Opinion/Mary Raftery: It was interesting to hear at a major US conference last week that some of the most respected American bishops in fact turn out to have feet of clay.
Even the leader of the US Bishops' Conference, Wilton Gregory, who spearheaded recent reforms, has now himself become embroiled in controversy.
The conference was hosted by the Jesuit University of Santa Clara in California, and while the focus was on the clerical child sexual abuse crisis in the US, there was considerable interest in the experience of other countries in this regard. I was invited by the organisers to speak on Ireland's handling of its own particular scandals.
The conference took place in the wake of a major row in which the head of the lay National Review Board appointed by the US bishops to monitor and audit compliance with their new child protection guidelines had stated that the board was being manipulated by the US hierarchy for public relations purposes.
In a letter to Bishop Wilton Gregory, Chicago judge Anne Burke accused the bishops of withholding information from the National Review Board, of "backsliding" on commitments made to protect children and of reopening "the wounds of deception, manipulation and control - all the false ideals that produced this scandal". It will be remembered that Judge Burke took over as chairman of the review board on the resignation from that post of Governor Frank Keating last year, who became so frustrated with the bishops that he likened them to the Mafia. In the meantime, an explosive study emerged indicating that 10,600 children have been abused over the past four decades by 4 per cent of American priests.
Judge Burke's letter was only the latest headache for Bishop Gregory, hailed as the most progressive bishop in the land. A few weeks previously, he himself had been found in contempt of court and fined $2,000 for refusing to hand over documents demanded by the court in respect of one of his priests who is accused of sexually assaulting at least three children.
Ironically, at the height of the media storm last year around the sex abuse crisis in the US Catholic Church, Bishop Gregory said that bishops had learned "that the more forthright you are, the better off it is for all parties concerned". Perhaps the bishop should practise what he preaches.
Dominican priest Tom Doyle also attended the Santa Clara conference. Well known as one of the very few clerics prepared to stand up for victims of paedophile priests, Doyle is now deeply pessimistic about the bishops' ability to respond properly to the abuse crisis.
Doyle himself has just been summarily fired from his job as a military chaplain. Archbishop of the Military Services, Edwin O'Brien, sacked him without even a hearing, in direct contravention of canon law and in stark contrast to the manner in which bishops have acted with regard to paedophile priests.
The stated reason related to a dispute over the mandatory saying of daily Mass, but it was widely believed at the Santa Clara conference that Doyle was being victimised by a church whose cover-up of child abuse he has fearlessly exposed for the past 20 years. "This won't silence me," he told me last week. "Whether or not the National Review Board works, I will continue to support victims in their search for justice." In Ireland, we don't even have a review board to conduct audits on the bishops, let alone an outspoken priest like Tom Doyle. And there is still no sign of the promised State inquiry into the handling of sex abuse allegations against priests in Dublin.
However, late last week the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin was reported to have had his first formal meeting in his official capacity with a victim of abuse. Her name is Kathy, and when I spoke with her yesterday she detailed extensive allegations of sexual abuse of both herself and other girls at a number of Dublin childcare institutions during the 1970s. These involved both priests and laymen.
Kathy expressed herself highly satisfied with her meeting with the archbishop. She felt that her allegations had been taken seriously, and was pleased that the archdiocese had immediately called in both the gardaí and the health board to investigate.
However, when a radio journalist this week sought to interview a spokesperson from the Dublin Archdiocese on the issue, he was told that no one was available, and was instead referred to LOVE, the organisation set up to support those religious who claim to be victims of false allegations of abuse.
If this is to become a pattern from the archdiocese - that journalists seeking responses relating to clerical abuse cases should be referred to an organisation wishing to highlight what it terms false allegations - then it is an alarming prospect for victims.
Perhaps, however, it is simply a case of the left hand not knowing what the right one wants it to do. It is, after all, a period of change within the Dublin diocese. Nonetheless, to put it at its kindest, it sends out a confusing and even dangerous signal to any victim wishing finally to come forward and tell of their abuse.