THERE WAS that familiar, sickening feeling at Wednesday’s press
conference at the publication of the National Board for Safeguarding
Children’s annual report for 2010.
It was that nauseating
realisation again that despite three devastating statutory reports on
its handling of clerical child abuse allegations, with another on the
way, the Irish Catholic Church has learned nothing. It has forgotten
nothing either of its avid enthusiasm for lawyers.
Yet it is the
continuing hypocrisy which is hardest to stomach.
As we have seen after
every new allegation of clerical child abuse; after every priestly
conviction in the courts; after every outrageous statutory report; our
Catholic Church authorities can wring their hands with the best of them.
They
have promised in abject contrition that all will change, change
utterly. But, as with St Augustine’s pleas to God that he be made holy,
it is always with the qualification “....but not just yet”.
Possibly,
even, a mental reservation.
Time passes and they are back to their old
ways.
It goes on and on.
A perfect example emerged with the launch
of the board’s annual report.
Seemingly distraught at the
uncovering by its chief executive Ian Elliott of “inadequate and in some
respects dangerous” child protection practices in Cloyne diocese in
2008, the bishops called an emergency meeting in January 2009 at which
they announced that, at their request, of Cori and the IMU, the board
was to conduct a review of all such child protection practices in the
church in Ireland.
Just a month beforehand we were told they were
unable to co-operate with just such a HSE review on legal advice.
But
indications then were all such worries were over. As soon as the dust
settled on Cloyne, they reached for the lawyers again.
They have
found other ways of making the board baulk.
Last October they withdrew
funding for child protection training programmes they asked the board to
undertake and, to add insult to injury, they withheld from the board
until recent weeks three-quarters of all new clerical child abuse
allegations reported to them over the past year.
These are the actions of an unreformable institution. It talks the talk but refuses to walk the walk.
As
the board’s chairman John Morgan said, “it is insufficiently
appreciated that the inculturation required to overcome the difficulties
which have been made manifest in the church through the inadequate
safeguarding of children will, regrettably, take a considerable time”.
But
why should we wait?
Why should any of us wait for the Catholic Church
to mend its ways?
“The whole problem here is clericalism,” he said.
“There has to be a new relationship between the clerical caste and lay
people.”
Mr Elliott was as frank.
In his 37 years dealing
professionally with child protection issues his recent experiences with
the Catholic Church have been “the most challenging situation I’ve been
in”.
Asked why they did not resign, both men emphasised they were
“passionate about the issue of safeguarding children”, as Mr Elliot put
it, though it was “a question I have asked myself on several occasions”.
Both men met with Apostolic Visitation teams sent recently by Pope
Benedict to investigate the Irish church.
“We did relate our
frustrations to them,” said Mr Elliott, who spent “12/13 hours” with
visitation teams. They were very focused, very interested and
committed.”
He said: “If you safeguard children within the church,
you will safeguard the church itself. If you protect and value children
in the church, you will protect and value the church. However, if you
reverse the order you will ultimately end up harming the church.”
But,
as he observed in a lecture at Marquette University in Wisconsin last
month, “legal opinion is highly prized in the Irish Catholic Church”.
When a bishop first hears “of concerns about the behaviour of one of his
priests his first action is to call his legal adviser. More often than
not, the next action that he takes will be determined by what his lawyer
says...”
Those “who receive allegations should ensure that a
pastoral response is made rather than one that is driven by legal
concerns,” he said.
They might even try reaching for a Bible.