The latest annual report from the church's National Board for
Safeguarding Children was published this week.
Two facts from it stand
out.
The first is that the "vast majority" of new allegations received by the board
in the last 12 months are "historic in nature", as the press release puts
it, meaning the alleged incidents didn't happen recently.
The second is that the bishops and the religious congregations are still not
co-operating with the board as fully as they should be, which is simply
staggering.
Maybe it's because the media is distracted by the economy these
days, meaning church authorities aren't under pressure to fully co-operate
with the board.
This lack of co-operation has taken place on two main levels, the first
clear-cut and the second a little murkier.
The first is that when the board contacted the dioceses and the orders to
ensure they had an up-to-date list of allegations, they discovered that they
did not.
Instead, they discovered that the dioceses and orders had passed on only a
fifth of the 272 allegations they had received over the last 12 months to
the board.
This did not mean the allegations had not been passed on to the civil
authorities.
Apparently they had been.
But it beggars belief that the
bishops and the orders would not pass on all the allegations they had
received to a board that they themselves had set up.
Of course, you may be tempted to dismiss the importance of the board.
After all, if it was set up by the church, how credible can it be?
In fact, it is very credible. Its CEO is Ian Elliott, a Northern Presbyterian,
and it is because of him that the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, had to
resign over child protection failures.
So the board is fully independent and, as its latest annual report makes
clear, it is determined to ensure that the church lives up to the highest
possible child protection standards.
The board is undertaking a national review of child protection procedures
throughout the church. This was at the request of the hierarchy.
But then the hierarchy failed to fully co-operate with the review it had
ordered.
According to the board's annual report, the bishops and the orders had certain
data protection concerns.
There seemed to be a fear on their part that they
couldn't give the board the names of all the people against whom allegations
were made, presumably on the grounds that some of those people may not have
been guilty of the alleged crimes.
Did the church authorities fear that the board would divulge those names, or
else release information that would make it easy to identify the people
concerned? We don't know because the bishops haven't said.
But we do know that the board, by its own reckoning, has "an approved and
top-rate data protection policy".
In any case, whatever problem there was has seemingly been resolved, and a
review of three dioceses has so far been completed. The report doesn't name
them and we don't know the outcome of the reviews.
At the launch of the report, Elliott revealed that his office engaged in 13
hours of dialogue with the visitation team sent over by the Pope to inspect
the church in Ireland.
Hopefully the visitation team will pay extremely close attention to the
board's report and to the clear warning signs it contains that members of
the board could resign in the months to come if they continue to encounter
the frustrations they encountered in the last 12 months.
What a disaster that would be for the already battered image of the church.
As for the other stand-out item from the report, 272 new allegations of abuse
were made against priests and brothers in the year up to the end of March.
That is considerably up on last year's 197.
However, this does not mean abuse is still widespread.
As mentioned, the vast
majority of those allegations relate to incidents that are "historic in
nature".
In fact, of the 197 allegations received in the 12 months before this latest
period, none related to an incident that took place in the previous nine
years.
Unfortunately, we don't know when the 272 alleged incidents occurred, nor do
we know exactly how many of the accused priests and brothers have been
previously accused.
We have a right to know.
The bishops and the orders need to tell the board and then the board needs to
tell the public.
To simply release those figures without breaking them down is akin to the
Government releasing crime figures without telling us the type of crimes
committed or when the crimes occurred.
Overall, this latest report tells us
that abuse is no longer as widespread in the church as it was, which is
undoubtedly a very good thing.
But it also tells us that the church still has some way to go before its child
protection structures are being run to the highest possible standard, and
that is simply incredible.
The upcoming report of the Pope's inspection team into the Irish church had
better have teeth if it is to have real effect.