Vatican meeting on controversial bishop went ‘very well’

An unscheduled meeting on Sunday between a working group of the Vatican's Commission for the Protection of Minors and its chairman Cardinal Seán O'Malley, about the controversial appointment of a Chilean bishop, went "very well", Dublin survivor Marie Collins has said.

Bishop Juan Barros Madrid was installed as Bishop of Osorno, Chile, last month amid serious protests. Chilean survivors accuse him of covering up abuse by Fr Fernando Karadima, and of witnessing abuse by the priest. In 2011 the Vatican found Fr Karadima, once a key Church figure in Chile, guilty of sexually abusing minors.

The only Irish member of the Vatican Commission Marie Colline, UK survivor Peter Saunders, London-based psychiatrist Baroness Sheila Hollins, and French child/adolescent psychiatrist Dr Catherine Bonnet, met Cardinal Seán O'Malley in Rome. He is there for a meeting of the so-called C9 Council of Cardinals who are to meet Pope Francis this week.

In Dublin on Monday night Marie Collins said she and fellow Commission members were “very happy” with how the meeting had gone. “We asked Cardinal O’Malley to meet us and he was very quick to say ‘yes’,” she recalled.

“Our main concern was that the appointment (of Bishop Barros) was made and that similar appointments might be made in future,” she said. The new Bishop’s “view of abuse, his mindset could be dangerous in his diocese and as Commission members we felt we had to make the Pope aware,” she said.

Cardinal O’Malley gave an undertaking that he would bring the matter to the attention of Pope Francis. The Commission members were “really pleased” with the Cardinal’s response, she said.

“Although we are not charged with dealing with individual cases, the protection of minors is our primary concern. The process of appointing bishops who are committed to, and have an understanding of child protection, is of paramount importance.

“In the light of the fact that sexual abuse is so common, the ability of a bishop to enact effective policies, and to carefully monitor compliance is essential. Cardinal O’Malley agreed to present the concerns of the subcommittee to the Holy Father,” she said.