RITE AND REASON: The latest material from the Murphy report casts Cardinal Desmond Connell in a more positive light.
ONE OF the more torrid press
conferences hosted by the Irish Catholic bishops was at Maynooth on
April 8th, 2002.
It followed the resignation of Brendan Comiskey. Among
the bishops present was Cardinal Desmond Connell.
As evasive
answer followed evasive answer, the media present grew tense and some
reporters were shouting questions in frustration.
Cardinal Connell
became distressed.
“I am as human as any of you,” he said.
It was
“slanderous” to suggest his interest in the abuse issue was recent when
“it is the issue which has devastated my period of office”.
Since
becoming archbishop, he had removed two priests from ministry in
connection with abuse and in 1995 he had a trawl through diocesan
records done.
It went back 50 years and he passed on to the Garda “the
name of every priest and every complaint against such a priest”.
(This
was not entirely accurate. As Murphy reported, the names of 17 alleged
abusers were handed to the Garda in November 1995, when the archdiocese
was aware of complaints concerning “at least 28 priests or former
priests”).
The cardinal continued that he was not saying he had
handled the issue adequately, but he had “suffered greatly” because of
it. And he spoke of the difficulty in dealing with paedophiles.
“They
lie through their teeth. They are the most extraordinarily devious
people,” he said.
His comments took people by surprise and calmed
the situation. Then, as my colleague Frank McNally reported it, Cardinal
Connell’s “final riposte as he left the room was almost a cry of pain”.
“You people,” he began, before correcting himself with a sigh.
“I’m
very sorry, I shouldn’t say ‘you people’. But you come along and treat
us as if we were utterly indifferent to what was going on. And I have
gone through agonies over this thing.”
Chapter 19 and sections in
Chapter 4 of the Murphy report, published for the first time last week,
give a clearer picture of the “agonies” suffered by Cardinal Connell
over the abuse issue.
The men he removed as priests were Bill
Carney and Tony Walsh.
By the time he became archbishop in March 1988,
authorities at Archbishop’s House had been dealing with allegations
against Tony Walsh for 10 years, none reported to the Garda.
It
had been dealing with complaints against Bill Carney since 1983 and soon
became aware of more; again, none reported to the Garda.
By 1987, the
archdiocese was dealing with complaints against 20 priests.
This then
was Connell’s inheritance.
As Murphy put it: “The commission has
no doubt that he was stunned not just by the fact but by the extent of
the clerical child sexual abuse with which he had to deal.”
But it felt
it “took him some time to realise it could not be dealt with by keeping
it secret and protecting priests from the normal civil processes”.
This,
it felt, was most evident in his allowing Ivan Payne to continue in
ministry after a complaint became known against him in 1991.
But it made
a point of acknowledging that “current (child protection) structures
and procedures were put in place by Archbishop Connell”.
In June
1988, three months after be became archbishop, Cardinal Connell removed
Tony Walsh from ministry and sent him for treatment to the UK.
He
was never allowed back into parish ministry again.
In April 1990,
following further reports of suspicious activity, Cardinal Connell gave
Walsh an ultimatum to go voluntarily or be dismissed.
In February 1990
he gave the same ultimatum to Bill Carney.
As Murphy put it:
“Archbishop Connell was one of the first bishops in the world to
initiate canonical trials in the modern era.”
It said: “The commission
recognises he did this in the face of strong opposition from one of the
most powerful canonists in the archdiocese: Msgr (Gerard) Sheehy,”
chancellor of the archdiocese until 1975.
Msgr Sheehy “rejected
the view that the archdiocese had any responsibility to report child
sexual abuse to the State authorities,” Murphy said.
Carney was
dismissed from the priesthood in March 1992. Walsh was dismissed in
August 1993. He appealed to Rome.
In June 1994, Rome commuted his
penalty to 10 years in a monastery.
He would remain a priest.
But in the
previous month, May 1994, Walsh assaulted another boy.
It was reported
to the Garda; Walsh was charged, and sentenced to 12 months.
He appealed
that too.
Cardinal Connell expressed disappointment to Rome at its decision to reinstate him.
In
July 1995 Walsh was charged with yet further abuse offences.
In
November 1995 Cardinal Connell flew to Rome where he petitioned Pope
John Paul to dismiss Walsh.
His petition read: “The archbishop
humbly begs the Holy Father graciously to grant him this favour in the
interests of the well-being of the church.”
It was successful.
In
January 1996 Pope Benedict XVI, then dean of the Congregation of the
Doctrine of the Faith, on which Cardinal Connell served from 1992 to
2004, issued a decree dismissing Walsh.
As Murphy noted Cardinal
Connell’s initiative to personally petition the pope “was a novel one
which created a precedent”.
SIC: IT/IE