Sir, – The current United Nations report on the abominable abuse of children within Roman Catholic institutions underlines again the need to confront such crimes with the best resources of my church (Breaking News, February 5th).
There are still large parts of the RC world where the necessary radical reforms have not taken place.
In view of his exemplary record in tackling clerical child abuse in the diocese of Dublin, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin would seem an ideal person to implement the Vatican’s promise to protect all within its care. He would offer a guarantee of action rather than rhetoric. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FEIGHERY SVD
North Circular Road,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Few people who have read media reports and commentary on the recent UN Committee report on the Holy See's obligations in the matter of children's rights will doubt its credibility. However, for those who read and scrutinisze the document itself, it raises rather than relieves uncertainty about its trustworthiness.
As far as it draws on the work of established investigative commissions and their fruits, such as the Ryan Report in Ireland and the Winter Commission in Canada (p14), the UN report’s findings should be taken seriously. However, it seems plain from reading the document that the UN Committee has done almost no investigation of its own. In fact, the text is seriously weakened in those places where it makes wholesale recommendations – such as urging the church to “review its position on abortion” (p12) – based on single, widely-reported instances.
Some of the proposals are simply eccentric. On p13, the committee exhorts the Holy See to re-assess its position on “adolescents’ enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and overcome all the barriers and taboos surrounding adolescent sexuality that hinder their access to sexual and reproductive information.”
I don’t know what to make of this foggy suggestion, except to say that I attended state-funded Catholic schools from 1997 to 2004 in several countries and I was never deprived of information concerning my “enjoyment” of these matters.
As to the committee report’s motions to renovate the church’s teachings on contraception (p13), homosexual conduct (p5), and illegitimacy (p5), the committee clearly strays from delivering what could and should have been an objective report, and instead provides a weird compendium of “What’s-Wrong-With-Catholicism.” – Yours, etc,
Dr SEAN ALEXANDER
SMITH,
Clon Brugh,
Aiken Village,
Sandyford,
Dublin 18.