He who has most questions to answer

Cardinal Connell asserts that claims of clerical sex abuse have 'devastated'his term as archbishop

Cardinal Connell asserts that claims of clerical sex abuse have 'devastated'his term as archbishop. But, as some call for his resignation, how has hedealt with the issue? Patsy McGarry examines his recordDid the archdiocese not feel obliged to co-operate with a criminalinvestigation?

It was said of the powerful Cabot family in Boston during the 19th century that while everyone talked to them, they talked only to God.

It has been like that with Ireland's Catholic bishops. Spread throughout 26 dioceses across the island they were accountable only to God. Or Rome, which is the same thing where they are concerned.

But all has changed. Last Monday at their extraordinary general meeting in Maynooth the bishops made a first tentative nod in the direction of that most holy post-modern trinity - openness, transparency and accountability.

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It was not a pretty sight. The Catholic Primate, Archbishop Seán Brady, Cardinal Desmond Connell, Bishop Joseph Duffy of Clogher, and Bishop Bill Murphy of Kerry were as awkward as new-born deer facing the granite countenance of a sceptical media. They had come to announce the result of their day's labours.

It included agreement to hold an independent audit into how clerical child sex-abuse complaints had been handled in each diocese, agreement to extend the powers of the Child Protection Office at Maynooth, and agreement to appoint retired judge Gillian Hussey to replace Bishop Eamonn Walsh, appointed by Rome last week to oversee Ferns.

And that was it. No details of who would be appointed to the independent audit, how long it would take, or what powers of recommendation it might have. Similarly with the powers to be given to the Child Protection Office. And such is the urgency with which the bishops regard both that they will meet again "within weeks" to work out details.

Meanwhile on April 4th the Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin, had all mechanisms in place before he met the Ferns abuse victims, so he could announce the Birmingham investigation and its timescale that night.

The bishops have been aware of clerical child sex abuse at least since Father Brendan Smyth was charged in 1994. Since then 37 priests have been convicted of related offences, with at least 100 seeking treatment for paedophilia.

But experience since the mid-1980s in the US, Canada, Australia, which frequently involved Irish personnel, should have alerted them to what was ahead.

Undoubtedly, and as far as we are aware, of all the bishops the one with most questions to answer regarding the handling of clerical child sex abuse on his watch is Cardinal Desmond Connell.

The issue may have "devastated" his period of office as Archbishop of Dublin since he assumed that position in January 1988, as he said on Monday, but he has made his own contribution to that bedevilment.

As revealed at the press conference, he removed two priests from the ministry because of the problem shortly after becoming Archbishop. So he has been aware of the issue since he took office.

He also revealed that in 1995, following a trawl of diocesan records going back 50 years, he supplied the names of 17 priests to the Garda and the names of those who had complained.

Why did he wait until 1995 to initiate such a trawl, if he had been aware of the problem since 1988? And, allowing for that omission, did he not consult diocesan archives at all on the matter before then?

Had be done so, he would have noted, for instance, that in 1960 his predecessor, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, had been alerted that Father Paul McGennis had sent photographic film of an indecent nature involving two children to Britain to be developed. The Garda authorities here had been contacted by Scotland Yard which passed on Kodak transparencies of the photographs.

Archbishop McQuaid arranged for Father McGennis to receive treatment, and he was sent back to work. Nothing further happened.

In 1996 McGennis pleaded guilty to two counts of sexually assaulting two girls at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in 1960 where he was chaplain. In 1997 he was sentenced again after pleading guilty to two counts of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Co Wicklow between 1977 and 1979.

Yet, according to a 1997 report in this newspaper, "a file containing information about the photographic material was discovered among Dublin diocesan records in October 1995". Therefore we must assume the information about McGennis's proclivities were available to the Dublin archdiocese for at least 35 years before October 1995.

Throughout the intervening years he continued to serve as a priest and did so until 1997, when he was in Dublin's Edenmore parish.

It might be said no complaints against him were received at Drumcondra before 1995, but surely the diocese had a duty of care to its flock, and particularly its younger members, to ensure McGennis was supervised closely over the intervening years, seven of which were in Cardinal Connell's period? Had that been done, at least the young Co Wicklow girl could have been saved, and who knows how many others?

More directly where McGennis was concerned, there was the archdiocese's handling of Marie Collins's complaints in 1995. In particular, its refusal to confirm to gardaí the priest's confession of the assaults.

During the week Cardinal Connell said this could not have been done as the priest had not been warned in advance of his admission that it could be used in evidence against him. Upon what authority did the Cardinal, or his agent, Mgr Alex Stenson, then chancellor of the diocese, make that judgment?

Did the archdiocese not feel obliged to co-operate in every way possible with what was a criminal investigation? It decided otherwise, however, and became annoyed with Ms Collins for her temerity in repeating to gardaí what she had been told by the archdiocese.

To compound the injury, at a meeting in 1996 the Cardinal told Ms Collins they wouldn't co-operate with gardaí in the investigation, despite the Irish bishops' own strict guidelines for reporting complaints of clerical child sex abuse to the civil authorities, issued earlier that year.

These were published in January 1996, months before the meeting between the Cardinal and Ms Collins, and recommended that "in all instances where it is known or suspected that a child has been, or is being, sexually abused by a priest or religious, the matter should be reported to the civil authorities. Where the suspicion or knowledge results from the complaint of an adult of abuse during his or her childhood, this should also be reported to the civil authorities".

It is difficult to reconcile those recommendations in January 1996 and the actions of Cardinal Connell later that year, when he had his meeting with Ms Collins. She pointed this out to him. He said, according to her, that the guidelines had no effect in civil or canon law. He said last week he told her the guidelines superseded both canon and civil law.

Whoever has the clearer recollection, what is obvious is that Cardinal Connell went against the spirit of the bishops' 1996 guidelines in his response to Marie Collins's complaints.

And Marie Collins's revelation of this - on Prime Time on April 2nd, to which the Cardinal has yet to respond formally - has blown a hole in what was up to that point seen as the bishops' great weapon against accusations they had yet to deal adequately with the problem of clerical child sex abuse.

Then there is Father Ivan Payne. He, too, had been a chaplain at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children. He was sent for psychiatric treatment in 1981 after abusing Andrew Madden at Cabra in Dublin. Payne was appointed to Sutton parish in 1982 and seen by a psychiatrist again in 1991 and 1994, remaining a serving priest until 1995, even though in 1993 he had paid Andrew Madden compensation of £30,000.

That he had received psychiatric treatment indicated that the archdiocese was aware of his activities, but he was allowed remain as a serving priest until 1995, seven years into the Cardinal's period of office. Healso served on the archdiocese's Regional Catholic Marriage Tribunal, which dealt with marriage annulments. In 1998 he faced charges of sexual assaults on nine boys.

In May 1995 Cardinal Connell told RTÉ he had paid out no money in compensation to any victims of clerical child sex abuse. But the following September it emerged that Payne had secured a £30,000 loan from the archdiocese to pay Andrew Madden. The Cardinal threatened to sue RTÉ for libel. "To say that we paid compensation is completely untrue," he said.

Since then the archdiocese has paid compensation totalling £290,000 to nine other young men abused by Payne. Some years later one of those young men, who had been abused 130 times over three years by Payne, had his application for the priesthood rejected. He was told he was an unsuitable candidate.

Then there was the horrific case of Father Patrick Hughes, probably the most serious of all the clerical child sex abuse cases in the Dublin archdiocese. He terrorised a young boy, then aged between nine and 11, in the 1970s.

This emerged in 1993 also, around the time Payne settled with Andrew Madden. On notification, the archdiocese removed Hughes from all pastoral and other responsibilities immediately. His victim received £50,000, "entirely from his [the priest's\] own personal resources," a statement from the archdiocese said at the time.

Solicitors for Hughes's victim said they were "extremely surprised" at the unusual speed with which the case was settled. Indeed solicitors for the priest did not even query the truth of the extremely strong allegations made against him. And many wondered how a priest could have at his disposal so much money and at such short notice.

Perhaps one day we may find out.