Secret deals on priests’ children‘unjust’

By Noel Baker
Irish Examiner
April 7, 2015

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/secret-deals-on-priests-childrenunjust-322540.html

Irish Catholic bishops have come out against confidentiality agreements in cases where a priest has fathered a child, according to correspondence between it and newly formed organisation Coping International.

Coping International, which is seeking to support the children and ex-partners of priests in different countries around the world, including Ireland, had written to the Irish Bishops’ Conference regarding the confidentiality agreements — querying if such agreements were ethical.

It based its comments on the UN’s Children’s Rights Commission and its concluding observations on the second periodic report of the Holy See, in which the UN body said: “The committee is concerned about the situation of children fathered by Catholic priests, who, in many cases, are not aware of the identity of their fathers.

“The committee is also concerned that the mothers may obtain a plan for regular payment from the Church until the child is financially independent only if they sign a confidentiality agreement not to disclose any information about the child’s father or the plan.”

Writing on behalf of Coping International, Fr Thomas Doyle submitted to the bishops that the use of confidentiality agreements perpetuated secrecy and that, in some cases, “Church authority figures would make an unspecified assertion that Canon Law was the basis for the confidentiality, ‘for the good of the Church’”.

In its response, the Irish Episcopal Conference wrote: “Such an agreement is unjust if it compromises the consent of the parties involved, for example if undue pressure is brought to bear on the mother.

“Such agreements may be unjust if they hinder the basic good of mother and child, for example, if they are used primarily to protect the reputation of the priest or the institutional Church by creating a veil of secrecy that isolates the mother and child from relationships, knowledge and resources which are owed in natural justice.

“Systematic power can distort the workings of natural justice consistently asserted in Catholic Social Teaching.”

The Catholic Bishops said such agreements ought only be entered into with full knowledge and full freedom by both parties.

Coping International welcomed the response from the bishops, claiming: “Any agenda that stands in front of the rights of another human being is unethical.”

The organisation, which launched to little fanfare on December 16, has already attracted a number of contacts from interested parties around the world, with Patricia Casey, a senior consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital, claiming it would act as a “signpost” for people who are either the former partners or the children of priests so they can receive support.