The Catholic lay organisation Voice of the Faithful - Ireland (VOTF-I) has advised Catholics "to consider the possibility that by contributing to the Stewardship Trust Fund, they may unwittingly be assisting a policy that conceals child sex abuse, shields some of the perpetrators of that abuse, compromises the ministry and standing of innocent priests, and endangers children".
It has called on the Catholic bishops to provide more information on the Stewardship Trust, which they set up in 1996 to deal with compensation claims from victims of clerical child sex abuse in the 26 Irish Catholic dioceses.
The Irish Episcopal Conference will hold its summer meeting next week. Following its spring meeting last March, it said in a statement that funds in the trust had become depleted.
It said €10.8 million had been spent, of which €8.78 million, including €2.53 million legal costs, was paid to victims arising from 143 claims against 36 priests. The bishops said they had decided to begin a process of consultation in their dioceses on where future funds for the trust would come from.
In their statement, VOTF-I said the information provided by the bishops last March "should have been followed by specific information for each diocese, detailing the number of offending priests concerned in that diocese, and the sums involved.
"Dioceses should also provide assurances that any and all such successful claims were reported to the civil authorities, and that none of the priests concerned remains in parish ministry, or any other ministry involving children. This diocese-specific information has not yet been provided. Nor have these assurances been given. In at least one diocese (Achonry) all such information has been bluntly refused."
They quoted Pope John Paul's statement, from April 2002, when he said: "People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young."
The VOTF-I statement continued: "Irish Catholics now need to know that this is also the unequivocal position of their own bishops. So do our many innocent priests, who deserve to be free of all suspicion. Neither people nor priests can know this in the absence of adequate information about the compensation for clerical child sex abuse so far paid by the Irish Catholic Church from the Stewardship Trust Fund."