Monday, June 08, 2009

Pope shares public's outrage over abuse, bishops will hear

THE Pope's distress at the Irish institutional abuse scandal will be communicated to the Bishops' Conference today.

The heads of Ireland's 26 dioceses will be told Pope Benedict XVI shares the level of anger and outrage felt by the Irish public after the Ryan report's revelations on the scale of systemic abuse of thousands of children.

Cardinal Sean Brady and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will report on the outcome of their half-hour encounter with the German Pontiff last Friday evening in Rome, and will tell their fellow bishops of the deep distress he expressed to them.

In particular, they will stress how he became most disturbed about the institutionalisation of the abuse problem in 216 child centres under the control of religious orders.

According to Cardinal Brady, Pope Benedict "listened very carefully, he was obviously very distressed about what we had to tell him".

"In fact, he allowed us to do most of the talking and he listened very sympathetically and attentively to what we said."

Admitting that the Pope had not read the entire Ryan report, Archbishop Martin said he obviously had been informed about it, was aware of it, and very distressed by it.

"We talked about the Church in Ireland," Archbishop Martin said, "where this came out of, and what the future is."

At the three-day private meeting which starts in Maynooth today, Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Martin will confide to the bishops other details about their audience with Pope Benedict.

They will also reveal details of discussions with six heads of the papal civil service, including Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state.

Behind closed doors, Archbishop Martin will be demanding protocols from all religious orders and diocesan bishops that they are implementing child protection procedures at the same high standards that are applied in the Dublin archdiocese.

Meanwhile yesterday, a former graduate student of Pope Benedict claimed it was "the dregs of society" who abused children in Irish industrial schools and reformatories.

Fr Vincent Twomey, a retired professor of moral theology, was speaking on BBC Radio Ulster's 'Sunday Sequence' programme. He acknowledged that priests, brothers and nuns in authority had known about "the reign of terror" in their institutions.

Frustrated

He said many came from large and extremely poor families and their parents pressurised them to enter congregations because of the social status and lifelong security they offered.

Many did not have real vocations, and were frustrated sexually because celibacy was not their choice, Fr Twomey added.

Meanwhile, Sr Marianne O'Connor, the director general of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), and Brother Kevin Mullan of the Christian Brothers, have agreed to accept a Petition of Solidarity from the public and abuse survivors at a march from the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin to the Dail on Wednesday, organised by Survivors of Institutional Abuse Ireland.

The petition reads: "We, the people of Ireland, join in solidarity and call for justice, accountability, restitution and repatriation for the unimaginable crimes committed against the children of our country by religious orders in 216 institutions."
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