The credibility and very future of the Catholic Church hinges on its
handling of the series of child sex abuse scandals, the Bishop of
Galway, Martin Drennan, has said.Unless the Church deals effectively with the child abuse crisis, and learns from the mistakes of the past, then it won’t regain the trust of people, and won’t have credibility, Bishop Drennan told current affairs broadcaster Keith Finnegan.
The exclusive interview, broadcast on Galway Bay FM’s Galway Talks programme, coincided with the publication of the audit of safeguarding practices in the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora.
The audit was carried out by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, and included interviews with survivors of abuse, interviews with priests in the diocese, as well as delving into local files on child abuse, and interviews with key personnel working safeguarding locally.
The review delved into the diocese’s files on child abuse over 35 years, between 1975 right up to 2010.
The report refers to three priests against whom allegations have been made, who are still in ministry. Bishop Drennan said the concerns expressed against the trio were not of a sufficient nature to warrant their removal from ministry.
Bishop Drennan, in the interview, largely welcomed the report’s publication. “We’ve lived with a lot of bad publicity over the last 20 years . . . and it really tested the trust of a lot of people in the Church. This report is saying we do know where we’re going, we do have clear policies and we can trust each other working together in a way we weren’t able to do for the last 20 years.”
Asked by Mr Finnegan if children in 2013 in Galway in the Catholic Church were now ‘safe’, Bishop Drennan, although he acknowledged the report is critical in terms of the diocese’s poor performance at keeping records, said he believes children are safe.
“That would be the main message – in so far as we possibly can, it is safe for children to participate in Church related activities. We’ve very good structures in place, probably better than most organisations in the country. We’ve all kinds of protections; we’ve all kinds of reporting procedures, all kinds of ways of feeding back information . . . we’re not there yet but we’ve come a long way.”