THE SPEECH by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the Dáil on Wednesday
“accurately reflects the deep anger of the people of Ireland at the
contents of the Cloyne report and underlines the huge challenges ahead
for the Catholic Church as a whole”, according to the Catholic Bishop of
Dromore, Dr John McAreavey.
However, the Auxiliary Bishop of
Armagh, Gerard Clifford, was “taken aback at the force and wide,
sweeping nature of the Taoiseach’s address in the Dáil. I acknowledge
the reason for the intensity of feeling expressed given the awful
findings of the report.”
Fr Brendan Hoban of the Association of
Catholic Priests said he did not think anyone could criticise as
“factually incorrect” what Mr Kenny said. He reflected people’s “unease,
disgust and anger” after Cloyne, Fr Hoban added.
“He articulated
what members of the association and myself have been saying for years –
that Rome really does not connect with what is happening in Ireland. The
presumption is that once it is handed down, that is accepted right
across the board, whether it is the appointment of bishops, the
Eucharistic Congress or the new Roman missal. The laity, clergy and, I
suspect, some bishops are happy that Enda Kenny has drawn a line in the
sand that we are not going to be treated in this way.”
On RTÉ
radio yesterday David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute, said he was
“not particularly” impressed with the Taoiseach’s address and that
considerable credit due the current pope for his handling of the abuse
issue was “not given at all”.
He accused the Taoiseach of taking “an extreme scattergun approach” with “no account taken of the actual facts”.
The
Taoiseach referred to obstruction by the Vatican in Cloyne three years
ago “when there was no obstruction three years ago, that is the fact of
it”.
The Pope assumed control in 2001 of dealing with the abuse
issue, since when hundreds of men had been removed from the priesthood,
he said.
He also criticised the Murphy commission for not pursuing
the Vatican through diplomatic channels to secure the documents it was
seeking. The commission hadn’t done this “and I don’t know why”, he
said.
(In December 2009, following publication of the Murphy
report, it was explained that as the Murphy commission was independent
and as it was also investigating the State’s handling of clerical child
sex abuse allegations, through the Garda and the HSE, it did not feel
free to use State channels when dealing with the Vatican.)
Mr Quinn also said he agreed with calls for wholesale resignations by Irish Catholic bishops “to break the link with the past”.
On RTÉ’s
Morning Ireland programme Senator Ronan Mullen said
he didn’t subscribe to “almost the venom there is in parts of the
[Taoiseach’s] speech” where “an entire class of people is being written
off”.
As a politician himself he was “very, very conscious that some politicians are given to grandstanding”.
He
agreed the Taoiseach’s address was “a turning point” and wondered where
were “the church spokespersons to explain truthfully what went wrong”.
Bishops McAreavey and Clifford were the only two bishops to respond to e-mails sent by
The Irish Times to the diocesan offices of 21 of Ireland’s 26
dioceses.
Many bishops are on leave and so not available for comment on
the Taoiseach’s address.
E-mails were not sent to Kildare
Leighlin, Cloyne or Limerick as they currently do not have a bishop.
It
was not possible to contact Ardagh Clonmacnoise and Archbishop Diarmuid
Martin had already commented on the speech.