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.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt