008 meant the diocese’s functions in the matter of clerical child abuse were exercised by others. “The principal person involved was Msgr O’Callaghan”, the Cloyne report says.
Msgr O’Callaghan “kept all the files relating to complaints of child sexual abuse in his house”, it said.
“He did not approve of the procedures set out in the ‘Framework Document’. In particular he did not approve of the requirement to report to the civil authorities,” the report said. This 1996 document outlined the Irish Catholic Church’s child protection guidelines.
The Vatican attitude to that document “was entirely unhelpful”, it said, and “effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to those who, like Msgr O’Callaghan, dissented from the stated official Irish Church policy.”
In a letter circulated to all Irish bishops in January 1997 the Congregation for Clergy described the Irish bishops’ guidelines as “merely a study document” which contained matters “which appear contrary to canonical discipline”. The congregation also felt the issue of mandatory reporting to the civil authorities gave rise to “serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature”.
Resting on such support, the report found that, in practice, implementation of Irish Bishops’ framework document “was stymied” in Cloyne by Msgr O’Callaghan. It also found that “the greatest failure by the diocese of Cloyne was its failure to report all complaints to the gardai. Between 1996 and 2005, there were 15 complaints which very clearly should have been reported by the diocese to gardai”.
That figure, it said, did not include “concerns or cases already known to the gardai, even though some of those also should have been reported”.
When abuse was reported to gardai, “one of the most unusual and unacceptable aspects” was “the reporting by Msgr O’Callaghan of the complainant’s name but not the perpetrator’s name in the Fr Caden case. The attempt by Msgr O’Callaghan to have a particular garda deal with this case was correctly disregarded by the Garda superintendent.”
Msgr O’Callaghan told the commission he did not see a 2004 report critical of the implementation of the framework document in Cloyne, prepared by Dr Kevin McCoy, until 2009 and only a summary in 2004. The evidence was that Msgr O’Callaghan “almost certainly was given a copy of the full report in 2004” and also got “an oral briefing on the report in 2004”, the report said
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon Msgr O’Callaghan said he is “deeply sorry” that he failed so many victims of abuse.
As diocesan delegate, he accepted his “primary role” in the failure to implement church protocols for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse against priests.
“It is important for me to state that I was personally appalled by the abuse that had occurred. To be confronted with the reality of knowing that some of my colleagues abused children is dreadful,” he said.
He regretted that “in responding to the allegations of abuse, I, in some instances, became emotionally and pastorally drawn to the plight of the accused priest, to the detriment of the pastoral response I intended to make to complainants.”
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