A judicial report into the
handling of allegations of child sexual abuse against clerics in the
Diocese of Cloyne has concluded that the church's own guidelines were
"not fully or consistently implemented" in the diocese as recently as
2008.
The report, released by Judge Yvonne Murphy, also said Cloyne Bishop
John Magee admitted to what has been described as inappropriate behavior
with a young man. It said the bishop embraced him, kissed him and told
the young aspirant for the priesthood that he loved him.
The 400-page report also records for the first time stark disagreement
among Irish bishops over whether Bishop Magee -- a former secretary to
three popes -- should quit as bishop of Cloyne after December 2008, when
the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church
said he was using child safeguarding policies that were "inadequate and,
in some respects, dangerous."
At an emergency meeting of the Irish bishops' conference in January
2009, just weeks after the report critical of Bishop Magee, "there were
strong opinions on both sides" as to whether the bishop should quit.
"The strongest argument in favor of resignation was made by Archbishop
(Diarmuid) Martin" of Dublin, the report said. At the time, Cardinal
Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, emphatically insisted that
Bishop Magee should not go despite the latter having admitted to the
inappropriate behavior with the young man in question.
The commission was charged with investigating the handling of
allegations made against 19 priests from 1996 -- when the church in
Ireland first implemented child protection procedures -- to 2009. The
commission found that "the primary responsibility for the failure to
implement the agreed procedures lies with Bishop Magee."
"It is a remarkable fact," the report notes, "that Bishop Magee took
little or no active interest in the management of clerical child sexual
abuse cases until 2008."
Between 1996 -- when the Irish bishops introduced guidelines for
mandatory reporting -- and 2005, the diocese failed to report nine out
of 15 complaints against priests, which "very clearly should have been
reported," the report said.
"The most serious lapse was the failure to report two cases in which the
alleged victims were minors at the time of the complaint," it said.
The report found that Bishop Magee falsely told the government that his
diocese was reporting all allegations of clerical child sexual abuse to
the civil authorities. It also found that the bishop deliberately misled
another inquiry and his own advisers by creating two different accounts
-- one for the Vatican and the other for diocesan files -- of a meeting
with a priest-suspect.
The report accuses the Vatican of being "entirely unhelpful" to bishops who wanted to fully implement the agreed guidelines.
In particular, the report referred to a letter from the apostolic nuncio
to Ireland a year after the 1996 guidelines were introduced in which he
informed bishops that the Holy See was refusing to grant the document
Vatican approval. The Congregation for Clergy, the letter noted,
insisted the guidelines were not in conformity with canon law.
"There can be no doubt that this letter greatly strengthened the
position of those in the church in Ireland who did not approve of the
framework document as it effectively cautioned them against
implementation.
"This effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore
the procedures which they had agreed and gave comfort and support to
those who ... dissented from the stated official Irish church position."
In a July 13 statement, Cardinal Brady welcomed the report and said it
represented "another dark day in the history of the response of church
leaders to the cry of children abused by church personnel." He said the
report's findings "confirm that grave errors of judgment were made and
serious failures of leadership occurred. This is deplorable and totally
unacceptable."
He said the commission indicated that, in his dealings with Bishop
Magee, "my overriding objective was to ensure that safeguarding practice
in Cloyne be prioritized and implemented and that Bishop Magee should
be available" to assist the commission.
"I ask that we remember, in our thoughts and prayers, all those who have
suffered, and continue to suffer, as a result of abuse," he said.
Archbishop Dermot Clifford of Cashel and Emly, who was appointed
administrator of the diocese in March 2009, said he accepted the
commission's findings, and he reiterated all the safeguarding procedures
-- including cooperation and information-sharing with police -- that
have been put into place since he took over.
"I am appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority
of clergy in the diocese, as outlined in this report," he said. "Great
pain was also caused to the families of those abused, whose strong
relationship with the Catholic Church was, in a number of cases, damaged
or destroyed."
Murphy's report is highly critical of the Cloyne vicar general, Msgr.
Denis O'Callaghan, who, it notes, "did not approve of the requirement to
report (allegations) to the civil authorities."
The commission notes that "one of the ironies of Msgr. O'Callaghan's
position is that it was clear from his evidence that, in most cases, he
believed the complaints, which make his failure to implement his own
church's policy all the more surprising.
"He also displayed some inexplicable failures to recognize child sexual abuse," the report adds.
The report says allegations of abuse and concerns about inappropriate
behavior were raised against nearly 8 percent of priests serving in the
diocese. One priest of the diocese has been convicted while another was
successful in having his trial halted because of his age. One chapter of
the report is heavily redacted because the cleric involved is currently
before the courts.
Regarding canon law, the commission found that there was a "haphazard
and sometimes sloppy" approach to canonical investigations.
On a positive note, the commission concludes that "there was no case in
which the Diocese of Cloyne moved priests against whom allegations had
been made to another parish or out of the diocese altogether."
Cloyne was also criticized for its failure to properly record and
maintain information about complaints of child sexual abuse until 2008.
The diocese drew attention in 2008 when social service authorities
expressed concern to the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the
Catholic Church that Bishop Magee was not following the church's own
child safeguarding guidelines properly.
Initially, Bishop Magee resisted calls to resign and pledged to assist
the investigation. However, in March 2009 the Vatican announced the
appointment of an apostolic administrator -- at Bishop Magee's request
-- and said Bishop Magee would no longer exercise power of governance
but would retain the title of bishop of Cloyne. In March 2010, the
Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted Bishop Magee's
resignation.
Three of Ireland's 26 Catholic dioceses have now been subject to
judicial inquiries that have severely criticized church leaders and
found that the reputation of priests and the church and the avoidance of
scandal were put ahead of the rights of children to be protected from
abuse.
A high-profile team of senior prelates recently concluded the first
phase of an apostolic visitation of the church in Ireland at the request
of Pope Benedict. The pope announced the move in a March 2010 letter to
the Catholics of Ireland in which he repeated his shame and sorrow at
the abuse and the subsequent mishandling of cases and warned Irish
bishops that their failures had "obscured the light of the Gospel to a
degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing."
This past May, the head of the safeguarding children board, Ian Elliott,
admitted that he had consider resigning over what he described as a
lack of cooperation from senior church leaders in Ireland to his
auditing of dioceses handling of allegations. Bishops had withdrawn from
the auditing process, citing data protection concerns. However, all
dioceses are now cooperating according to the board, and the body
expects to complete the audits in the coming year.