Church Must Do Much More to Eliminate Abuse

Irish Independent
September 6, 2012

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/church-must-do-much-more-to-eliminate-abuse-3221650.html

The audits of child protection practices in four dioceses and three religious orders, which were published yesterday, show that the Catholic Church still has some way to go before it fully grasps the enormity of the wrong done by priests and religious to innocent and defenceless children.

While the audits of the dioceses of Cork and Ross, Kildare and Leighlin, and Limerick were broadly positive, the same cannot be said of the diocese of Clonfert, where the current bishop, Dr John Kirby, was found to have transferred two priests against whom allegations of abuse had been made to other parishes.

Dr Kirby's defence, that he did not know the true nature of paedophilia at the time he transferred the two priests, one in 1990 and the other in 1994, is absurd. His claim that he believed in the early 1990s that paedophilia was a case of "a friendship gone astray" is quite frankly incredible.

By the early 1990s, the full extent of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and religious was beginning to emerge. The notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth had been arrested in 1991. Delays in processing his extradition to Northern Ireland led to the collapse of the Fianna Fail/Labour coalition in November 1994.

If Dr Kirby didn't know about the true nature of paedophilia by then, one can only wonder if it was because he didn't want to know. Regardless of the reasons for his professed ignorance it is well past time for Dr Kirby, who has been Bishop of Clonfert since 1988 and will be 74 next month, to consider his position.

However, while the Catholic dioceses seem to be gradually, if only very belatedly, improving their child protection practices, the same cannot be said about the religious orders.

The audits published yesterday confirm long-held suspicions that the problem of paedophilia was far more entrenched in the religious orders than it ever was amongst the diocesan clergy. These show that 124 allegations of abuse were made against 65 priests in the four dioceses.

By comparison 194 allegations of abuse were made against 74 members of just two religious orders, the Holy Ghost Fathers and the Dominican Friars, while an unknown number of allegations were made against 17 members of a third religious orders, the Sacred Heart Missionaries.

Even more worrying is the fact that, while most of the problems in the dioceses date back to the 1990s, there are still serious unresolved child protection issues in several of the religious orders.

With dozens of other religious orders due to be audited one shudders at the thought of what more will be unearthed.