Catholic bishops in Ireland
have pledged £9m to support abuse victims through a counselling
service, one of several initiatives to restore trust among their flock
after years of damaging revelations about paedophile priests.
Towards
Healing and Renewal, a 16-page letter from the Irish Conference of
Catholic Bishops, outlines steps that Cardinal Sean Brady, archbishop of
Armagh and primate of All Ireland, hopes will "repair the breach of
trust that has taken place".
They include the funding of Towards
Healing counselling agency, which will provide an enhanced counselling
service for victims and their families living in Ireland, Northern
Ireland and Britain.
There will be additional child protection
training and continued co-operation with police and social services over
abuse allegations. Irish bishops will also fast once a month, on
Fridays, to make amends for their failure to respond to the crisis
effectively.
There will be, for the first time, dedicated
spiritual support for victims who lost their faith because of their
ordeal and want to work through this particular consequence of the abuse
suffered.
Brady said: "As a result of the grievous wrong of
abuse, for many survivors their faith in God and the church has been
profoundly damaged.
"A colossal breach of trust occurs when a
child is abused. If the abuser is a priest or religious then an even
greater betrayal has been perpetrated.
"The mismanagement of abuse
allegations by church authorities compounded this damage. As we
continue on our journey of renewal, the church resolves to repair the
breach of trust which has taken place. We ask humbly that we be given
this opportunity."
The report also marks the first anniversary of
an unprecedented pastoral letter from Benedict XVI, who apologised to
victims of institutional physical and sexual abuse in Ireland.
He also
announced an apostolic visitation – or papal inquiry – of Catholic
dioceses and religious orders of priests and nuns.
Brady was one
of the clerics under pressure ahead of the Vatican delegation's arrival
after it emerged he had kept quiet about a paedophile priest for more
than a decade, despite knowing about the sexual abuse carried out by the
late Father Brendan Smyth.
He was present at meetings in the
1970s where two abused teenagers signed vows of silence over their
complaints against Smyth, a notorious sex offender jailed in the 1990s
for child abuse.
Two official reports revealed decades of rape,
coercion and sexual attack in Ireland by predatory clerics whose
activities, in the words of one of the reports, were "obsessively"
concealed by the church hierarchy.