‘Zero tolerance’ is key to child protection in the Irish Church and
should not be confused with how priests are handled when out of
ministry, the sole Irish member of Pope Francis’ child protection
commission has said.
Commenting on the Pope’s call to bishops on the Feast of the Holy
Innocents for the Church to renew its commitment to tackling clerical
abuse and to “adhere, clearly and faithfully, to ‘zero tolerance’”,
Marie Collins said: “Zero tolerance is the policy whereby anybody who
has abused or who has been found to have abused is not returned to
ministry.”
In advance of October’s RTÉ documentary Beyond Redemption?, producer Mick Peelo told The Irish Catholic that
the Church’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach is harmful, and that it runs a
risk of demonising priests found guilty of abuse, but Mrs Collins
suggested that there is some confusion around this issue.
Different area
The documentary, she said, “went on to talk about how priests out of
ministry are treated, etc. and that’s an entirely different area. That’s
not what zero tolerance refers to.”
Zero tolerance simply means, she said, “if there is any abuse, it’s
the end as far as ministry is concerned, and anybody who has abused
their trust and their position by abusing a child or a minor in any way,
that they cannot be returned to ministry”.