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Church still evades moral accountability
By Maeve Sheehan
As the novelist LP Hartley wrote, the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there, right? While the Catholic Church and the organisations within it may have apologised for past sins, in many ways, they are still refusing to share collective responsibility for the failings of the past. When Judge Yvonne Murphy began her long investigation into child abuse by priests in the Dublin archdiocese, she soon discovered that one of the biggest obstacles to her work was the very organisation she was investigating. Cardinal Desmond Connell – Archbishop for many of the crucial years – went to the High Court to stop her from getting access to the files on clerical sexual abusers in the vaults of Archbishop's Palace in Dublin. His successor, Diarmuid Martin, who wanted to release the files, paid the elderly cardinal a quiet visit. Afterwards, the cardinal dropped the legal challenge. When the Murphy report was finally published in 2011, one of its findings was that Cardinal Desmond Connell was more likely to listen to his lawyers than to the victims of clerical sex abuse. That attitude persists. Last week, the Christian Brothers contested a damages claim by a young man who was abused by a brother who is now dead. The religious order didn't dispute that the brother had sexually abused the eight-year-old boy, or that the man's history as an abuser had been blithely ignored by his superiors. Or that the boy had been abused repeatedly in the grounds of the Christian Brothers in Artane, Dublin, beginning when he was eight. The Christian Brothers argued that they were not liable for the damage and suffering that the boy endured into manhood. And the victim should really have taken the case much sooner. Legally, you see, they claimed he had missed the boat in bringing the case so late in the day. The High Court judge ordered the Christian Brothers to pay the man €370,000 in damages, making a point of saying that he was a truthful witness who had been "severely abused" and suffered "significant trauma". Religious orders continue to challenge the notion of collective responsibility. The Government has failed to persuade the congregations that ran harsh and unforgiving residential institutions to share responsibility for the crimes and cruelties perpetrated against the children who lived there. The State came up with the Redress Scheme for former residents who were abused 13 years ago, and asked the religious orders to contribute financially. After protracted negotiations conducted through the organisation, Conference of Religious in Ireland, the religious orders capped their contribution at €128m. The claims bill soared. The final bill is expected to be €1.46bn. The Government wants the religious orders to pay half of that, or €730m. The religious orders' final offer is €480m. Some said they can't pay more, because of the property crash. Others, such as the Sisters of Mercy, flatly refused. Ruairi Quinn, the Minister for Education, has been chasing down the 18 religious orders named in the Ryan report on residential institutional abuse since last July. At the time, he told them: "Putting it bluntly, I believe that there is a moral responsibility on your congregations to significantly augment your contributions." By September, he admitted the Government had "got nowhere". According to the department's figures, the orders had actually paid over €175m, and there are all sorts of legal difficulties over many of the properties they promised to sign over to the State to contribute towards the bill. The Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, meanwhile, continues to chase nuns for a financial contribution to the compensation fund for the women who worked in Magdalene Laundries. He asked the four religious congregations who ran the laundries for a contribution last June. They politely replied that on reflection they wouldn't be making a contribution. He wrote to them a month later to say how disappointed he was. The religious orders – the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd – wouldn't budge. When the UN published a report recently urging the Vatican to investigate the laundries and to pay compensation to the victims, the minister wrote to the religious orders again. He is awaiting a reply. One of the most disturbing findings of Judge Murphy's report – that Catholic priests and bishops colluded with state authorities and gardai to shield paedophile clergy – has gone unpunished. The then Garda Commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, launched an investigation to establish whether the failings of the church and state authorities "amounted to criminal behaviour". A dozen detectives led by an assistant commissioner interviewed 800 witnesses over three years, but ultimately no one was prosecuted. The new child protection laws in place didn't apply when the alleged offences occurred. The case was closed last year. One man who is more familiar than most with the Catholic Church's current attitude to child protection is Ian Elliott. He was the chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) for six years. He was a critical and outspoken watchdog, unafraid of challenging the Catholic hierarchy. He produced some damning reports and audits on how the church was still falling short on child protection measures – and some positive ones. One bishop accused Mr Elliott of spinning against the Catholic Church – a serious charge that was later withdrawn. Mr Elliott's contract was not renewed and he retired from the NBSCCC last summer. In this newspaper last week, Mr Elliott said the Catholic Church was "covertly" trying to limit the work of its own child protection watchdog. He claimed religious bodies were consistently cutting the funding of the NBSCCC and further probes were "starved of resources". He could "see no justification" for this "other than a desire to limit the role of the board by covert means". In some ways this is not surprising. The current head of the Catholic Church in Ireland is a man who swore to secrecy two children who had been abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth. Cardinal Sean Brady was a 36-year-old canonical lawyer when he was involved in a secret church inquiry into Smyth in the mid-Seventies. The inquiry found against Smyth, but he was allowed to continue his rampage against children under the cloak of the Catholic Church for many years. Cardinal Brady was silent on this throughout the public discourse on clerical sex abuse. When his role became public as part of a legal action, he said he had been there only to take notes. He has publicly apologised to the victim concerned and resisted demands for his resignation. He will retire in his own time later this year. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church is said to be enjoying a mini renaissance since the election of Pope Francis, with a surge in crowds visiting the Vatican. It may take a while for the mood to catch on in Ireland.
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