CARDINAL DESMOND Connell has been criticised for being slow to act in recognising the seriousness of child sex abuse in Dublin while he was archbishop.The commission of investigation into Dublin's Catholic archdiocese also says the failure of Cardinal Connell to admit liability for injury and damage in cases involving abusive priests added to victims' sense of hurt.
"He took an active interest in their [ the victims'] civil litigation against the archdiocese and personally approved the defences which were filed," the report says.
"Archdiocesan liability for injury and damage caused was never admitted. The archbishop's strategies in the civil cases, while legally acceptable, often added to the hurt and grief of many complainants."
Cardinal Connell - who held office as archbishop from 1988 to April 2004 - did not report his knowledge of child sexual abuse to gardaí until November 1995. At that time, he allowed the names of 17 priests about whom the archdiocese had received complaints to go to gardaí. However, the figure was not complete. At that time there were at least 28 priests against whom complaints had been made.
When asked by the commission why a particular named priest was not on the list provided to gardaí, Cardinal Connell said this was because the priest had been laicised at the time and was, therefore, not a member of the clergy.
In further evidence to the commission, he said the disclosure was "a beginning and it was a very big beginning because nothing of the kind had ever happened before".
In dealing with complainants, some found him sympathetic and kind, but with "little understanding of the overall plight of victims". Others found him "remote and aloof".
The report says he was "over-reliant" on the advice of other people, including his bishops and legal and medical experts, rather than taking decisions himself.
"He was clearly personally appalled by the abuse but it took him some time to realise that it could not be dealt with by keeping it secret and protecting priests from normal civil processes," the report says.
Credit is given to Cardinal Connell for establishing one of two canonical trials over the 30-year period which led to the dismissal of one serial abuser - Fr Bill Carney - in 1990. (The other was held in the case of Fr Patrick Maguire, initiated by his religious society in 1999.) The commission recognises he did this in the face of strong opposition from some senior members of the clergy.
Bishop Dermot O'Mahony told the commission that Cardinal Connell was "deeply affected" by the harm of clerical sex abuse. He introduced an advisory panel, including lay people, to advise on how a bishop or religious superior should deal with complaints of abuse. This, Cardinal Connell said, was an important innovation.
The report says Cardinal Connell failed to inform personnel at the National Rehabilitation Hospital about suspicions regarding an abusive priest, Fr Noel Reynolds, who was moved there.
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