ABUSE FALLOUT:IRELAND'S CATHOLIC priests were criticised by speakers at the Humbert School in Castlebar, Co Mayo, yesterday for their "deafening silence" throughout the clerical child sex abuse scandal years.
Dublin abuse victim Marie Collins said that “the priests of Ireland during this crisis have let down many by their abject failure to speak up”.
Acknowledging a few exceptions, she said that in general priests’ silence had been “a huge disappointment”.
One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis described Ireland’s priests as “utterly spineless, emasculated, afraid to speak out”. There had been “an incredible lack of response by priests and religious to the various reports”.
Ms Collins felt there might be some hope with a new priests’ association which may be established soon. But, she commented: “It’s already under severe attack from conservative Catholic commentators. Will it be smothered at birth?
“Will priests be afraid to join? Will it influence the future of the church in Ireland? I hope for the latter but fear the former will be its fate.”
She felt those same conservative forces, along with “most of his priest colleagues and bishops, who wanted Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to defend the indefensible after publication of the Murphy report – and who when he didn’t defend the indefensible attacked him for not doing so – are now rejoicing that he has been put in his box” with the pope’s refusal to accept the resignation of Dublin’s two auxiliary bishops ”.
That decision “shows how empty were his words to the Irish people in March ... Does he think this action will restore respect? Where is the transparency in denying any explanation for this decision?” she asked.
“The bishops told us they were resigning to bring ‘peace and healing to victims’ yet it seems then behind the scenes they fought to have the resignations rejected.
“It’s more of the same hypocrisy and insincerity that victims have had to deal with for years.”
Abuse victim Andrew Madden spoke once again of his gratitude to Bishop Jim Moriarty “for the content and tone of his resignation letter” last December.
“His acknowledgment that ‘the long struggle of survivors to be heard and respected by church authorities had revealed a culture within the church that many would simply describe as unchristian’ was also very welcome and compared very favourably to Bishop Drennan calling survivors vengeful and Cardinal Brady trying to pass himself off as a wounded healer,” he said.
“Add to that the sickening sight of bishops Walsh and Field thinking they have won some battle to preserve their precious reputations, having lost sight of the fact that preserving reputations was one of the reasons so many children ended up being sexually abused in the first place,” he said.
On the same subject, Augustinian priest Fr Iggy O’Donovan said “you may rest assured that the decision in this case has everything to do with Church authority and little to do with whether or not these gentlemen were vigilant in their duties when it came to protecting children.
“The message is clear – in Rome nobody, not even the vast majority of the faithful, tells us what to do. Whether or when or if bishops are to resign is our decision.”
He said that “of all the episcopates in the world the present Irish incumbents are the least likely to challenge party headquarters”.
He said that “in recent decades the ranks of the Irish episcopate has been manned with second-raters, rather than men of vision and imagination”.