Analysis: A new phase in the church's response to victims of clerical sex abuse may have dawned, writes Patsy McGarry
All may well have changed in the Dublin archdiocese's approach to clerical child sex abuse. How utterly only time will tell.
What was clear after yesterday's lengthy meeting between the bishops and the victims was an ease and cordiality which has been absent heretofore.
If a December 30th, 1996, meeting with Cardinal Connell marked the nadir of Mrs Marie Collins's relationship with the archdiocese then its sixth anniversary yesterday seemed the beginning of what could be a bountiful friendship. Mrs Collins's account of that 1996 meeting, at which she discussed her abuse by Father Paul McGennis, was disputed by the archdiocese but was eventually corroraborated by the only other person present, Father James Norman, in a report in this newspaper on December 18th.
This confirmation prompted Mr Ken Reilly - who had been abused by Father Tony Walsh - to call on December 22nd for a march next Sunday to Archbishop's House in Drumcondra, at which a letter would be handed in requesting Cardinal Connell's resignation.
On December 23rd both Mr Reilly and Mrs Collins were contacted about meeting the Cardinal yesterday. They agreed. It was pointed out that Cardinal Connell would be in Rome attending the episcopal ordination of a friend on January 5th, the day of the planned protest, and that he had "the very strong feeling that he should not take off without speaking to them", as a diocesan spokeswoman put it.
At the impromptu press conference outside Archbishop's House yesterday it would appear his "very strong feeling" was indeed sound. And it would be churlish, despite the circumstantial evidence, to conclude that his motivation in asking for the meeting was simply an attempt to forestall any likely snowballing effect which could have been started and which may have generated a momentum that could make his resignation inevitable.
As with many in senior positions of authority in the church, Cardinal Connell has been on a steep learning curve where the issue of clerical child sex abuse is concerned. As he has acknowledged, many mistakes have been made in dealing with the matter. Not least in how the abuse of both Mr Reilly and Mrs Collins, as well as others, has been addressed by the Dublin archdiocese.
And it cannot be denied that those mistakes, while rooted primarily in ignorance of the nature of the problem being dealt with, were made inevitable by an over-riding determination to protect the institution from scandal. However wrong - and it was wrong - this may appear to those of us outside the ranks of senior clergy, its motivation from their perspective was good. They were trying to minimise the damage to their beloved institution, founded by Christ, from the effects of the all-too-human frailties of brother priests.
That those "frailties" were something more than that has been slow to dawn on them. Equally it has taken a long time for them, and others, to fully realise the life-long extent of the devastation caused by the sexual abuse of children. It has taken a long time too to realise that the perpetrators of such abuse have a much greater problem than a peccadillo that can be forgiven with a "go and sin no more" absolution.
It has been a rough education for all concerned but, at least now in Dublin, we may have hope that a new and better phase in this very sorry saga has begun.
That in arriving where we are now has come about through the Cardinal responding to his own instincts on what to do is also instructive.