SOME people would have us believe that protecting children from paedophile priests is a deeply complex thing, that Catholic clergy need detailed guidelines, in writing, to tell them what is the right thing to do, and that bishops are legally constrained from telling the Government the whole truth about priests in their dioceses who have been accused of sexually abusing children.For those reasons, the Health Service Executive's "audit" of Catholic dioceses has turned out to be a lame document, as had been widely predicted.
The audit, published yesterday, is essentially a questionnaire which asked the diocesan clergy whether or not they were complying with the recommendations of the Ferns Inquiry Report.
Unsurprisingly, having examined all the ticked boxes, the HSE has found "no prima facie case of serious non-compliance".
Missing from the audit are details of allegations of abuse against an unknown number of individual priests. More than 20 Catholic bishops refused to provide those details, supposedly for fear of being sued.
The audit is, therefore, "anonymous", as the minister with responsibility for the protection of children, Barry Andrews, put it yesterday.
The minister said that he would enlist the assistance of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in an attempt to elicit the relevant information from the bishops -- the missing 'Section 5' of the HSE audit.
And this is where a straightforward procedure becomes complicated. A spokesman for the NBSC, a Catholic Church body, immediately rejected the minister's suggestion, declaring that the HSE and the bishops would have to work it out between themselves.
The National Board and the minister also appear to disagree about who originally commissioned the investigation into the Cloyne diocese, but that is a puzzle that can wait for another day.
In view of the inherent contradictions contained in the HSE audit, the minister has wisely decided to direct the Commission of Investigation into the Dublin Archdiocese to investigate and report on child protection in the Cloynes diocese.
In view of such a clear vote of no confidence by the minister, together with blatant messages from the Archbishop of Dublin and victim support groups, it is clear that the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, should consider resigning and let the investigators get on with their job.
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(Source: II)