THE CRIMES of clerical child sex abuse and the failure of church
authorities to respond adequately to them “are both great scandals”,
Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Collins said in Thurles Sunday.
Speaking
at a service of penitence and healing in the Cathedral of the
Assumption there, he asked: “What does the most persistent journalist
who reports priestly evildoing have in common with St John Vianney, the
holy Curé of Ars, patron of parish priests? They both expect priests to
be holy.”
Archbishop Collins is leading the apostolic visitation
to Cashel and Emly archdiocese.
It began last Wednesday and is expected
to continue to the end of this month.
He is accompanied by Joan Breech
of the child protection committee in Toronto’s archdiocese and his
assistant Fr Edward Curtis.
The seven apostolic visitation teams
sent by the Vatican to inquire into the Irish Catholic Church are to
report to Pope Benedict by the end of April.
The former archbishop
of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, is leading the
visitation to Armagh archdiocese. His team includes Dr Sheila Hollins,
of the UK board of psychiatry at St George’s University of London, Msgr
Mark O’Toole, rector of Allen Hall seminary in Chelsea, and Sr Clement
Doran. They will be in Armagh until January 25th.
The visitation
teams to Ireland are made up mainly of sons of the Irish diaspora.
Included are two cardinals, five archbishops, three bishops, the head of
a seminary in Rome and the head of a seminary in London.
Four teams
have been sent to each of Ireland’s four Catholic archdioceses, a fifth
will visit Irish seminaries and houses of formation, while a sixth and
seventh team will conduct visitations to the religious congregations.
The
Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, leads the visitation team
to Dublin’s archdiocese.
Accompanying him are Barbara Thorp, director
of the office for pastoral support and child protection in Boston, Fr
John Connolly, special assistant to the cardinal, and lawyer Thomas
Hannigan.
They arrived in Dublin on November 14th, stayed five days then and returned last weekend.
On
March 6th, the Archbishop of Ottawa, Terence Prendergast, will resume a
visitation to Tuam archdiocese which he began on December 13th last,
when it lasted five days.
He is accompanied by Fr James Conn, professor
of Canon Law at the Gregorian University in Rome and at Boston College.
The
visitation to Maynooth, St Malachy’s in Belfast, the Irish College in
Rome, the Milltown Institute and All Hallows in Dublin, takes place from
January 31st to February 7th.
It will be led by the archbishop of New
York and new president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Timothy
Dolan.
He will be accompanied by the Archbishop of Baltimore
(Maryland), Edwin O’Brien; the Bishop of Juneau (Alaska), Edward Burns;
the Bishop of La Crosse (Wisconsin), William Callahan; the Bishop of
Gaylord (Michigan), Bernard Hebda; and Msgr Francis Kelly, rector, Casa
Santa Maria (the North American College), Rome.
Fr Dennis McManus and Fr
James Cruz, will assist.
The visitation to male religious
congregations will be conducted by former Vincentian superior general Fr
Robert Maloney and Edinburgh-based Jesuit Fr Gero McLoughlin.
The
delegation to the female religious will be former Vatican official at
the Congregation for Religious Sr Sharon Holland IHM and Dublin-based Sr
Máirin McDonagh RJM.
SIC: IT/IE