GERARD MONTAGUE,
Zaumberg,
Immenstadt, Germany.
A chara, – Your Editorial (August 25th) on the Claudy bombing report is excellent, until the last two paragraphs. You acknowledge that “the involvement of former Northern Ireland secretary William Whitelaw and the late Cardinal Conway in having Fr James Chesney removed from Northern Ireland represented an attempt to neutralise a dangerous and potentially damaging situation for both church and state”. Then, however, you describe the response of Cardinal Seán Brady and Bishop Séamus Hegarty as “a familiar pattern of denial, blame-transference and guarded contrition”.
What is there in the report that they denied? What blame did they transfer? What guarded contrition did they express? Do you suggest that it would have been better for Cardinal Conway to refuse to work with William Whitelaw to neutralise a dangerous situation, where the RUC, while they had “intelligence”, clearly did not have sufficient evidence to charge Fr Chesney? If he had rejected Mr Whitelaw’s approach, what would you now be saying about him? Should Fr Chesney have been left in place? You write that “the Catholic Church may have been placed in an impossible situation”. Church authorities clearly did not themselves have proof of Fr Chesney’s involvement, but at least they were able to do something, where the RUC were not in a position to take action.
Your write that Cardinal Brady and Bishop Hegarty “denied there had been a Church cover-up”, and that they ignored the actions of their predecessors.
How does Cardinal Conway’s co-operation with Mr Whitelaw constitute a cover-up? Which of their predecessors’ actions did they ignore? Is there something unacceptable in maintaining that “if the RUC had sufficient evidence, Fr Chesney should have been arrested and charged”? Why was Fr Chesney not questioned or arrested in his many subsequent visits to Northern Ireland after his transfer to Donegal?
I have read the Claudy report carefully. It seems clear to me there is nothing in the report which condemns the actions of church authorities in the matter. It is difficult to understand why your Editorial criticises Cardinal Brady and Bishop Hegarty for their ready acceptance of the Claudy report. – Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIG McCARTHY,
Blackthorn Court,
Sandyford, Dublin 16.
Madam, – Since it is clear that the Catholic Church was suspicious enough of Father James Chesney’s work with the IRA to send him out of the UK, I wonder why they placed him in an area like Donegal where his compatriots in Derry would have easy access to him for further projects Would it not have been more prudent to have sent him to South America where they sent Bishop Casey for a much lesser, although sinful, offence where contact with any such dangerous people would have been more difficult? – Yours, etc,
NORMAN SHAW,
Conlig, Co Down.
Madam, – The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman’s statement (not a report) on events in Claudy in 1972 is disturbing for a number of reasons. It is a short document, and reveals a shallowness and lack of analytical purchase on the questions it purports to deal with that contrast sharply with the clarity and evidenced detail of the Saville report. On that occasion, relatives and friends of murdered people in Derry were at long last given the comfort of having the truth publicly told, and an acknowledgment of their innocence from the prime minister, on behalf of the state. The Secretary of State’s statement, posted yesterday on the NIO website, seems insufficient. The church’s statement that “the actions of Cardinal Conway or any other Church authority did not prevent the possibility of future arrest and questioning of Fr Chesney” is barely comprehensible. The acknowledged collusion between the cardinal and the secretary of state was intended precisely to prevent the priest being arrested. The people of Claudy have been badly let down.
This makes it even more difficult to see how the Ombudsman could declare that he “found no evidence of any criminal intent on the part of any church official” (6.24). He actually adduces prima facie evidence that the cardinal was fully complicit in actions to remove the priest from the possibility of criminal charges being brought against him. That is itself, arguably, a criminal act. What has also not received much attention is that the Ombudsman takes pains to say that his investigation deals only with the question around “evidence of police criminality or misconduct”. The implication surely is that he found nothing on the church or state because he had no power to investigate their actions.
Few would wish another Saville Inquiry, but surely the people of Northern Ireland, and of Claudy especially, deserve a wider, more focused, and incisive inquiry than the efforts reported in the Police Ombudsman statement?
Interest has been evoked in the actions of Willie Whitelaw, who may have acted with caution, timidity even, in collusion with someone assumed to hold an important leadership position in the Catholic community, both fearful of what might happen next. But were there other reasons for wishing the priest to be removed? What remains most important, however, is that the state should acknowledge to the people of Claudy and the wider world its part in those events, and fulfil a responsibility not dissimilar from the one fulfilled by Saville in respect of Bloody Sunday. If Claudy were part of the State of Ireland, President Mary McAleese would have been present in that small town yesterday to acknowledge the past and console its people. The conclusion is clear – more needs to be done now, by the British state, by way of both investigation and formal acknowledgement, in relation to those events. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL STRAIN
Coole Park,
Newtownabbey,
Co Antrim.