It is not a common occurrence for a cardinal takes an archbishop to court. But it happened recently in Catholic Ireland because of an issue related to the child abuse controversy that plagued the Church in Ireland for many years. My sources are two Catholic news agencies: Catholic World News which is somewhat conservative and Catholic News Services which is rather liberal. The retired Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, took legal action to prevent a government commission from examining documents related to allegations of the clerical sexual abuse of children. The Commission of Investigation is a judicial body established by the Irish government in March 2006 to examine how allegations of clerical child abuse made between 1975 and 2004 were handled by the Dublin Archdiocese. The commission also was instructed to make inquiries into any Irish diocese that was not implementing the church's child protection guidelines.

In January, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin provided the commission with documents relating to claims of child abuse against a representative sample of 46 Dublin archdiocesan priests.

The Irish Catholic reports, that Cardinal Connell "is trying to protect the confidentiality agreements he entered into with victims and some priests, and that he has made no secret of this since he left office in 2004." The paper said that the cardinal is adamant about protecting the rights of victims but is also concerned about "priests who were accused of abuse but whose cases have been left in a legal limbo or who have been accused but not convicted."

The matter has since been resolved because the Irish cardinal has withdrawn his request for the injunction. The move was welcomed by Archbishop Martin who assured victims of abuse as well as priests of his continued commitment to seeking the truth about the past. The public outburst between the Cardinal and the Archbishop shows how emotive and controversial the whole issue is.

The local situation

It was in 1999 that the Church in our Islands published its policy and procedures in cases of sexual abuse in pastoral activity. This document covers both sexual abuses between adults and child abuse. It covers bishops, clergy, religious (male and female), lay employees and volunteers engaged in all sorts of activities within Church institutions. Thousands of people are covered by this policy.

It also set up a commission headed by a Judge to investigate any allegation of abuse that is presented. . The Church should be proud for being the first large institution to freely publish such a policy and not as a result of some public outcry.

But unfortunately the Commission set up – known as the Response Team – did not always execute its duties with the level of efficiency and alacrity that a reasonable person would expect of if. It is said that “justice delayed is justice denied.” The snail pace of the Response Team meant that there were several cases of justice denied. Several were the victims of these delays especially the victims of abuse and those persons wrongly accused.

Many have suffered a lot. I believe that Archbishop Cremona is doing his best to remedy the situation. Among the solutions that have been mentioned through the grapevine is the setting up of another Response Team headed by a female lawyer. This will be a good step forward especially since the person mentioned is an efficient person. But this is not enough. There is no place in any commission or team for anyone who dragged his feet in the past independently of other virtues that he or she has.

CWIEVET AND COALITIONS

Today I want to depart a little from the debate about the current electoral campaign and its controversies. Let me go down memory lane on a lighter note and write something about the big debate that there was during the 1966 election about coalition formation. There is no need to write that the socio-political background of today is different from that of 1966 but I write it just the same in case some would make comparisons that are not necessarily valid.

The 1962 – 1966 Parliament was composed of elected deputies from five different political parties. The Partit Nazzjonalista was in government with an absolute majority of members after an MP elected on the Ganado ticket defected to them. The MLP had 16 candidates, the Christian Workers Party led by Toni Pellegrini had 4 deputies, the Partit Demokratiku Nazzjonalista led by Herbert Ganado had 3 and Mabel Strickland was the remaining member.

Toni Pellegrini was a colourful figure. He was head of DOI under the Mintoff administration of 1955. He later became a senior official, I think the Secretary General, of the Labour Party. During the politico-religious controversy of the Sixties he was encouraged by members of the clergy to leave the Labour Party and form his own party. I distinctly remember Pellegrini during the electoral campaign of 1966 constantly appealing to voters to give him ic-cavetta.

His speeches were, as we say in Maltese, cavetta tiela u cavetta niezla. Pellegrini used to say that voters should give him enough votes to control Parliament so that he could see to it that everything was done as it should be done. Pellegrini was going to guarantee that there would be no arrogance or abuse. He would herald a new era in local politics. The coalition was a panacea.

Come the election and the three small parties lost all their seats. Pellegrini remained without his cavetta though it is rumoured that he received all sorts of keys from myriad citizens. Following the election Pellegrini joined the Labour Party once more. He was later made head of the Department of Information and then of Xandir Malta. And we all know what happened then.