THE WEATHER was bleak when the Irish bishops gathered for their winter conference at St Patrick’s College Maynooth yesterday.But the mood inside the Columba centre, where 31 of the 33 Irish bishops turned up to discuss for the first time the Murphy report into clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin diocese, was even grimmer at the Irish bishops’ conference, Maynooth.
A small group of reporters camped out in rain in the shadow of the college library – opened by Pope John Paul II – with one question for the bishops: when will someone take responsibility for the “cover-up” of child abuse outlined in the report and resign?
“We haven’t talked about that. This is not about throwing people in the river to satisfy the gods,” said Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore.
But Dr McAreavey, who was not criticised in the report but who indicated after it came out that he would have resigned if he had been, said Irish bishops and priests had lost their moral authority because they had “valued assets and the clergy” over children in the past.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who has made no secret of his desire to see bishops criticised in the report stand down, said on his arrival that the court of public opinion was very important and warned that it could move from “righteous anger to lynching”.
But he insisted it was up to those involved to take responsibility for their actions. “Give them time to do it,” he pleaded to the waiting reporters.
Two of the bishops named in the Murphy report – Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Eamonn Walsh and Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan – then emerged from the meeting insisting that they had done no wrong.
“If I had done any wrong I would be gone,” said Dr Walsh, who added that the easy option for him was to walk away.
But if the views of students attending NUI Maynooth, which shares many of the facilities of St Patrick’s College – the principal seminary for training priests for the 26 dioceses in Ireland – are anything to go by, people want action from the church.
“I lost my faith in the Catholic Church a while ago. The Ryan report was the final nail in the coffin,” said David Joyce (20), a sociology student.
“No taxpayers’ money should be used to pay compensation, and the church should not influence education.”
“All faith will be lost if you can’t trust the people in power,” said Amy Dalton, an 18-year-old English student.
“My family were neighbours of Marie Collins and we always believed her. I’m just so glad the Murphy report came out,” she said.
Séamus Mac Conaghy, a 19-year-old philosophy student, spoke for many when he said “bishops who did wrong should be fired”.
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