New sex-abuse scandal shocks Irish Catholics
Pastor Dale Morgan
New sex-abuse scandal shocks Irish Catholics*
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 23, 2008; 3:57 PM
DUBLIN, Ireland -- Ireland's most prominent Roman Catholic leader,
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, questioned Tuesday whether all of
his fellow bishops adequately protect children from sexually abusive
priests.
Martin became the first Irish Catholic leader to break silence over a
new report into allegations that two priests molested several teenagers,
chiefly in the 1990s, in southwest Ireland _ and the local bishop, John
Magee, didn't tell police quickly and fully about it as he was supposed
to do.
Recurring scandals on the coverup of decades of abuse by Catholic clergy
have rocked Ireland since 1993, when an Irish government collapsed over
the issue.
Catholic leaders have since struggled to contain the financial and moral
damage through a series of initiatives that encourage people to report
abuse, most recently by forming an independent commission that
investigates church handling of complaints.
But the first major report from the chief investigator, Ian Elliott, was
withheld from publication for six months by church and government
authorities. It was published late Friday _ when Ireland's media were
consumed with a banking scandal _ and received little immediate attention.
The report found that Magee and his senior advisers in the County Cork
diocese of Cloyne fielded a range of complaints from parishioners about
two priests from 1995 onward _ but told the police nothing until 2003
and little thereafter. The report said Cloyne church authorities
appeared to be solely concerned about helping the two priests, not
protecting the children of the area.
One priest, who was accused of molesting a younger priest when he was
just a boy, was encouraged by Magee to resign. But the investigation
found that the bishop shielded the abuser's identity from police _ and
considered such concealment "the normal practice" for the church.
The other priest, a career guidance counselor in a convent school, was
accused by several teen-age girls and grown women of molesting or raping
them since 1995. One complaint came from a woman who had a consensual
sexual relationship with the priest for a year _ then saw him develop an
intimate relationship with her teen-age son.
The report did not identify the priests and they have never faced
criminal charges.
Magee faced rising calls Tuesday from lawmakers and pressure groups to
quit. He refused to comment.
But Martin _ a former Vatican diplomat who wields the most political
clout in Ireland's Roman Catholic hierarchy today _ suggested that the
Cloyne bishop should step aside for new leadership and help restore
public confidence.
"He should make the decision which is in the best interests of child
protection," the archbishop told Ireland's state television station, RTE.
And in a carefully worded statement, Martin stressed he was "extremely
concerned" that the problems uncovered in Magee's diocese could be more
widespread. He called on all of Ireland's bishops to confirm whether
they were following the Irish church's decade-old official policy of
openness and investigation.
Martin said his own archdiocese, home to a third of Ireland's more than
3 million Catholics, was committed to protecting the public from
abusers. But he noted that Dublin's churches also hosted hundreds of
priests from other dioceses and orders whose priests answer to their own
leaders, not him.
Martin said the church's anti-abuse policies had a "purported" common
status in every diocese, but he had "serious doubts ... concerning the
coherence and consistency of approach."
The archbishop called on other bishops and religious orders to confirm
to the investigator, Elliott, that they are committed to reporting abuse
reports to police and other authorities "in a uniform way." If Elliott
could not confirm these commitments, Martin warned, he would impose "his
own system of accountable child protection" on all Catholic clergy
living or working in his sprawling constituency.
___
On the Net:
Abuse report,http://tinyurl.com/axxfof
Martin statement,http://tinyurl.com/9s2v6k