New Catholic Church guidelines on handling complaints of child sex abuse by priests will be published next month. Safeguarding Children will replace the Church's original policy document on child protection, Our Children, Our Church, published three years ago, and will, for the first time, unambiguously require recipients of complaints within the church to notify gardai first, not the local bishop.
The document, which is currently being printed, comes after a year of secret turmoil in the Irish church.
An over-due inaugural report by Ian Elliott, chief executive of the two-year-old National Board for Safeguarding Children, on how church leaders have been implementing existing policy has not materialised while a damning catalogue compiled by Elliott on the mishandling of complaints in the diocese of Cloyne has been supressed by Church and State.
The Cloyne report, prepared at the behest of the Department of Health, was given to the Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, and the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, last July but has been witheld from the public and from victims of two priests who were interviewed for it.
The report concludes that their allegations are credible and they would make excellent witnesses in a criminal trial. Barry Andrews has repeatedly told the Sunday Tribune he has not read the report and is waiting for the HSE to advise him on it.
Labour TD Sean Sherlock called on Thursday for special Dáil time to be set aside for a debate on the report before Christmas, saying he feared that its recommendations were being "implemented by stealth" before it is published. There is evidence to suggest Sherlock is correct.
In October, the Vicar General of Cloyne, Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan, a former professor of moral theology in Maynooth, was replaced as the diocese's chief child protection cleric by Youghal curate Fr Bill Bermingham.
The switch was made without any public announcement. Since then, at least two new cases of abuse have come to light and there are now four civil actions relating to three Cloyne priests pending.
Asked about the report, Fr Bermingham said: "It was given to the bishop and the minister some months ago. The bishop has accepted the report and we are working with Ian Elliott and the National Board to implement the recommendations. The report deals with two accused persons which runs to more than two cases.
"All other cases in the diocese in the past have also been reviewed. The bishop is most anxious that any person who has concerns or information regarding any sex abuse or any form of abuse of a child in the diocese should come to him or to me."
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(Source: ST)