Fr Joe Borg
Irish eyes not smiling
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny: Extremely harsh words about the Church. Photo: AFP
It does not happen often that a well-known theologian asks for the resignation of most bishops in his country. It has just happened in Ireland. Fr Vincent Twomey, professor at an Irish seminary, told the media he is “seething with anger” after reading the recently published report on sex-abuse complaints in the Cloyne diocese.
He said that to restore public confidence, Irish bishops ordained before 2003 should step down.
The statement was triggered by the publication of the 400-page Cloyne report penned by Judge Yvonne Murphy.
Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland and Primate of all Ireland, described it as “another dark day in the history of the response of Church leaders to the cry of children abused by Church personnel”.
He said the report’s findings “confirm that grave errors of judgment were made and serious failures of leadership occurred. This is deplorable and totally unacceptable.”
Judge Murphy investigated how the diocese handled child abuse allegations from 1996 – when the Irish Church adopted a policy of mandatory reporting – till 2009.
The commission found that Bishop John Magee – who has since resigned – took no or very little interest in the management of clerical child sexual abuse cases until 2008. The commission found that Mgr Magee had given false information to the government and deliberately misled another inquiry and his own advisers.
The report alleges that Mgr Magee could have found comfort in the Vatican’s objections to the guidelines of the Irish bishops.
Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, in an unofficial reaction, said the Vatican’s response of 1997 could not be interpreted as being intended to cover up cases of abuse or as an invitation to disregard the laws of the country.
The scandal of Cloyne has ramification both inside the Church and in its relationship with the State.
Once more, the courageous Archbishop of Dublin, Mgr Diarmuid Martin, was among the most outspoken. He said the hierarchy had still not learned the proper lessons from the sex abuse scandal and criticised those dioceses that have not published the results of their own investigations. The comments of Mgr Martin are not endearing him with others in the hierarchy.
In March 2010, the Irish scandal had prompted the Pope to send a letter to the Irish Church in which he repeated his shame and sorrow at the abuse and the subsequent mishandling of cases and warned Irish bishops that their failures had “obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing”. An apostolic visit followed and major reforms are expected.
The issue has now been escalated as a Church-state relationship issue. Prime Minister Enda Kenny had extremely harsh words about the Church, threatening that he would move forward with a proposal to require priests to report any evidence of sexual abuse, even if they heard it in a sacramental confession.
Dismissing Catholic warnings that such a requirement would force priests to violate the sacramental seal, Kenny said the Church’s own law has “neither legitimacy nor a place in the affairs of this country”.
“This is not Rome,” Kenny said. “This is the Republic of Ireland in 2011: a republic of laws.”
Kenny’s proposal is not only outrageous but would not have solved anything, as the abuse allegations investigated were known outside of the confessional. Quite naturally, it is totally unacceptable.
Also outrageous and unacceptable is the attitude of those who even today do not give abuse allegations the importance they deserve even though Church policy on fighting abuse is very clear, strict and almost draconian.
Whenever and wherever abuses are ignored or investigated sub specie aeternitatis (from the perspective of the eternal), trouble is courted and injustices committed.
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Mr Richard Curmi
Jul 31st 2011, 11:22
The Irish PM's proposal, which has been echoed even down under, is not only outrageous but ineffective for two main reasons:
1. Priests have been known to be willing to go to prison and even risk being given a death sentence rather than break the sigillum sacramenti - the secret of confession.
2. No paedophiles will go to confession knowing that the priest will hand them over to the police.
Moreover one of the conditions for being absolved, if I' m right, is to promise not to commit the same kind of sin. Paedophiles would not find it easy to sincerely make this promise; on the contrary they try to persuade their victims that it is not sinful to have that kind of relationship.
Furthermore the comparison between priests in confession and doctors, police etc.. does not apply as these latter professionals see or are approached by the victims not the perpetrators.
Raymond Sammut
Aug 3rd 2011, 01:35
You shoot down your own argument, Mr Curmi. That's exactly the point. No pedophile should go to confession (referring to your fallacious reasoning number 2), else he would be reported to the police. The onus would then be upon the church authorities to work out why one of their priests is not presenting himself to the confessional.
The church authorities have no right, and can never claim the right, to equate crime with "sin". Under the law of the land, we simply don't recognize sin. We recognize the criminal act as defined in law. The church is neither authorized nor is qualified to absolve a criminal act. It's duty to society is to report any criminal activity to the police for investigation, wherever it finds that there are grounds to do so. Else it must follow that the church, as an institution with its own administration, is privy to crime.
The only provision that one has to allow for is that the church authorities may not have sufficient grounds for reporting to the police. Considering, however, the numerous cases and the gravity of some of these cases, the church authorities quickly lose all credibility, so that even this provision would have to be overruled --if not scoffed at-- by the superior authorities of the courts.
Raymond Sammut
Jul 24th 2011, 12:01
This is once more the evasive and apologetic Fr Joe Borg. Here is the crux:
"Kenny’s proposal is not only outrageous but would not have solved anything, as the abuse allegations investigated were known outside of the confessional. Quite naturally, it is totally unacceptable."(Fr Joe Borg)
In an earlier TOM.online report (dated 15 July), reference is made to a 1997 letter generated by the Vatican which effectively directs the clergy to defy guidelines and not report paedophiles in their ranks.
1997 was well inside the reign of Pope John-Paul II, and Pope Benedict did nothing to negate any of the contents of that letter. In fact, Benedict is lining up John-Paul II for the sainthood.
Fr Joe Borg is also not doing anything in his article to negate any of the contents of the 1997 letter. Why is Fr Joe Borg criticizing Kenny’s proposal --calling it outrageous-- while at the same time omitting any reference to the 1997 letter?
Ms Louise Vella
Jul 24th 2011, 10:05
Enda Kenny, the devoutly Catholic Irish prime minister, is the first government leader to demand accountability not only from his nation’s bishops but also from the Vatican. When will Dr Gonzi follow the example of his Irish counterpart?
So far the Maltese diocese has been spared investigations like the one carried out by Judge Murphy for the Cloyne diocese. I often wonder if identical probes by civil authorities in the Maltese diocese would not result in the same pattern of behaviour by Maltese bishops. In the meantime Archbishop Cremona, who has unfortunately maintained the Curia’s policy of not divulging information contained in the Curia’s secret archives, should be praised for having given instructions that no documents in these archives should be shredded.