IRELAND
Irish Independent
Sarah MacDonald
PUBLISHED
15/10/2016
The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has warned that ostracising and “cutting off” those guilty of child sexual abuse increases the danger of them reoffending.
Archbishop Eamon Martin told child-safeguarding delegates from dioceses and religious orders: “In a society which demonises and clamours for permanent exclusion of such offenders, one wonders how to strike the balance between mercy and justice.”
He made the remarks in an address to the National Child Safeguarding Conference in Tullamore, Co Offaly. The conference focused on some of the complex areas of child safeguarding and was addressed by abuse survivor ‘Pauline’, who told delegates how she felt the church’s response to survivors could be improved.
Survivors
The Archbishop stressed that those clerics guilty of the sexual abuse of minors “cannot minister again as priests” and he cited Pope John Paul II, who said in 2002: “There is no place in the priesthood for those who would harm the young.”
Conference delegates were told that part of the dilemma for the church was how to seek redemption for the offender while not compounding the “lifelong trauma” of survivors.
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