Benedictine and Columban Orders Meeting Most Child Safeguarding Protocols

The Journal
May 12, 2014

http://www.thejournal.ie/orders-given-strong-child-safeguarding-1461181-May2014/

BOTH THE BENEDICTINE and Columban orders have been given good reports by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI).

The NBSCCCI today published the fifth tranche of reviews on child safeguarding in a number of dioceses, with the orders both found to have fully or partially met nearly all of the criteria outlined to them.

The Benedictine Campus at Glenstal Abbey is found to have one major challenge, that being a guest house that can hold 14 people at a time.

The report says that this should be handled by asking visiting monks and priests to sign declarations and by keeping a record of who is there.

It also says that Garda vetting of existing monks needs to be brought up to date and that a training audit be completed.

Allegations of abuse have been made against six monks in the period between January 1975 and the date of the review, with two still members of the community.

Two are deceased and one remains in ministry. Another is retired and two have left the priesthood.

No Benedictine monks have been convicted of having committed an offence against a child since 1975 and all of the allegations were reported to gardai.

Columbans

The Columban order reports features allegations against a priest who had been named in the Murphy Report.

The NBSCCCI report today says that the order met most of their criteria, but urged the order to “to develop a safeguarding culture to emphasise prevention”.

It added that the order had reported all of its allegations to the authorities.

Towards Healing Telephone Helpline have extended opening hours are: 8pm to 1am both today and tomorrow and can be contacted on Freephone 1800 303416 (Rep. of Ireland) Freephone 0800 0963315 (Northern Ireland and UK)