APOLOGIES AND “regrets”, countless “sorrys”, compensation for victims of abuse, and three previous scathing statutory reports notwithstanding, yet the Catholic hierarchy still just doesn’t get it. Where’s the firm purpose of amendment? That, in truth, is the overwhelming and understandable perception of a bewildered public to the Cloyne report and its findings, an impression, if anything, confirmed by the response to it of the hierarchy.
The church authorities, it appears clear, continued to put priests’ and bishops’ feelings and interests, and church interests, ahead of the welfare of children in the diocese in flagrant breach of the child abuse guidelines they themselves introduced as far back as 1996. In Cloyne, deplorably encouraged by a confidential 1997 Vatican letter to the Irish bishops, these were regarded as optional, and in 2004 an internal independent report for the diocese (McCoy), that largely went unread, warned they were being ignored. Yet it was only in 2008, after a damning public report from the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), that the Irish hierarchy appears to have reluctantly become engaged. Then, and in January 2009, it was only to defend Bishop John Magee’s right to stay on. And why, apparently, were no questions asked by the hierarchy between 1996 and 2008 about what was going on in Cork?
What is clear is that the idea of collective institutional or individual moral responsibility for the actions of those subject to their authority is still anathema to the hierarchy. Cardinal Seán Brady and Archbishop Dermot Clifford have given defensive and unsatisfactory answers to the Cloyne report, unconvincingly explaining away their continuing refusal in early 2009 to demand Bishop Magee’s resignation despite the fact they were aware from the NBSC report of December 2008 that he had been flouting the guidelines. Dr Clifford, who belatedly became convinced of the untenability of Dr Magee’s position, yesterday acknowledged the latter had “lied” and had singularly failed properly to supervise Msgr Denis O’Callaghan who was in charge of implementing child protection policies he openly disagreed with.
It is their failure to deal with these Magee lacunae, rather than the issue of his “inappropriate” conduct with “Joseph”, arguably not a sacking offence, that continues to raise real questions about the tenability of both men’s positions. The willingness of the hierarchy over time to cut their own members the same slack that bishops have been criticised for allowing to abuser priests reflects at root the same problem of an institution whose instinct remains above all self-preservation.
The response of the Government to the report is, however, welcome though belated. Legislation to put on a statutory basis the Children First guidelines, to be published today, and to make the withholding from gardaí of information about abuse, despite concerns about the “seal of the confessional”, are important and overdue measures. It is also crucial that the vital audits of child protection practices in the country’s other dioceses, undertaken by the NBSC, proceed speedily.