The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) has criticised media
coverage of clerical abuse for cementing in the public’s mind a linkage
of Catholic priests with paedophilia.Fr Sean McDonagh, one of the ACP’s founding members, was speaking after it emerged that a priest attacked in his home last weekend during a violent burglary was verbally abused as a “paedophile” by his attackers.
An entirely innocent Fr Pat O’Brien of Caherlistrane, Co. Galway was left badly shaken after four masked intruders tied him to a radiator in his home before ransacking the house for money.
“This is not a spontaneous thing,” Fr McDonagh said of the words used against the robbery victim. “We don’t hear of ‘paedophile’ being used against other professions whose members have been implicated in abuse.”
Fr McDonagh, who has in the past been vocal on biased media coverage of priests said the rate of abusers in the priesthood – at about 2 or 3 per cent - had long ago been found to be no higher than the general population.
“And yet at one stage we were led to believe that at least 20pc of priests were abusers,” he said.
Fr McDonagh insisted that media coverage of abuse had a large role to play in this, pointing to the large-scale coverage given to a conviction of a clerical abuser over minimal reporting of an acquittal or false allegations.
Media
“The media needs to be more aware when it is covering abuse cases,” he stressed, adding that “the gap between ‘what is known’ about the Church’s record on paedophilia and ‘what is perceived, is worrying and upsetting’.
In relation to Fr O’Brien’s experience, Fr McDonagh said that just as with other residents in rural areas, priests are at increased risk of attack from intruders taking advantage of Garda cutbacks and station closures. He urged fellow clerics to “be more careful”.